The book is broken up into seven chapters, the first titled "Introduction," and consisting of a two-page summary of the history of the world, along with geographical information and a map of the major nations and their cities.
The second chapter is the history of Utopia, from the time the Wilder-Grosz Group purchased the planet to terraform in 5435 A.D. through the nuclear war between the world powers and the recovery from it, to the arrival of the CEF and their dominance of the planet in modern times. I have to say that I was very impressed by both the amount of detail and level of quality packed into the twelve pages that make up this chapter. Not only does this chapter give enough information to run campaigns anytime during the planet's history, it actually made me want to run a campaign set before the modern-era of the Heavy Gear universe. Fans of everything from intricate tales of political maneuvering to stories of survival to even good old hack-n-slash can find something here to tickle their fancy.
The Heofon System is the third chapter of the book, giving a brief look at the planets that are Utopia's neighbors, along with a bit of information on the fleets and stations to be found in the system. Given the fact that Utopia's neighbors are unable to support life, I thought this chapter would be rather boring, consisting of planetary data about a bunch of worlds that player characters would have no interest or need to go to. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the authors of the book put some additional effort into this chapter, giving the majority of worlds a draw to bring characters to them. From military bases that PCS may try to destroy (or be called upon to protect) to unique geological formations and activities that are sure to be of interest to any scientists in the party, there's a lot of variety here that can easily springboard into adventures on these inhospitable planets.
Chapter Four is entitled Nations of Utopias, and as can be guessed from that title the countries that comprise the planet are detailed here. First up is Steelgate, the militocracy that the CEF allied with upon their arrival upon Utopia, and which is now losing its power as the CEF cements its hold on the world. This is followed by the Industrial States of Kogland (or Hogland, if you prefer; the "K" looks like an "H" in the introductory title), the most industrialized of Utopia's nations, and The Greenway Alliance, a nation of agricultural specialists who are perhaps the most religious of all the planet's citizens.
Again, this chapter is of great use to any Heavy Gear GM. Combined with the information in chapter two and chapter seven, the information here allows for a GM to run a well-developed campaign involving any of Utopia's factions. I was especially impressed with the coverage of the Deep Cities (the sprawling underground complexes where most of Utopia's inhabitants reside) , with each receiving a one-page description full of useful information. My only complaint here comes from the illustrations of the Deep Cities, as there is no key with which to identify what is what on the maps, forcing the reader to guess at times as to which part of the map the text describes. This can be annoying at times, as in the case of the Deep City of Olympia, which has a highly radioactive crater three kilometers southwest of it. The text states that citizens tend to use the southeast access gate rather than the southwest, in order to avoid the radiation. That's all well and good, but there are no specific indications where the access gates are on the map, and I assume they are in the four-sided structures radiating off the main hub of the Deep City. However, these structures look exactly like all the other branching sections off the main hub, so I assume they're built exactly the same, with the same access gates, which brings up the question of why the residents of the city insist on using the southeast gate rather than any of the others, which are much farther away from the radioactive crater.
Chapter Five looks at the Independent States, which are just what they sound like: a group of nation-cities loosely allied with one another, radical organizations, and Wastrels and Higglers, which are two different clans who dwell upon the rad-blasted surface and in makeshift cities rather than in the Deep Cities. Again, a good deal of information is packed into this section, making it easy to use these groups in your campaign.
Chapter Six covers pretty much everything you wanted to know about living on Utopia. The legal systems, prejudices, entertainment preferences, how the Deep Cities work—pretty much anything you can think of that might come up during the course of a campaign is given coverage here in great detail. My only complaint is a lack of information on the criminal element on Utopia–while the harsh lifestyle of Utopia, coupled with the sometimes draconian laws several of the nations have, might keep criminals to a minimum, it seemed as though there should be more information on those criminals who are not involved in dealing weapons or overthrowing the CEF or other government organizations.
The final chapter of the book is the gamemaster resource section. It starts with some general ideas for running campaigns on Utopia, followed by new personal equipment, rules for radiation and computers, character generation for Utopian-based characters, and new APES, tanks, and other large combat machinery. Everything seems good here, though I admit to not having tried out the new combat machines in play yet.
There is a big flaw that this book suffers from, and that is the English in it is just terrible. At times it feels as though the text was written in a foreign language and then put through a very poor translation program, rather than having someone fluent in both languages read and translate the work. Repeatedly commas are missing where they are sorely needed, and other grammar and spelling errors show up on a regular basis. Even more frustrating, toward the end of the book there are several instances where a paragraph summarizes information given just one or two paragraphs before, and twice a sentence from a paragraph is cut and pasted only a few lines below where it first appeared. Once the same sentence is used to describe two different planets, with only the words shifted around a little.
Also, sometimes descriptions are a little vague. As I read through the first three chapters I had a firm idea in my head of what the Deep Cities looked like and their relationship with the surface of the planet. However, there were two sentences in these chapters that seemed to contradict several bits of information regarding the Deep Cities, and at first I thought these sentences were in error. However, when I reached the fourth chapter of the book and looked at the diagrams of some of the Deep Cities I realized that the two sentences were accurate in their description, and all the rest were somewhat misleading.
Another minor problem the book suffers from is that it occasionally uses terms that are specific to the Utopian culture, and which are not explained until several pages later. It only occurs a handful of times, but it was rather annoying, as the meaning of the terms are not something that can be discerned from the context of their use when first presented.
Despite the aforementioned flaws this book will definitely fit nicely into any Heavy Gear fan's collection. I have to admit to wavering between giving the book a 2 or 3 for Style, given the problems with the English used. I decided on 3, giving it the same leeway I normally give to written works from foreign lands, assuming the authors may not have had English as their primary language.
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