Don't know what kind of crappy code Access is generating for you that is different from your non-junky book, but inner and outer joins, union queries and most sub-queries will be the exactly same as SQL Server.

What I would do is build your Access queries from your book examples in "SQL" view. It's possible that you are not building the Access queries correctly and therefore getting bad results.

You will find that each database system builds on the existing standards. For example, SQL Server's T-SQL is not exactly the same as Oracle's PL-SQL. The basics are the the same, but each has some added features.