This book has a lot of good and the bad in my opinion. It repeats a lot of the same stuff over and over and over and over again. The Fluff section could easily either be cut in half or incorporate actual new information. It was nice to see the Disparates in the main book, but having all those groups aligned didn't make a lot of sense. The fluff of this book, while containing some really good info overall, has been horribly mismanaged.

The Sphere Rank rules seem sometimes to move some stuff just simply for the sake of moving them. A lot of that fluff could have been replaced with a bigger and better setup of what the Spheres can and cannot do. The How Do You Do That book would have been pretty unnecessary then, since that tome is also very repetitive in material.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, as a I like some of the old fluff. But honestly, unless you really care about the Disparates in your game, just get a previous edition. This book is largely unnecessary.

Very good in a lot of areas. Very helpful. But also contradicts things from the main rule book. if you are new to mage, I recommend getting this highly, if you are however familiar with mage and/or previous editions, this book is worth it but you can pass if you are low on funds.