I finally finished the book and compiling my notes into something vaguely coherent. This is my review. Brace yourselves, it has a lot of text. And not all of it is nice.
So this is Stormfront. The mini-game promised mixed blessings at best, and it wasn't lying. In fact, the blessings aren't only mixed, they're not particularly impressive for large parts. I have to say, I don't like the title art much. It has little relation to the book (despite Echo Chernik's claim that all these characters and everything happening there were written into the book, I couldn't find them), and it seems ... not up to what the book seems to want to be. Art is, otherwise, consistently high quality, and two pieces deserve special kudos; more on that in the appropriate section of the review.
What the hell does CGL hate about proper tables of content. This is supposed to be a print product, so there is no way you can get away by pointing out the bookmarks sidebar in PDF reader, because print products don't have that. The TOC is bland, doesn't tell me anything relevant and is just not helpful. The older, more detailed TOC were helpful, this ... is a page wasted.
Quality of writing varies widely. This is why I consider this not to be as bad as War!, though at times, it is. Other parts are quite good. It's a very, very mixed bag indeed.
Here's for more detailed reviews. Edit: added individual ratings for a quick overview for people who don't like walls of text.
"Review: Chapter 1 and 2 (Eye of the Hurricane/Aztlan's Triump(h))" 1/10
At first, Sunshine wastes our time and wordcount by summarising the past few sourcebooks, especially Clutch, which apparently didn't sell well, since he stresses three times that it is an absolutely essential read. Then, he finally gets to the meat of he story: Sirrurg was downed, and Aztlan won the war. After ... it lost its army, economy, and most of its food production. Somehow.
Aztlan somehow strains itself to kill a dragon by throwing half its army on it. Dragons defy the rules for their own movement constantly, and kill the superweapons of ridiculousness from Clutch by the droves. Then it reverses fate by using the same superweapons, which suddenly work somehow, and pounce Sirrug badly. Somehow, they plan for naval support at Roswell. I thought cruise missiles were ineffective against dragons? Or do all Shadowrun warships have legs somehow? Anyway, a few pages later the battlegroup teleports back into the Pacific and is en route to Acapulco, because that's where Sirrurg is. The Aztlaners then realise he's about to cast Ultima and counter by casting Life 3 on all people in the area Special Blood Magic #69, which promptly doesn't work. Despite that, Sirrurg explodes somehow, and falls down to earth. Then, a cutscene starts where two other dragons carry him away to, I dunno, the proverbial plot bus or something. Or maybe it's Hualpa and Dragon X, carrying him home.
Sirrug is brought down like a high-XP Experimental in Supreme Commander - by lobbing loads and loads of stuff on him until his health is exhausted. Then he explodes. Duh. That might have been intended to be gripping and epic, but it comes out as a rough sketch of a Michael Bay movie. The writeup as is makes me yawn and roll my eyes alternatively.
Now, since its army is reeling from engaging Sirrurgzilla, Aztlan puts in motion the cunning plan to just attack Bogotá while it's the last thing anyone would expect them capable of. They completely steamroll the place because reasons, and it's dusted with anti-dragon powder because why not, and who cares whether atmosphere works that way. Turns out anti-dragon powder turns people into reavers. Oh no, this chemical weapon isn't human safe! The shock. Not that anybody worries except the good folks at Jackpoint. When the dust lifts, the borders have shifted a very meaningful 50 km, Bogotá is now officially Aztlan, and nothing else has changed from before the war. The war where nothing happened. Great writeup, CGL. Of course, it got two Jackpointers killed: Aufheben and Black Mamba, with Hard Exit, Marcos and Picador barely alive. Oh, and most major mercenary companies, save for the author's MarySue Corps FMC, are destroyed. More on that later.
