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The al Malik Fiefs is the second in Holistic Design's series of little pamphlet books detailing the worlds for their superb Fading Suns game. The first, Hawkwod Fiefs, was nice and solid with a surprising amount of information for it's tiny little size (also 32 pages). I really find it hard to shake the feeling that there is still too little here. I simply do not like the pamphlet format. It worked reasonably well for Trinity in White Wolf's Trinity Field Reports but that was mainly because they contained information that either would not be released for some time or was minor and incidental, only adding more flavor to the game. While they published things like Extrasolar Colonies and Alien Races, those supplements were later followed up with more standard full volumes. I doubt that Holistic Design intends to do such, considering the amount of information that they have managed to pack into each little Imperial Survey so far. I think that one solid book (about 200 pages in length) would have been a better choice from the consumers end of things. If nothing else, I've found the pamphlets to be exceedingly annoying to store. Without and sort of distinguishable spine, they blend in and fall behind other books. Once again, the Trinity Field Reports got around this problem (although by accident) because they can be easily tucked into the odd binding job that White Wolf did for the limited edition of Trinity (and Aeon, back when it was called that). They fit nicely inside the plastic cover. The Imperial Surveys, however, don't have anything nearly so convenient.

On to the content, however, which is really where the "book" manages to shine quite brightly. al Malik Fiefs covers the worlds of Criticorum, Shaprut, Aylon, Istakhr and the house's minor holdings on other worlds (on Kordeth, Madoc and Leagueheim). The writing itself was, I think, superior to that in Hawkwod Fiefs. It had much more personality and seemed to carry a great deal more flavor too it, giving the information a feeling more of the recounting of travels than of a dry textbooks reading. Hawkwod Fiefs was not bad, but it certainly lacked this immediate feeling that al Malik Fiefs had.

The information itself was quite interesting as well, and might also have been better than the what was in the previous Imperial Survey. Reading it and delving into the histories of the worlds really gave an impression of development throughout history. One of the game's strong points, al Malik Fiefs plays off of that weight of history very well. The entry on Shaprut in particular is nice for history, giving some excellent information on the history of interaction with the Shantor. There are also many interesting little tidbits of information ripe for use in stories, like the ruins of a floating city on Istakhr or the ancients husks of giant war machines on Shaprut. Many of the people that our narrator describes are vibrant and lively personalities, as were many from Hawkwod Fiefs.

The book does have some flaws, however. Being a book written by an al Malik, it slips into the Graceful Tongue sometimes and turns to imagery and metaphor better served to poetry than prose, which sometimes makes it more obscure than it needs to be. In the section on Istakhr especially, the narrator waxes poetic, but without a very close and attentive deciphering of some of the text, the meaning of the imagery slides right by the reader. The maps were a disappointment as well. al Malik Fiefs had better maps than its predecessor, but that is not saying much at all. They were better done than before, and even had scales this time, but they were still very disappointing, even to someone like myself who has such a love for maps. They seemed forced, contrived, and uninspired - unnatural. There were also no solar system diagrams like in Hawkwod Fiefs, which have nice (if not necessarily astrophysically accurate) diagrams of the solar systems. Since it was replaced by more text, however, I really cannot complain too much. The only other problem was the odd coincidence that seemed to put gigantic deserts on all of the al Malik worlds. I don't remember any of the Hawkwood worlds having such a distinguishing common trait. While the book was good about noting the racial diversity of the Royal Houses, it did less so with the description of their worlds.

