A very good book, with art and production values comparable to the latest WotC Dragonlance entry (at the time of this writing, Shadow of the Dragon Queen). I liked the new class options to give characters a more "Krynnish" feel, although some of them may be a little overpowered.

When I first read Laws' essays years ago, I resisted many of his conclusions. He seemed to be framing a lot of the principles behind RPG game mechanics as the result of widespread pathologies within gamers themselves. This felt judgmental and mean-spirited, to say the least. As I write this in early October 2014, "Gamergate" is raging in all it's overwrought, tawdry, misogynistic glory. Rereading this now, it's hard to escape the conclusion that he was correct.

The scan has some odd glitches if you try to read it with Foxit instead of Acrobat. On the table of contents page, a background image warps the text in front of it. Still, these aren't enough for me to take a star away.

An excellent game, filling a particular gaming niche. This is definitely a "hard" scifi, very detailed setting, which includes a very long history, several races of humanity and aliens, and a tremendous diversity of political, religious, and social institutions. No space opera here. The details and important in-game history are communicated mostly through descriptions of the traits, skills, and the alien races that are big players in the setting, which is a great writing move that gets the exposition done without the typical opening essay in most games.

The best comparison I can make is to Traveller; there are modules for world creation, character creation, creating new technology, and new forms of alien life. Each of these are games unto themselves, involving many choices taken in sequence, with strategic considerations at every step.

This is the game for you, if you want storytelling on an epic scale, where player characters are actors using resources and connections to struggle over "big picture" concerns that span weeks and months of time, and involve large groups of people: economic warfare, legal and political maneuvers, elections and high offices, criminal underworlds, and yes, huge fleets of ships bombarding enemy capital ships, firing missiles and scorching their hulls with bolts of energy.