There's more really bad things though. I doubt pedophilia is good joke material (okay, underage technically, since she's 17, whether or not this is taking advantage of minors depends on the state, for all I know). Fantasy fulfillment much, anyway. Throughout the second chapter chapter, we get slapped with barely disguised hawking of Clutch and 10 Mercs. The FMC is the new kings of the hill, other merc organisations from 10 Mercs are mentioned from that file like you have to know what they're about ... and the same with Clutch. It's heavy handed and clumsily executed and leaves a bad aftertaste, which just adds to the already mediocre writing. Not to mention the author still seems to confuse Caracas and Bogotá. And that 10 Mercs and this was written by the same person (the same grammatical errors, too) doesn't help. And the bad grammar hit a new all-time low here, while the piece stylistically is hardly fit for a first draft. Also, why the hell does font size change in the middle of a paragraph? To squeeze in more fanboying the author's own creation?
This is bad. And it's the first chapter. What do they say about first impressions again?
Review: Chapter 3 (Fall of a dragon) 2/10
This is better written than the previous two chapters. Stylistically, while not sound, it seems even vaguely publishable at times. It even works as a story - if you ignore everything you know about Lofwyr, Saeder-Krupp, dragons and common sense, that is.
So Lofwyr is mighty pissed because people are upset about dragons eating GeMiTo. So after Hestaby unsuccessfully tries to explode Alamaise and his "operations base", Lofwyr decides that he, as Loremaster, has to do something about that mess.
Lofwyr, Loremaster and respected elder of dragonkind, 'presses' a bunch of dragons into his services, and then hires an army of 1000 shadowrunners as auxiliaries for himself, Lung, Arleesh and 20-odd dragons. Because why not? Because run opportunities? Because Saeder-Krupp suddenly forgot they already have an army? Runners and dragons start off uneasy, and a dragon bites a merc who wanted to pet it. Lofwyr, seeing this might make the runners uneasy, orders the dragon executed. What the hell, Lofwyr. I mean, it's nice that you suddenly discovered your heart for humans, but seriously? Are you ... drunk or on Zen or weed? Do you have Morbus Schletz? Are you still Lofwyr?
The merry band then makes its way to Alamaise's compound without more attacks because reasons, and a pretty well described but disastrously illogical battle ensues. In the end, Lofwyr gets badly fried but beats the living hell out of his brother and then has him finished by humans. Actually, I liked that - a final humiliation for Mr. Dragon Supremacist. Oh, did I mention the three assembled Greats stand back and watch runners and lesser dragons slugging it out, wasting perhaps a dozen dragon lives in the process? Arleesh in the end decides to intervene as their side is about to lose, much to the bewilderment of Lofwyr and Lung, who apparently didn't really want to win. Realising his failures, Lofwyr then resigns from Loremaster position to focus on his business and health, and Celedyr is instantly made new Loremaster because why not, why bother with dragon customs like Survival of the Fittest 2 (there are enough run opportunities here already after all). He then issues the edict to cease all metahuman-munching activities so that metahumans and dragons do not have to try and extinct each other - in a year. Except for the Black Lodge, where they want to murder every member, because the Kamehameha that hit Lofwyr out of the blue was apparently theirs (because ... reasons).
And there're implausibilities galore. There're glass beads dropped by mterialising spirits. Where were the beads before? Did they dematerialise too? How? Please keep to the established things magic can and cannot do and don't just write every crap up to "Magic!" like a lazy, unimaginative, and incompetent writer, thanks?
Now, this is written well and all on a technical level, as I said, but what the hell. This makes no sense, Lofwyr, Lung and Arleesh are widely out of character, dragons kill each other like there's an endless supply of them over the issue that there isn't, and ... well, then the Black Lodge lobs Lofwyr with a Kamehameha because why not, and makes themselves targets for all dragons. Uhm. Yeah. Not sold. Also, editing, though not on a catastrophically bad level as in The Triump of Aztlan [SIC!!!].
Review (Chapter 4: Seattle Shakes) 8/10
This follows up on the Proposition 23 plot from Missions Season 4 and Dirty Tricks, and so far is the best of Storm Front. It follows up on things that happened in Missions, which ties these adventures in nicely and makes playing (or running) them feel relevant and rewarding. Also, the narrative mostly makes sense, the threads woven in Missions S4 and Dirty Tricks are picked up and turned into a scandal that could well destroy Brackhaven Investments and Brackhaven himself for good.
