By all accounts I should have been prepared for the disappointment to be found in Inherit the Earth, the first anthology of Hunter fiction. In the mid-90s White Wolf released Truth Until Paradox and Conspicuous Consumption, two gaming fiction works that were so bad they made me swear off all gaming fiction that came in novel or trade paperback form. However, after Hunter brought me back into gaming, I'd hoped its fiction anthologies would similarly earn enough of my trust to convince me to start buying gaming fiction again. After all, the fiction found in the sourcebooks had been wonderful, and was it too much to expect even a tenth of that goodness in Inherit the Earth?
Yes, yes it was.
The theory behind Inherit the Earth was a good one. Each story stars a different member of a different Creed, presumably to highlight each different group's outlooks and activities. Unfortunately, each story suffers from several flaws, some of which are merely annoying, others which make you wonder how such a travesty was published while hoping the author never received payment for it. What follows are my opinions on each story; I've done my best to keep my review spoiler-free, but some of them require spoilers to warn you of the travesties to be found in them. I've noted which summaries have spoilers, so those offended by them can skip over.
The Treatment of Dr. Eberhardt: I was surprised by the quality of this story; it's probably one of the best two tales in this anthology. Ostensibly the showcase story of the Avenger Creed, it gives equal time to what appears to be a very young Visionary, along with the vampire population of Chicago (though none of those bloodsuckers who appeared in the Chicago By Night series make an appearance). I'm very surprised this story was published, as it actually names vampires by clan and discusses their social structure. Despite the fact that Hunter could be the perfect gateway game between the various World of Darkness games, White Wolf seems to shun the idea like it was a leper in the last gasps of life. While I understand the idea of keeping characters and players ignorant of the truths of the World of Darkness (yes, there are players for whom Hunter is the first World of Darkness game they've played) I feel it is foolish to extend this theory to Storyteller information. Enough Hunter Storytellers are familiar enough with other World of Darkness games to not be confused by tribe or clan names or such. A look at the Hunter Submission Guidelines shows this desire to keep such ignorance on all levels. Of course, I recently learned that White Wolf plans to release a series of Hunter sourcebooks ala the Walking Dead, each one focusing on a supernatural creature that has its own RPG from White Wolf already. Perhaps the folks who are responsible for Hunter are hoping that by inspiring shunning of the other game lines will increase their sales of these upcoming monster sourcebooks.
With that tirade out of the way I can say this story has a nice change of perspective compared to other Hunter fiction, being told from the viewpoint of a group of vampires who have uncovered the existence of Hunters, and focusing on the vampire in charge of studying these strange humans with such amazing powers. At first the primary focus of his story seems to be far too powerful than any starting player-Hunter could ever be, especially one as young as this example, but such an individual could be constructed using the Sacrifice system found in the Hunter Players Guide. I point this out because it makes it seem like the author was familiar with the rules, unlike the author who penned the Wayward tale in this book, and the individuals who penned the Predator & Prey novels and the first book in the Year of the Scarab trilogy. Aside from the idea that a grenade explodes in one direction, rather than in a spherical radius, this is an excellent story.
Credo is the second story of this book, focusing on the Visionary Witness1. This is without doubt one of the worst stories of the book. The idea for this story seems to have come from a line of text found in the Hunter Storyteller Companion, in an area discussing the Hunter's role in reality. Unfortunately the author ran with that idea and created a tale that, if he was writing a Virtual Adept tale for Mage, would have been excellent. Since it's supposed to be a Hunter story, it comes off as crap on a crap cracker. I should note that in this story Witness1 states that there are no archives of postings on Hunter.net, a fact contradicted in several other books.
The Names of the Dead is the Martyr story for this book, and you should just skip on ahead if spoilers offend you. Starting off quite well, and starring established Hunter Dicatrix11, it quickly devolves to such a point it almost hurt me to reread it for this review. Dicatrix suddenly develops precognition (a power which, some argue, is impossible for a Martyr to have, but that's a story for another time) and a vampire--a Kindred, not Cathyian, apparently, gives birth to an absolutely normal human baby boy. I don't think I need to say anymore about this one.
Closure focuses on the Defender known as Cabbie and Wraith/Year of Scarab veteran Carpenter. This story builds upon elements of The Walking Dead sourcebook, so those unfamiliar with that book may not find the story enjoyable. Those that have read The Walking Dead will enjoy it, despite some minor contradictions between the two books. I should mention that the first Year of the Scarab novel tries to cover up the inconsistencies between "Closure" and "The Walking Dead," and I should also note the author of the YotS novel and "Closure" are the same person. Trying to go back and cover your own screw-ups, eh, Mr. Bates?
Antibody, starring legendary Wayward God45, was a great disappointment; Spoilers begin here, for the weak. Basically, God45 is jerked around by an informant and led to a slavery operation. The mooks running the operation may or may not be monsters---the author is sloppy in regards to this---and the mastermind behind the operation may be a Hunter gone bad, a supernatural monster in a Hunter corpse, or a hint at White Wolf's upcoming Demon: The Fallen game.
