[.ca] Programming in Prolog: Using the ISO Standard (ISBN 3540006788)

the prolog classic:
Programming in prolog is an excellent book, good reference about the core of prolog and its Edinburgh implementation. This book contains all you have to know about the "core". Easy to understand and fast to read.

Excellent resource on the Prolog programming language:
This is an extreme valuable book on the Prolog programming language that every computer science person should own. Prolog itself is actually a fairly simple language to learn, albeit slightly obscure. It's reputation for complexity comes from its non-standard implementation, but if you don't enter into it expecting it to look and behave like other languages then you should be all right. Once you get past the mathematics and logic, you should be able to get your mind working in that particular direction. This book is a very handy guide for getting the programmer into the Prolog mindset as well as bringing one up to speed on all the (sometimes very confused) syntax. This book, like Prolog itself, is not for the beginning programmer. If you have a good background in logic or mathematics, then you should find this book to be very rewarding.

Concise presentation of Prolog:
Prolog is a complex subject, especially for someone not well familiar with mathematical logic. Thus, it is very important how the foundation would be laid down. Typically the books I had read on Prolog tend to two extremes. They are either too condensed for such a complicated subject as logical programming, or too broad and mathematically intensive. I would put this book into the first category. Though very concise and well structured, this book does not seem to be a good primer. I would rather recommend the book of Ivan Bratko "Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence (International Computer Science Series)" 2nd edition (the third edition of this book is due in August 2000). Ivan Bratko had managed to find the optimal style of presenting both the essence and the practical aspects of the language. Bratko's book covers various practical applications of the language and manages to convey the basic concepts of Prolog without overwhelming the beginner with too abstract or too condensed passages. Nevertheless, "Programming in Prolog" could be a very good programming reference once you are relatively comfortable with the language.