Several run opportunities are mentioned, and the chapter isn't one big exposé, it's a collection of files and posts, which makes this feel a bit more like an actual message board, so that's good, I guess.
Turns out BI is still busy harassing the Underground, as is the Mafia, and Renraku, who want to take it over. Bull gets increasingly tangled up in politics, Netcat is the hero again, and many dirty details that could just happen realistically around an investment company run by racists are revealed. Nice work overall. It has an evil corporate enemy with political and crime contacts, a grumpy attorney going after them, dirty cops and plenty of shadowrunning opportunities below superhero level. This is material I can use in my campaign, unlike the previous three chapters, which at best are good for tridcasts. Yes, different people, different campaigns, but for me personally, the previous three chapters were not relevant, so it's nice to see some stuff on a less superheroic level of involvement.
One point I feel kind of ripped off about is Eliza Bloom's election campaign, which sounds like interesting material and is brushed over just like that, in a few sentences, because it seems she never had a chance to begin with, after a year of catastrophes of the sprawl government's own making. So Kenny Brackhaven just won, because it's what conservative Americans who look and behave like they've been spawned in 60s sitcoms do, right?
But apart from that, a solid writeup with minor flaws. It reads like written for publishing, the number of spelling, grammar and editing errors is where it usually is with CGL prodcts. I quite liked it, and after reading three brain-burning chapters of I-don't-recognise-this-world, it was nice to read some actual Shadowrun in a Shadowrun supplement. A respite from two mind-burning previous chapters.
Review (Chapter 5: Lightning in Denver) 5/10
A follow-up to the Artifacts plot, which was just a giant ruse, this writeup details the buildup and climax of Harlequin's revenge on Ghostwalker. Seems Harles really didn't pull any stops - an all-elf gang is wiped out because he apparently made a pact with his worse self, the Jester Spirit (kudos for the writer if that indeed is a shout-out). On top of that, Zebulon seems to convince Ghostwalker to act even more like a giant, pale dick than he usually does, like arrest Perianwyr over a crime that he made retroactively a crime - summoning spirits. Anything to please the lady, I guess. This book makes me seriously question draconic intelligence.
Anyway, Harles then starts an asymmetrical war in the city using the Vory, the Zombies and Fronts gangs (both massively buffed by loot from the all-elf Godz, and the Jester Spirit), something he already did in Tir Tairngire to, basically, kick Ehran in the nuts. Just how many people died in the Elf civil war? Probably more than a few ZDF troopers, and yet, Frosty is absolutely shocked Harlequin would do something as horrible as using IEDs on soldiers and then shoot the survivors. Because it's not like he didn't do that already and she was cheering over it. Widely out of character again. Maybe CGL should set up an internal guide on how these characters work.
Aftter a few shenanigans, we get to the final showdown, which is basically Harley making people dress up in V for Vendetta fatigues and doing V for Vendetta showdowny things. This actually meshes reasonably well with pop culture quote freak Harles, but then he and Ghostwalker (who all of a sudden asks people to go away before they're hurt, several times - what is the MATTER with you, Ghosty?) - and then proceed to summon Godzilla-sized spirits and lob them at each other because... well, reasons, I suppose. In the end, Frosty and Ehran intervene, and talk Harley down, who has Ghostwalker on the brink of being slain, with only a few HP left (he even looks battered, it's the high damage image), while Harley developed Superman invincibility somehow, but maybe he was channeling Jester Spirit. Then, Harley is all "oh my god what have I done, precious soldiers are dead!" and now wants to make everything right.
