Whaddawegot? Bad advice about theme and tone. Slipshod future history. Some misguided rule alterations. And all throughout the book, truly awful writing. From the 'Cultist' monster description, the flavour text:
It’s then you realize that this person is not right. There is something in their intensity, something in the madness hidden behind their eyes that speaks to fanaticism. At first, you’d thought it was for something normal, like the pop culture obsessions of most people, but the conversation has turned a dark corner and he is not showing signs of slowing.
Then, the smile turns evil and the wickedly-shaped knife comes out from hiding. He’s lost himself to the worship of something forgotten. Let’s hope there aren’t too many more around.
I don't like to call out 30something nerds who work their asses off to make things for themselves and their friends to love, but incompetent, slipshod, evidently lazy work shouldn't be rewarded. This book needs a copyedit so severe as to resemble a complete rewriting. For heaven's sake. Read this sentence, from the description of 'The Guardian' in one of the book's prebaked adventures:
During the first two rounds, the speed gains made by the creature make it slower than the characters, so it will use cover to evade them.
D'you see what's wrong there? 'The speed gains' do not 'make [the creature] slower than the characters.' That's a trivial error, and a competent editor should have caught it. Here's another stinker, from page 13, the Introduction:
It begins slowly. Colonists begin to notice unusual things throughout the solar system. Then people begin to disappear. Then entire settlements. Ships go missing.
Notice the problem there? The 'unusual things throughout the solar system' should be exemplified by subsequent sentences, not simply followed. Get it? Almost as bad, the language is flaccid. Here's a slight improvement:
It begins slowly. Reports of odd events filter in from the farthest reaches of the system. People disappear. Then entire settlements. Ships go missing.
The 'ships' bit is still anticlimactic, the opening is flabby and still mired in cliché, but at least it's not incorrect in addition to being unstylish. Throughout the book the prose is somehow both overwritten and undernourished - too wordy, not dense enough. Leaden. It needs rewriting.
This book has generated no small amount of excitement in the (OK, small) horror-SF-RPG nerd triangle, but the writing is so flat that I can't even bring myself to wonder whether the Big Awful Secrets (basically Lovecraft's cold semiscientific 'cosmicism' without the horror or wonder) are interesting or worthwhile - that is, the book is in its own way. Please, please, let's do better!!
