Actually a very good book, that delivers on its promises (and even exceeds them in part). Written by people that seems to have some experience in the field they're writing about and they manage to convey most of these experiences to the reader. But beware, you need to understand the most common "Enterprise" technologies that are out there, as it is referenced (and sometimes shortly explained) but the reader is assumed to be of sufficiently high knowledge (which is what some consultants do, when they are experts and tires of explaining the same thing over and over).

It is not light reading, but it is well worth the effort, as they manages to explain the technology and the management issues surrounding SOA, and they they do it in a very nice way.

Recommended if you want to understand what SOA is all about and have a background in large IT systems.