This book, like Bill's earlier one, deals mostly with detailing of models (geometry) only. It does not discuss materials in depth, or lighting, Global Illumination etc. So a large part of what makes scenes photrealistic is not touched upon. More importantly, his geometry detailing techniques will no doubt add a couple of zillion polygons. No discussion on that either- no scheme is presented to keep a count of polygons, or keep them within sensible limits.
Without proper lighting and materials, Bill does not really produce photorealistic results.
The description of imaginary worlds and creatures is unimaginative and tedious.
The underlying principles are noteworthy, but could be summarised in one page- which i think Bill *has* done: it's there somewhere on the net.