Then, suddenly, Aztlan. Sneak attack +4! Aztlan conquers half the PCC sector because they rolled stealth really well. Nobody cares because fortunately, the first treaty of Denver is void and nobody gives a fuck about the second, because they only signed it. International treaties are there for the US UCAS and friends to be ignored after all! So when Colloton visits, she just declares the treaty void because she doesn't like it, like the UCAS was the US and not a fraction of a former superpower more on par with modern Britain, bitterly reminiscing its once great power while the country slowly falls apart. Ghostwalker, mysteriously, withdraws into his hoard (not horde) to sulk, says something about how everyone who wronged him will see what that gets them in the far future, and ignores everyone walking all over his little fiefdom. What. Oh yeah, and some runners bust out Perianwyr. I'd say bad things about that handwave, but it seems there's a missions book built around that, so I'll just nod and wait for that book.
This chapter is ... mediocre. It's written well enough and works when taken at face value, though it ends on a far more DragonballZ-ish note than I like (but that seems Shadowrun's direction by now, in general). I am left wondering what the hell happened to Ghostwalker. Maybe this is another plot thread, though, so I guess I'll wait and see. Season 4 Missions was supposed to be in Denver, right? No sure how I like this, it has its ups and down. I'm not even mentioning bad editing anymore, just imagine it is added to every chapter review; it is not as bad as in Tirump [sic!] of Aztlan though.
The Aztlan part leaves me baffled, however. That was unnecessary and makes no sense AT ALL. Aztlan won their war and Sirrurg. That really was enough to make them a threat. Besides, where the hell did that third army come from? They spent their army twice already!
Review (Chapter 6: Ares Trembles) 2/10
"Ares made a sucky rifle. I'll never buy Ares brand potato chips again because I don't believe in their deliciousness anymore! I'll never watch ABC again because their shows suddenly suck! I'll never buy another book from Leviathan! I'll quit smoking Ares Black label! I'll stop using my Apple commlink! I'll never fly American and Qantas again! I'll terminate my account at Bank of America! I'll toss my GE fridge out of the window! I'll wreck my Humvee Civic with a hammer! I'll burn my Victory sneakers! ARES MADE A SUCKY RIFLE!! AAAAH!!!"
That is about the gist of Sticks' reaction to the fact that Ares produced a weapon as reliable and sturdy as the original M16. Whoever wrote this apparently has no idea that Ares is a bit more than a small arms producer. Whoever wrote this assumes also that runners (generally not really overflowing with money) buy every new Ares product like it's an iPhone and they are LA hipsters. Whoever wrote this seems to think every runner is a NRA-grade gun nut who wuvvs their guns to bits.
I'm sorry, maybe it's just showing how little Germans and Americans have in common besides prevalent skin colour, but ... WHAT?! No character of mine EVER bought new weapons out of the blue (they even sell prototypes instead of using them). Weapons are something you want as sturdy as possible, and also disposable. So you rely on proven technology that works, maybe modded a bit by a gunsmith with a good rep, and stuff you can reasonably easily replace. This is making my disbelief jump out of suspension and run naked through the streets. Whatever strange world Sticks lives in, none of my characters do. I asked around, and the only chharacter who would act like this is a dedicated parody of a pink mohawk streetsam whose character image is Serious Sam.
Adding insult to injury is that there are no stats for the Excalibur to be found (not in Game Info either; turns out they are in Sacrificial Limb, would be nice to get at least a reference). How does this piece de crap even work? Can I make my players suffer through its crappiness to make them distrust Ares as per this story? No, not without houseruling Excalibur's stats or asking around on Dumpshock so somebody points me to it. What the hell. Talk about a missed opportunity to at least put my runners in the shoes of Excalibur victims!
And the Excalibur rage goes on for page after page. Media blackout - it's not like there's an adventure seed about this in Corp Intrigue already. Someone ordered it out prematurely. Customer service sucks (what kind of weird runner uses customer service?!). Wasn't this already covered in Corporate Intrigue? Isn't this to be a follow-up, not a summary, of plots?