Overall, the book is damned useful and the only real solid complaint I can muster against it is, again, the format in which the information is being packaged and sold in. The pamphlet format just doesn't work for me. Not that that will stop me from buying the later Imperial Surveys, but it is a basic flaw in the design. The art (all a collaboration between two masters, Alex Sheikman and Leif Jons) was good, if sparse, the writing entertaining and engaging, and the information of essential importance. There is little more I could ask for than more itself.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Imperial Survey 2: al Malik Fiefs
Author: Rustin Quaide Category: game Company/Publisher: Holistic Design Line: Fading Suns Cost: $6.95 Page count: 32 ISBN: 1-888906-17-0 SKU: FS#238 Capsule Review by Derek Guder on 11/03/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Far_Future Space	The al Malik Fiefs is the second in Holistic Design's series of little pamphlet books detailing the worlds for their superb Fading Suns game. The first, Hawkwod Fiefs, was nice and solid with a surprising amount of information for it's tiny little size (also 32 pages). I really find it hard to shake the feeling that there is still too little here. I simply do not like the pamphlet format. It worked reasonably well for Trinity in White Wolf's Trinity Field Reports but that was mainly because they contained information that either would not be released for some time or was minor and incidental, only adding more flavor to the game. While they published things like Extrasolar Colonies and Alien Races, those supplements were later followed up with more standard full volumes. I doubt that Holistic Design intends to do such, considering the amount of information that they have managed to pack into each little Imperial Survey so far. I think that one solid book (about 200 pages in length) would have been a better choice from the consumers end of things. If nothing else, I've found the pamphlets to be exceedingly annoying to store. Without and sort of distinguishable spine, they blend in and fall behind other books. Once again, the Trinity Field Reports got around this problem (although by accident) because they can be easily tucked into the odd binding job that White Wolf did for the limited edition of Trinity (and Aeon, back when it was called that). They fit nicely inside the plastic cover. The Imperial Surveys, however, don't have anything nearly so convenient. On to the content, however, which is really where the "book" manages to shine quite brightly. al Malik Fiefs covers the worlds of Criticorum, Shaprut, Aylon, Istakhr and the house's minor holdings on other worlds (on Kordeth, Madoc and Leagueheim). The writing itself was, I think, superior to that in Hawkwod Fiefs. It had much more personality and seemed to carry a great deal more flavor too it, giving the information a feeling more of the recounting of travels than of a dry textbooks reading. Hawkwod Fiefs was not bad, but it certainly lacked this immediate feeling that al Malik Fiefs had. The information itself was quite interesting as well, and might also have been better than the what was in the previous Imperial Survey. Reading it and delving into the histories of the worlds really gave an impression of development throughout history. One of the game's strong points, al Malik Fiefs plays off of that weight of history very well. The entry on Shaprut in particular is nice for history, giving some excellent information on the history of interaction with the Shantor. There are also many interesting little tidbits of information ripe for use in stories, like the ruins of a floating city on Istakhr or the ancients husks of giant war machines on Shaprut. Many of the people that our narrator describes are vibrant and lively personalities, as were many from Hawkwod Fiefs. The book does have some flaws, however. Being a book written by an al Malik, it slips into the Graceful Tongue sometimes and turns to imagery and metaphor better served to poetry than prose, which sometimes makes it more obscure than it needs to be. In the section on Istakhr especially, the narrator waxes poetic, but without a very close and attentive deciphering of some of the text, the meaning of the imagery slides right by the reader. The maps were a disappointment as well. al Malik Fiefs had better maps than its predecessor, but that is not saying much at all. They were better done than before, and even had scales this time, but they were still very disappointing, even to someone like myself who has such a love for maps. They seemed forced, contrived, and uninspired - unnatural. There were also no solar system diagrams like in Hawkwod Fiefs, which have nice (if not necessarily astrophysically accurate) diagrams of the solar systems. Since it was replaced by more text, however, I really cannot complain too much. The only other problem was the odd coincidence that seemed to put gigantic deserts on all of the al Malik worlds. I don't remember any of the Hawkwood worlds having such a distinguishing common trait. While the book was good about noting the racial diversity of the Royal Houses, it did less so with the description of their worlds. Overall, the book is damned useful and the only real solid complaint I can muster against it is, again, the format in which the information is being packaged and sold in. The pamphlet format just doesn't work for me. Not that that will stop me from buying the later Imperial Surveys, but it is a basic flaw in the design. The art (all a collaboration between two masters, Alex Sheikman and Leif Jons) was good, if sparse, the writing entertaining and engaging, and the information of essential importance. There is little more I could ask for than more itself. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Imperial Survey 2: al Malik Fiefs