Setting
You can only pack so much setting detail into seven pages, and though the author gives it his best shot, all you're really provided with is a framework to build your own setting on. Naturally, it helps if you're familiar with the sources of inspiration and can mine them for ideas. What you do get is a timeline chronicling the rise and fall of an interstellar empire, brief descriptions of seven planets (or rather, six plus an asteroid city), and a page devoted to "Transportation, Time, and Communication." Chapter Four, the Game Master section, offers three different versions of what really happened to the Citun Empire (all of which are in a "cosmic horror" vein) and has a bit more detail on the different planets and how to use them in a game.

The back-story tries to evoke a sense of epic grandeur, but I found it lacking in a few regards. For starters, I think it went a bit overboard with regard to the timescale involved. I could buy the idea that the Citun had built an interstellar empire lasting, say, ten thousand years, but a hundred thousand simply beggars belief. Furthermore, there seem to have been no significant changes in their culture, or at least none that we're told of, in all this time.

There are also a few details left out. For example, it doesn't say how long it's been since the collapse of the Citun Empire. Although we're told that dates are measured "Before Freedom" and "After Freedom", the timeline only goes up to 4 B.F.. Also, we're not told what happened to the Citun that weren't on their homeworld when it "went silent". The different versions of this event in Chapter Four all seem to suggest that they essentially lost their minds, but there's nary a mention of this in Chapter One. The war for control is described as being against the Cituns' "trusted servants", as if the entire Citun race had spontaneously vanished. (Even if they did, I would've liked a physical description of them, given that their Empire is supposed to be a still very recent memory.) Finally, the presence of humans had me wondering when all this is supposed to take place relative to Earth history. The answer, which is on the very last page of Chapter Four, is that it doesn't matter -- all humans in the setting are the descendents of people abducted by the Citun, so they have no direct connection to Earth anyway. It would've been nice if this had been spelled out sooner, though.

The descriptions of the sample planets (although embellished somewhat in Chapter Four) are only really the seeds of ideas; you'll need to do most of the work of growing them yourself if you want to use them in a game. Personally, with the exception of Atavis, I found them rather bland. Perhaps it's the lack of detail, but I just don't think they capture the exotic feeling hinted at in the introduction and the artwork.

System

Character creation is quick and easy: spend points on Attributes (Physique, Intellect, Presence and Daring), then spend points on Traits. The first three attributes are used for physical, mental and social activities respectively, while Daring is a special case. It's used to resist fear and pain, and can also be used in place of any of the other three Attributes in particularly difficult situations, or to retry "tasks that fall within the range of Trait descriptions." I take this to mean "tasks for which you have a Trait that improves your roll," which I think would've been a clearer way to state it. Traits are similar to attributes in Big Eyes, Small Mouth (or so I believe, though I've never read the latter game). There are two-and-a-half pages of sample Traits, and guidelines for creating your own. Most cost 2 or 4 points (from a total allotment of 10). There are no skills, per se, although certain Traits improve your Attribute rolls for specific tasks.

One thing I found lacking here was specific guidelines for creating non-human characters. Sure, some of the Traits are clearly intended for that purpose, but I think the author should have, at the very least, suggested "racial packages" of Traits for the non-human races mentioned in the setting chapter.

After Traits comes a list of 10 background questions to flesh out your character. Compared to other such lists, the questions here are particularly good because they're not just generic "psychological profile" questions -- most of them tie directly to how the character fits into the setting.

Chapter Two concludes by demonstrating the creation of a couple of sample characters (both human), and then we move on to Chapter Three, which describes how the system works. All rolls use two d10s, the Action Die and the Support Die. However, you don't need two different colors; instead you declare before each roll whether the lower die will be the Action Die or Support Die. Lower is better, since you're trying to roll under the relevant Attribute plus difficulty modifiers. The Action Die is the one that determines whether you succeed or fail, while the Support Die determines the degree of success (except in combat, where the Action Die is used for offense and the Support Die for defense). Thus, if you choose to make the lower die the Support Die, you're decreasing your chance of success but will get more impressive results if you do succeed. (This is similar to the way "accenting" works in Fading Suns, except that it's not optional; you have to make the choice every time you roll. Personally, I prefer the Fading Suns method.)

