It's amazing that one of the greatest works of science fiction world-building was achieved by the author of the How to Win at Nintendo series. Now, he showed us how to build at world-building.

In writing the Guide, Rovin took a simple premise: create five planets with different chemistries, and derive an evolutionary and culturally history from that starting point.

Oh, and add alien dinosaurs.

Firstly, we need people to look at the alien dinosaurs. Rovin writes in the fashion of a company's tourist guide, as if Disney owned the Enterprise. The Star Cruiser and its history is amusingly detailed, and the satire that goes through the book starts early. One one hand, the family trip service reminds you that its brothel serves all sexual orientations! Right after this surprising bit of inclusivity, it also mentions that all legal drugs, from marijuana to heroin, are distributed as well.

The book settles in five chapters, starting from the evolutionary history to the native life and tourist accommodations. Some worlds are cooler than others, I admit.

Dis is a world that world fit great in any science fiction RPG. It's a hellscape where the blind, tremor-sensing intelligent life hides in tunnels under the ground. The Alladis are primitive, but really cool with their human visitors watching them jump to the next cultural level and remake their society.

Morana is completely terraformed, its inhabitants so focused on perfection that they've completely edited sex out of their biology. That should tell you how interesting they are.

Argos is awesome.

Argos is what you get if you throw a box of action figures at a hyperactive eight-year-old gifted kid and asked him to create. Skynet-style machine overlords hunt rebel humans in jungle cities full of space dinosaurs, orc-like ex-slave Brutes, and the mysterious maybe-wizard gnomes.

Argos deserves to be immortalized on the side of a van.

Uriel is a perfectly cromulent science fiction tableau of strange creatures, bizarre landscapes, and weird planetary physics. It also smells. Not shabby at all.

Virtus gave the younger me intense existential nightmares. The inhabitants, the Lam, are sarcastic philosophers who live rooted to the ground. Blind, they argue and bicker as many of them each day disappear, presumably to ascend to Heaven.

Humans are still wondering whether we should tell them that they're actually being eaten alive by a viscous, stealthy predator.

Have we mentioned yet a peaceful race of sensitive artists and poets who accept a pampered life of seven years of creation in return for being eaten as livestock by an even smarter race?

If Voltaire, Douglas Adams, and Harlan Ellison got drunk together, Virtus would be the result.

Then there's the strange artifacts, frozen giants, and an ancient satellite the size of a moon . . .

The book is spectacular. It's a constant stream of imaginative images and mind-blowing concepts. The art is stunning, with recognizable comic artists like Sandman's Rick Veitch. Whether read as a experience or mined for gaming ideas, this is a real undiscovered gem in the crown of the genre. ( )