The last few pages contain actually new information, and it's a little bewildering. Aurelius jumps out of a plane because he sees wasp spirits that want to kill him, but the plane apparently remains unmolested. Aurelius also oversaw UnlimiTech's fight bugs with bugs program. Knight is in full Weyland-Yutani mode over bugs despite several incidents that should make him pause. Morbus Schletz? It seems quite widespread ... Vogel has become a pragmatic and tossed his green links entirely at some undefined point, Gavilan Ventures is up to consolidate, and ... stock holders are getting angry. Ares might be "one good shadowrun" from losing AAA status.
Because they made a rifle that sucked.
Review (Chapter 7: Shadow network): Unrated
What the hell is this? A placeholder for a write-up that never happened? No, it's an introduction to a bunch of smaller write-ups. Somehow this is also supposed to be a chapter in itself, and not FastJack shadowtalking as a lead-in to the smaller chapters. Also, it breaks the JackPoint convention of pretending to be a write-up in an imaginary internet. It's superfluous, breaks reading flow and immersion and adds nothing much to the book. Why is it there at all.
Review (Chapter 8: First among Equals): 8/10
New princes, now with 100% more elfyness! A decent chapter continuing things for Tir Tairngire. Seems like Telestrian makes a grab for power. Elf Supremacists are back too, and things look less and less the same as everywhere. Sucks if you're not an elf, but hey, what would Tir Tairngire be without that? Grimmy seems to become a regular character, which is kinda cool, and there's some new elf plot seeds sewn. the Immortals seem gone from Tairngire for now, but who knows when they'll be back.
Solid writing, though surprisingly uneventful. Nobody died, nothing exploded, and the FMC was nowhere to be seen! Enjoyable read, though probably more preparatory work for later stuff than anything else. Still, it ranks among the best of Stormfront.
Review (Chapters 9 and 10) 8/10 and 9/10
Those have already been released in their entirety via Little Birdie, so nothing really new here. Surprisingly, they are among the best Storm Front has to offer (surprisingly because I'd have expected CGL keep the good stuff for the actual release; not that they already release most of the good stuff so customers are annoyed the new stuff is mostly less good than the teasers, but whatever).
Sleeping with the Enemy adds to the anti-Twilight DeVries storyline, where DeVries now is officially outed as a vampire, and to Asamondo, which is shrunk back to plausible size. It also makes life more miserable for the Infected, so maybe SR5 will have a change of mind from the ultra-soft take on them in SR4. I'd really appreciate that myself, but tastes vary.
Writing-wise, this is among the best in the book, has good flow and decent structure, and is generally fun to read. Some details grate, but cannot entirely be laid at the author's feet. I'm not happy with the New World Order take on the UN, but that's Loose Alliances fault; I'm also not entirely happy about the inconclusiveness with the Mealtime Killer stuff, but alas, there seem to be products in the pipeline dealing with that, so I withhold judgment here. It's a bit of a letdown is that this chapter, like denver, seems to set up future releases rather than tie up previous ones. I can understand why, but I'd still like the full picture. Teasing isn't nice. Still, by itself, solid writing and enjoyable.
The Artful Dodger also is well written and offers some interesting insights. One is that at least one Techno believes Paragons are actual 1st Gen AI, bringing them in line with both my theory on them (heh) and the second Sprawl trilogy book's (Neuromancer's successor, Biochips) take on the Matrix after the Singularity of Wintermute/Neuromancer. At least this story seems to follow some inner logic for now, and the Matrix maybe is demagicized. I'm all for that, I absolutely loathed 4e's magical take on Mancers and the Matrix. It also picks up The dodger's story, who has been dropped in 4E almost entirely because the generic Matrix was the new cool or something, so nice to see he's back.
Also, props for some info on Tir na nÓg. That neck of the woods has been quite neglected by SR4, too.
All in all, solid, enjoyable write-up. Both are almost pure story, but that works for them, I think - some of the other chapters try WAY too hard to be full of cheap runner opportunities.
Review Chapter 11: Escaping the Ghost Decade 6/10
This chapter greets me with a rather glaring error in canon. Halley's comet passed in 2061, not 2064 (the man himself passed in 1741). Sorry if that ruins the idea of a "ghost decade", but then again, the decade becomes 20 years on the same page. What.
