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Decipher's RPG studios is on a roll. In the past few months, they have released three new sourcebooks for their Star Trek line, and two more are forthcoming in the next month.

ALIENS continues the high production values and strong content that have characterized the whole line. The cover is good-looking, the interior graphics are all full color, with screencaps, instead of bad RPG art seen in so many products. The layout is clean and easy to read; the paper is high-quality...no fingerprints!

The book covers major races from all of the series and movies to date. The Andorians have been slightly updated and improved, as have the Tellarites and Trill. Minor races like the Selay (from Next Generation), Betelgeusans and Zaranites (from The Motion Picture) are balanced with the boys boy villians -- Q, the Borg, and Species 8472 (devastatingly powerful.) All of these races are presented as playable races (though omnipotent beings like Q are not recommended.) Each races gets at least a page devoted to their species' character, homeworld, history, and their disposition in each series. The major races: Klingons, Bajorans, Trill, and others have up to five pages dedicated to them, so even those who haven't watched Deep Space Nine or Voyager can easily get into the detail of these character species. Game mechanics remain clean and easy to work with; character generation is swift and fun.

The Trill have been revamped so you can either build a Trill with the old rules, or build the symbiote separate from the host. In this method, skills known by the symbiote are controlled by it's attributes, rather than the host. Also, advancements for the character can be spent on improving the symbiote's skills.

The only real improvement that could have been made to this product would have been the exclusion of species from the other books that had not been altered or expanded on -- humans, for instance. This would have freed up three to ten pages for more races like the Denobulans, the most conspicuous omission from the latest series. This is a minor complaint, however; Aliens, like much of the Star Trek line, is as close to perfect as page and word counts will allow. The steep price may put a few off, but the sleer CODA system and the impressive production values make these books worth the price.