The first problem is God45's description of the mooks as skull-faced, which sounds like he's using Second Sight to identify monsters, but having read the Hunter Players Guide and being aware of Wayward's tendency toward madness, this may just be a manifestation of the paranoia Derangement. Fine for me, but I know that many readers of this story will be unfamiliar with Waywards being prone to such insanities, and so the whole concept of whether God45's madness no longer allow him to distinguish between humans and monsters is lost for many readers. The same holds true toward God's identifying of the main monster, which leads to problem two of this book, the head villain.
We are supposed to believe that the villain is a Hunter gone bad, owing to the Hunter Code inscribed upon it and the fact that God makes no indication that it's not true Hunter Code (it's been established in other Hunter books that when monsters recognize Hunter Code and attempt to copy it the symbols look "wrong" to Hunters). Also, the way the villain is described to have survived the explosion at the end of the story sounds a lot like the level four Edge introduced in the Avenger Creedbook. An alternate possibility is that the body of the main villain is a dead Hunter, possessed by a supernatural creature who, totally by coincidence, mimics said level four Edge. A third possibility is that this was one of the Hunters who has level five in an Edge and got converted to evil, something I'll rant about in my review of the Hunter Storytellers Handbook.
Regardless of the truth behind what the main villain is, God's reaction of shock and confusion tot he apparent Hunter gone wrong is totally out of character. Going with the possibility that it's a Hunter gone bad, God45 has dealt with such (pardon the pun) waywards in the past, as noted in the Hunter Survival Guide. Earlier in the story God45 comments on his belief on why Hunters are immune to becoming werewolves, and thus would explain his shock at the monster being a monster/Hunter combo. However, it's been established God45 is a regular user of Hunter.net, and in The Walking Dead posted a tale of an insane Hunter having apparently come back from the dead, yet appearing normal to Second Sight. I'm sure God45 would have mentally filed away such a story, and used that knowledge to help comprehend what he had encountered. The God45 in previous Hunter books would have steeled his resolve and gone after his "contact," rather than being such a weenie at the end of the tale. All in all a bad story.
Following "Antibody" is "Some Faerie Tales Are Real," starring Bookworm55 of the Innocent Creed. Bookworm interferes with a fellow Hunter's quest, leaving her open for capture by a vampire, and forcing Bookworm to team up with a group of Hunters to rescue her. I ton's say much on this story, as the Innocent Creedbook made me hate Bookworm with a passion, and would color my comments on this tale. I will say it's odd for a Hunter to have a handle of Thinblade17, since each number is only assigned once to Hunter.net users, and Crusader17 already exists.
Next we get "The Fraility of Humans." I was originally going to comment that the entire point of this story is that racism is bad, whether you be human or werewolf, and make a snide comment about how I'm sure none of us would ever have realized that before reading this tale. Instead, after reading Predator & Prey: Jury, I want to curse out the author of this tale and the editor of both books. For those who haven't read P&P: Jury, the story "The Fraility of Humans" is nothing more than an excerpt of a chapter from Jury, only written in third person rather than first person. Yup, they apparently paid the author to stick a rough draft of a chapter of his book into this novel, so those of us who bought both books had to pay for it twice. Wasn't that so nice of White Wolf?
"Luciman's Heart" starts Redeemer Leaf Pankowski, who comes off as very anti-male in this book; I think the author got that idea from a rant by Leaf against Doctor119 in the Hunter rulebook. She teams up with Lucimal, a Hunter whose views on Hunters as a whole were first shown in the Hunter rulebook. The ending of the tale is predictable, and I'm disappointed that Lucimal claims to have killed off one of the Hunters introduced in the Martyr Creedbook "off-screen" as it were, as his victim was a really unique and cool character.
Finally comes "Unusual Suspect," staring Doctor119, a.k.a. Doctor Van Wyk. A great idea for a story, a Hunter forces by his enemies to solve a problem for them, suffers from several flaws. It only took me two guesses to figure out the "surprise" ending, and those familiar with the Vampire game will be able to think up dozens of ways that Disciplines could have been used to achieve what occurs in this story. As if to cover that fact one of the characters in the tale basically says that non-Clan Disciplines are amazingly hard to obtain, but a quick glance at any "By Night" book proves that wrong. Still, despite its flaws, it is an entertaining tale. Oh, Doc has also obtained the Patron Edge since his write-up in the Judge Creedbook.
Well, there you have it. All in all I can't recommend this book at its cover price. I understand a new Hunter anthology is in the works, with Greg Stoltz and others who have worked on the fiction pieces in Hunter sourcebooks. If that's the case I look forward to it. But if it's more of the same authors from this anthology my money will stay in my wallet, and yours should do the same.
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