Shiawase sees the Empress step down, being a good mother. Apparently, the conservatives won at Shiawase after all. Comes a bit as a surprise but hey, after all acting out of character is a plot device now - lemons and lemonade, I guess. Yamana sells all his Shiawase stock and goes on a world travel and nobody thinks twice (what again). More Shiawase children materialise and buy stock with money from where-ever because reasons. Also, Shiawase now is the largest agricorp in Europe, passing by SK just like that and completely ignoring Meridional Agronomics and AG Chemie Europa. The Tenno drastically changed in character, from inwards-looking New Way Patron to fascist Emperor of Fascististan. MCT is the unchanging icon by fighting a brutal corp war in Japan as loyal opposition (what?), which seems sort of contradictory - maybe they should lay off the bloodshed at home if they wanted to play ally? Renraku is ... somehow back again from never being gone, except from Seattle. Now it expands into South America because the people there are too poor to be of interest to megas and have no economies - apparently the authors have stopped considering SoLA canon? Renraku as Corp of Big Data is an interesting idea, though. They do have decades of datastores to work with after all, unlike Horizon. But a bit more consistency with established sources would be great.
The worst of this chapter may be its lazy writing. The author seems to think research is for losers, too (in a setting with 20+ years of baggage, splendid idea). But there's something else. Throughout the writeup, Baka Dabora writes like he is slotting a Mr. Miyagi personafix. It's the cliché of Japan, and rather groan-worthy. What really pissed me off is an unsolicited mini-treatise on how Exceptionalism is a bad thing if it is claimed by Japan, Rome, or England (Yamato-Damashii is evil, it seems, but, manifest destiny is not). That is again getting the author's own opinions into his write-ups in a thoroughly unpleasant way.
Not good enough, though not quite as bad as Aztlan's Triump [sic!] either. Too bad, since I like the principal idea.
Chapters 12 & 13: Fractures/The Cracks Inside 8/10
So, this is the Morbus Schletz plot. Parts I already knew from the Little Birdie game, parts are new. It's maybe the most interesting part of Storm Front (well, it was what I was most curious about), introducing a new plot, threat, and drastically changing some things for JackPoint. It is ... interesting. and among the stronger parts of Stormfront. There was care involved here, which I cannot say I see in the rest of the book at times. I have to say, I had quite some reservations there, not least because I am wary of any new face among the authors I have never heard before - all so far have proven not to be material for favourite authors, to say the least. This is ... interesting because it seems Mr. Schletz actually knows his stuff.
The story Fractures is well written, but why is there another short as a lead-in to The Cracks Inside? This is highly redundant. Also, I like the first story a lot better. Is it from the same author, even? It seems a different style, but then again, the style in F/TCI varies considerably.
The plot is interesting too. FastJack snaps, but others do, too. There was a hint earlier the Infection got Yamada, Brackhaven, politicans in Tshimshian, lots of Evo-related people, Gary Cline, Brackhaven, Villiers, and other corp bigwigs, and now it is confirmed it got Miles Lanier. Nanotech turns out to be not the ultimate material it was hyped in early SR4, and seems rather unsafe now. On a side note, their planes exploding in mid-flight on a near daily basis and a disaster exactly the same as the Excalibur fail doesn't seem to destroy YNT or Cavalier Arms, who deals only in small arms and is small enough this is actually a credible threat to the company near as much as that shitty rifle does Ares. Which is, I think, way more plausible than the Ares plot. Props from me, Scott Schletz, here (it is you, right?).
The theme after the Lanier filedump is terror in space. this actually sounds interesting too, if a bit more fluffy and hard to integrate in a normal Shadowrun campaign. Still, it reads okay. Scare in space is a favourite of mine, ans the confined nature and inescapability of spacecraft and spacestations make for a very personal and tight environment for such stories. We also get to know the scope of the matter - huge - and repeated hints that léonisation treatments may be the cause, or among the causes, of Morbus Schletz.
