David Pulver writes some of the best Gurps books on the market, and after a string of loser Gurps Traveller titles; David slays a goliath of mediocrity and perhaps saves the line. This book highlights two of the major races found in the Traveller universe, the ascetic psionic Zhodani, and the wolf-like Vargr. I have the original Alien module from Game Designers' Workshop on the Vargr, and I must say that Mr. Pulver does a fine job of extrapolating upon the material in that book. Whatever nostalgia that I felt for the original was erased by the sheer amount of new material that he revealed in this book. If the earlier book was old school, then David Pulver blew it away with a nice showing for the new school of RPG source material. Outstanding!
You get a nice amount of background, some interesting mysteries for each race, listing of religion, and a nice selection of equipment and templates. He does an excellent job of giving you what you hadn't even thought of yet. The Zhodani and Vargr have never received this kind of sustained and informative attention.
The art is somewhat mediocre, and there is an error on one of the maps that should have been picked up in the editing process. The three new races are somewhat interesting, but two of them have problems. One is a kind of mini-tyrannosaur who goes a little wild every 20 days…that could be hell on passengers if they were running liners. The Sheol are sentient gasbags in the Spinward Marches, but as Ken Hite pointed out in his Mania column, they ain't mentioned in the Spinward Marches book. The final race looks too much like spiders, and I have a ten point phobia about them-- ook!
This book nicely expands on previous material that has been released for Traveller and it is well worth you gaming dollar. Give this book a chance, even if the rest of the line has problems. I'll give this book a solid "B."
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