Several useful examples of what degree of success means in different contexts are provided, followed by rules for contested actions. If both characters roll below their respective Attributes with their Action Dice, then the winner is the one with the lower Support Die. If both fail to roll under their respective Attributes, then both fail (e.g. they both grab for the gun and miss), or if that doesn't make sense then the one with the lower Support Die wins.

The combat rules come next, and seem to assume simultaneous actions. Players declare their actions (in order around the table if necessary) and which die will be the lower die. Players then carry out their actions in turn, in the same order. To attack someone you must roll under both your own Physique score and your opponent's Support Die (defense, remember) with your Action Die (offense). If you beat the first but not the second, your attack connects but doesn't do significant damage. There are maneuvers that variously improve your offense, defense or damage at the expense of one of the others. While these add needed variety to combat, some of them are abstractions that don't always make sense in context. For example, why does trying to dodge or parry a blow increase the damage taken if you're hit? Also, your ability to hit someone in combat (especially if they're not trying to hit you back) isn't affected at all by their Physique. Your defensive ability is determined solely by how low you roll on your Support Die, which is (aside from a couple of Traits you can take to improve it) completely random.

There's no initiative system, which some players will find problematic, and there are no rules for non-combat actions during combat, which is even more problematic. If I'm trying to hack an electronic lock while dodging blaster fire, do I make separate rolls for defense and for the hacking attempt, or a single roll? If it's a single roll, does the Support Die determine both my defense and my degree of success at hacking? If I make separate rolls, can I gain the benefits of being fully Defensive, or not because I'm otherwise distracted? None of these issues are addressed.

After combat are rules for mental attacks. Mentalists in this setting are supposed to be former secret police agents, called Masks, trained by the Citun. The three abilities described are Dark Dreams, Bending the Will, and Cloud the Mind. Unfortunately, no rules are given for plain old mind-reading, and telepathy is governed by a different Trait which costs another 4 points. Mental attacks don't burn power points or drain health, so you can effectively use them as often as you like. However, there are two things keeping mentalists in check (besides the high point cost of the Terrible Mind Trait). First, a failed attempt at Bending the Will invariably lets the target know who's trying to mess with their mind. Secondly, use of mental abilities is addictive -- if you don't use them at least once a week you start to go through withdrawal (which means increasingly hefty penalties to Physique rolls), but if you use them too much you start to go all Dark Willow.

The next section deals with Health Levels, of which you get eight. If you lose too many, you suffer increasing penalties to Physique rolls, which can be temporarily ignored with a successful Daring roll. If you lose all eight, you have to make Daring rolls just to stay conscious (it doesn't say how often you have to repeat this roll, or how long unconsciousness lasts), and if you take any more damage after this -- or if half of the original damage was from lethal weapons -- you die, unless you can succeed at a very difficult Daring roll, in which case you're merely unconscious. So if you manage to make that roll and bring yourself back from the dead, do you get to roll to regain consciousness -- and if so, when, and how long does it last? It doesn't say. Anyway, without medical treatment, wounds take an incredibly long time to heal -- two-and-a-half months to recover from death's door. (With medical treatment, it only takes a little less than three weeks.)

Weapons do a fixed amount of damage ranging from 1-3 points, which can be adjusted by certain maneuvers. Armor subtracts 1 point from damage (2 if it's advanced armor), and heavy armor seems to have absolutely no advantage over light armor -- it's more cumbersome, yet it still only reduces damage by 1 point. I'm sure this must be a misprint.

