(Alistair) Well, I've been waiting for this one for a long time. I can tell that it's a long time, actually, since way back in the day I used my Pyramid subscription to download the playtest files for this one, and SJG hasn't made those available outside closed mailing lists for a long time.

(Somewhat Irritable Side Note To Steve Jackson Games: And if you had kept doing that, you'd have sold me a lot more books, 'cause I'd routinely download every set of playtest files you made available, and that meant I found that I wanted a whole lot more books than I thought I did just based on the title and pre-release information. All of which, yes, I subsequently went out and bought.

The number of good books I'm probably missing out on now because the title alone doesn't make me want to take a chance on ordering them is... irritating.

Anyway, back on topic.)

It's a little hard for me to review this strictly as a gaming book, since I haven't run a game for, oh, years. But I still do buy a fair number of sourcebooks, worldbuilding maven that I am, and so obviously I had to rush out and buy this one. I'm not sure I've ever booklogged any of them during my time booklogging, but the Vorkosigan universe has always been one of my personal favorites, and so I couldn't resist the opportunity for a little peek behind the scenes.

Splendidly, the book does not disappoint. Granted, there's not that much new information that a really detailed study of the books couldn't give you, save in gaming statistics terms, but then, as hobbits, I like to have "books filled with things they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions". And as a look into the Vorkosigan universe, it excels. Combined with the illustrations - which, I note, were iterated past the original series author multiple times until she was satisfied - and the grains of insight into the next, as yet unpublished Vorkosigan novel to be gleaned, I'm absolutely more than happy with it.

Recommended.

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2010/03/gurps-vorkosigan-genevieve-... ) ( )