Join question

[Anon]

Could someone plese tell me how efficient this join is....or inefficient as I suspect...what better method could be used for joining so may tables.??
$SQL = "SELECT *
FROM staff_table,ranking_table,skills_table,rank_levels, product_table
WHERE staff_table.location_id ='$location'
AND ranking_table.staff_id=staff_table.staff_id
AND skills_table.skill_id=ranking_table.skill_id
AND rank_levels.ranking_id=ranking_table.ranking_id
AND skills_table.product_id=product_table.product_id
ORDER BY staff_table.surname";
//ranking_table.staff_id

	$MySQLQuery = mysql_query($SQL) 
	or die(mysql_error());

Cheers Matt

[Anon]

Well, without being able to create views, I can't see much chance of improvement, assuming you really do need all those fields from all those tables (are you sure you need "SELECT *"? You might be able to improve things by asking for only the fields you plan on using).