Typical of Palladium Books, the full color soft cover sports a striking image of two cyborgs patrolling through urban ruins. The interior line art is equally eye catching and equally typical Palladium. Most of the art supports nearby text by showing an item or equipment being detailed, a few are character portraits or scenes that convey the Rifts campaign themes with bionic and cybernetic details. The format was easy enough to read but I found the organization a little lacking. This was mostly due to the definitions provided for cybernetics, bionics and cyborg. Bionics make a cyborg what it is, cybernetics are just replacements and augmentations. As the book tries to keep the two separate, and provide details on countries where they are available and used, the reader ends up having to go back or wait for future text to get a complete picture. Lastly, the author has an annoying habit of restating facts, even on the same page, like "… and no city rat would be caught dead doing that…" and later "… definitely not something a city rat would be caught dead doing…". I got the idea the first time. These restatements were not numerous but there were a handful and they made me have to go back to the first statement just to make sure I read it right, frustrating.
As for the material itself, it is everything you would expect from Mr. Siembieda, detail and damage heavy. It also reads, like a lot of his work, like a collection of articles, showing seams. Some of the material is from other books, revised and not. Even so, references are still made to other Palladium products. I'd have to say that although it is not for me, it is right up the alley of any Palladium Rifts fan. If you have bionics or cybernetics in a Rifts-like campaign, you will find it equally enjoyable.
The text starts with a short campaign history and background as it applies to bionics only, you could not understand the Rifts world from this alone. Next it goes into new and revised character types, from cyber-docs and city rats, to cyber-humanoids, partial cyborgs and full conversion cyborgs. Sub classes of slave and mining full conversion borgs are also detailed. Between these character types are long lists and wordy descriptions of cybernetic and bionic doodads, weapons, gadgets and body replacements. I found a lot of them unnecessary to gaming, maybe for flavor only, and found most overly described with the subtlest of differences between some of the items. The volume of material is difficult to imagine as useful in a single campaign, but then it shouldn't be, though it is presented as integral to Rifts, all of it.
Your not going to learn a lot about cybernetics or bionics here, nor be inspired by some innovative system for handling them, but if you like to kill things and look tough doing it, then this is a book for you. Put aside your humanity, and activate you weapon systems.
