I have to hand it to James Sutter, this is one of the best Pathfinder books yet. Not only is the story compeling, and the characters deep, but James paints a rich picture of the multiverse as the characters travel through it. The last two Pathfinder books were so bad I stopped reading them half way through, but this one was excelent. I would be happy to buy a sequel! I would easily put this on par with Elaine Cunningham.
The present tense writing style is like reading stage directions. The characters are two dimensional at best, and the overall plot is corney, but it really was the writing style that kept pulling me out of the story. I made it through about half of the book before I finally gave up.
This book is painful enough that I didn't bother finishing it. It's bad enough that the author keeps shifting back and forth between Radovan and Varian, but then you throw in the stupid dog, and it's just too much. It reads like a bad kung fu movie and is just as insipid. Don't waste your time.
We picked this up at our FLGS and I'm especially impressed with how the districts are laid out. Specifically, having the detail of the district map next to the outline of the full city map with the district area highlighted is GREAT! I can't tell you how many times I've wasted time I havn't had to in trying to figure out where a detail areas was on a big city map. Your layout is simple, quick, and much appreciated!
Covers all the funny things that gamers do without being insulting! Almost everything they do in the movie I've had happen at least once at the gaming table!
I bought this deck for my wife (She does real Tarot) and was pleasantly surprised at the art work. I've never been a fan of Downer, but the cards are great. More Importantly, the Divining system uses Key character abilities and alignments which makes it a truly unique system. I can't wait to see how it works out in game play.