Aside from the very generic list of weapons and armor, the only pieces of equipment mentioned are Stun Cuffs and Jump-Packs. Either of these, or any advanced armor or weapons (such as a Blaster) must be bought with the Advanced Equipment Trait. Other starting gear is presumably determined by negotiating with the GM. After equipment comes a list of guidelines for applying Difficulty Modifiers, rules for lifting and carrying, and a few examples of the system in use -- two very short combat examples, a mental attack and an example of a skill-type roll.

The last bits of rules are in Chapter Four, and deal with spaceship combat and character advancement. Ships have only four traits: Range (of weapons and sensors), Speed, Shields (damage capacity) and Weapons. (The ability to actually hit another ship in combat depends entirely on the pilot's Physique.) The Spaceship section of the character sheet lists Size as well, but there are no rules related to this. One can only assume that larger ships will have higher Shields ratings. There are no rules for ship design or any special features; you'll just have to make it up yourself. Naturally, some people will appreciate this freedom while others will find the lack of structure frustrating. Character advancement is similarly freeform, determined by negotiation between player and GM.

I have a number of minor nitpicks about various aspects of the rules, but going into each one in detail would make this review unbearably long and tedious, so I'll post them in the forum instead.

Style

I know you can't judge a book by its cover, but it was the gorgeous cover art that caught my attention and made me decide Space & Steel was worth taking a look at. It's not just the quality of the art, but the fact that it's so different from conventional sci-fi artwork; it really looks like it'd be more at home on the cover of an epic fantasy novel. Unfortunately, the cover art isn't reproduced in the PDF itself, but there are equally good full-page black & white illustrations by Paul Daly separating each section. There are also a few other scattered illustrations, as well as smaller clips of the full-page pieces used as headers at the beginning of each chapter.

The quality of the art ranges from good to excellent, and the style generally reflects a blend of the exotic, the futuristic and the archaic. There are a couple of pieces that do seem a bit out of place, though -- the full-page drawing on p. 25 looks more like something out of the Arabian Nights, while the picture on p. 13 reminds me of a railway porter. (My least-favorite art, though, would have to be the drawing of the sample character Jewel on p. 24 -- she looks like some cheap floozy out of an 80s movie, with spandex pants, an extremely low-cut top, pouty lips and a hideously tacky hairstyle.) Alas, there are hardly any depictions of alien life, intelligent or otherwise, and no illustrations of the races mentioned in the setting chapter.

The book is laid out in two columns, with wide margins and a good-sized font. The writing is very clear and easy to follow; there are a number of typos (I made a list of errata which I'll post in the forum below) but none of them are severe. Given the overall high quality of the artwork and the generally good standard of writing, I'd say that Space & Steel merits a high 3 for Style, which I've rounded up to a 4. (It would be a solid 4 if it didn't have so many grammatical errors in such a short space.)

Substance

When I first picked up Space & Steel with an eye to reviewing it, I planned to include comments on the potential for using the system with a different setting, or the setting with a different system. Unfortunately, there isn't enough meat to either the setting or system to make them very attractive to cannibals. The system divorces skill level from degree of success, which I don't much care for, although this is mitigated by the fact that low-skill level characters are likely to designate the higher die as the Support Die. While the core game mechanic doesn't really grab me, there isn't anything technically wrong with it. The bigger problem, as with the setting, is the lack of detail -- there are no rules for environmental conditions, poison or disease, falling, non-combat equipment or money. Obviously, some people will be more upset about this than others. However, even if you like rules-light systems, you'd better be prepared either to fill in the gaps beforehand, or to make rules up on the fly.

I've given Space & Steel a Substance rating of 2, because it really can't be described as anything other than sparse. However, that should be weighed against the fantastically low cost. (Still, I can't recommend paying $8 for the print version.) If you're looking for a richly-detailed setting for swashbuckling adventures among the stars, get Fading Suns. But if you're looking for a cheap, quick-and-easy system to support a cinematic game, and don't mind filling in most of the details yourself, Space & Steel isn't a bad place to look.