...Well I don't have energy to write super detailed review and I felt like I was procrastinating writing this, so decided to get my thoughts out faster :3
I'm not sure I'm good at analyzing content themes of each alien archive so far, but I definitely love how this book 1) adds even more alien fauna to pact world planets 2) introduces new creatures related to races or creatures in previous alien archives(shimreen and animated quartz swarms) or ap articles(eohi based agathion) 3) has lot of weird playable races(I'm really impressed by writers' creativity) 4) finally brought back brain collectors and stormghosts :D (not the only old alien creatures that were brought back, but my favorite ones certainly) 5) introduces new companion animals 6) introduces new memorable villain groups/organizations.
Planashar Dominion and Lacunal monastic order are great for that purposes :D Starfinder does have lot of politically hostile to each other nations, but not yet any iconic villains. So more the merrier when it comes to villain groups ;D
But yeah long story short: I think this is genuinely my favorite alien archive book so far and that is saying something since I had almost month to think on this and I liked previous ones as well.
If I had anything to request for next book... Well I'd still love to see Tier 20 starship monster and the CR 21-24 example monsters ;D
Aaand now to the critical side. What you thought that just because I'm cutting this review shorter and giving it 5/5 that I wasn't going to point out stuff I noticed that I think need addressing for next book? Perish the thought!
So anyway, there are few times I think something slipped through edit pass to the book. The examples that I remember(since I didn't take notes because I assumed I would do the review within week of the reading the book originally x'D) are:
1) Vasporan and "Environment any sky (Old Ustavia)". "Old Ustavi" is never mentioned in Vasporan's ecology article nor can I find any info with googling, so seems like it got cut but left in the article
2) Skarak and "Skaraks are organic creatures that seem to have reached several different systems before the Gap—ostensibly traveling with the help of their strange teleportation sense."
This is only time it is mentioned so I'm confused of "wait, what strange teleportation sense?" Skaraks can teleport creatures tethered to them closer to themselves, but they can't teleport themselves and are never mentioned to have some sort of "teleportation sense" otherwise. So it feels like either some mechanic got cut or lore got cut, but the mention of it was accidentally left in.
3) corona beetle got renamed to dawn beetle ;P Okay this isn't a nitpick, I just wanted to point that out xD
4) grioths are lanky, but art for them is Goladryth who was unique unusually large and muscle heavy grioth from Dragon's Demand :D Okay this isn't nitpick either fully, just that I find it funny that despite text still calling them lean, their art has incredibly bulging muscles
5) Bit confused about how shipkiller bulb interacts with starships since its not starship monster and starships aren't really written to interact with regular monsters?
6) Starmetal eater doesn't have adamantine eater :'D It has graft for six other starmetal types, but not adamantine
And to end on positive note again, some of my favorite entries(non race entries ;3 I'm explicitly not listing them here despite liking them all. I'm also avoiding listing creatures I already mentioned liking earlier) in this archive :3 Starting here:
Carrion Wheel, Cloud Ray, Aluci/alorbidaemon, Deadfall Stalker, starship sized elementals, Endlings, Epokasite, klikharp, mordagast, murzzilat, quyo, Sapient Purple Orb, The Seen, Shipkiller Bulb(hey I didn't mention liking it earlier ;D), Skaraks(ditto), Wyspiria, Supenga and Warpstitcher ;D
P.S. Grafts and new class template grafts are cool too.
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