Then we get to the departure of a loved JackPoint character. Kudos for not using Clockwork only as designated asshole. the character has more to offer, and it's rare to see that. The writing is good. And the story is intriguing, picking up the e-Ghosts thread that lay unattended while everyone wrote about fluffy AI. It's, I think, also part of Bobby Derie's legacy. Fastjack's personal tragedy is told well, in filedump format again (which I like), and with care to the characters involved. That a writer PC now is Admin at Jackpoint smacks a bit sour, but I believe Bull he didn't want this himself, and since it is in-game plausible (and would have been my choice too, to be honest), I'm not going to crucify anyone over that (it is not 'James Meiers is actually alive' from 10 Mercs bad). Also, whoever did the art in Fractures and saluting Slamm-O deserves a special heads-up, because that art is awesome. The good-byes are nice, too, and all in all, this may be one of the best parts of StormFront. If all of it had been like that, it'd be a decent, even nice, book.
That said, problems persist. Editing, proofing, editing, proofing, EDITING, AND PROOFING. Really, I know English is hard with homophones, and word will not catch them, but that is why it's called proofreading and not proof-autocorrecting. Some sentences seem also rather mangled ("Serious headaches that would pull me from the Matrix they hurt so bad.").
I also wonder if this plot originated in Hardy's lemons-to-lemonade philosophy that also spawned the JackPoint intrusion by the Poster With No Nick, to deal with vastly inaccurate and faulty and badly researched and lazily written shadowposters.
Review: Game Info 1/10
Oh what the HELL. this chapter is awful. It is near useless, a mismatched bunch of copypaste (and some new) stat blocks for Great Dragons and Street Legends (and random grunts), adventure seeds where some are nice and some are horribad, and short summaries of chapters I have already read. I am not suffering from amnesia and neither is any other reader. Info that SHOULD be in there - stats for the Excalibur, for instance - is not in there, the Entropy spell, while well enough balanced, doesn't do what it does in the fluff, and then there are stats for Perianwyr first claimed to be in Clutch (well enough) and then posted anyway. What is this copypaste bonanza anyway? I thought pagespace was at a premium in publishing? This is wasting print space, not preserving it. Why!
There are several problems that perpetuate throughout the book. Some affect all chapters, some only a number; some chapters are affected worse than others. Some chapters are letdowns or just plain horrible, others are neat to very nice. It is not War!, the badness isn't omnipresent, but it isn't a good book either.
Bad editing persists. Bad proofing does, too. As Critas said, proofing is done on a 'if possible' base, which is just unprofessional for CGL to do. Editing seems not to have happened at all. Some of the articles are unfit as a draft, let alone for print. Bad stuff, CGL. You have managed better before.
The Shadowtalkers and other characters that have been previously established act wildly out of character depending on the writer. The shadowtalk is especially bad. Sometimes, I have the impression the writer just wrote something in Shadowtalk, and someone else randomly slapped Shadowtalker names to it. Also, story characters act bizarrely. Lofwyr, for instance, hires runners in bataillon strength because Saeder-Krupp suddenly has no more private army or something. The Greats then stay out of a fight against one of their own, instead of jumping into the fray. Harlequin wants to murderkill Ghostwalker and then suddenly is talked down by
Ehran. Ghostwalker becomes all sulky and ignores Aztlan, which mere weeks before blasted a Great Dragon and is the most anti-dragon country ever, but suddenly he could care less. Lazy writing, no care for and with characterisation ... it's sometimes just plain horrible.
Now, I also noticed something, a culmination of a distasteful trend in SR writeups I have been following for a while now. I have my doubts this is even conscious for the most part, but it is there nonetheless.
All dead Jackpointers in this book are Non-Americans, non-Anglos. All who get saved, boosted or promoted are American. Four long established mercenary organisations are out of business - Combat, inc. (Hong Kong), MET 2000 (German/European) and Tsunami (Japanese)are effectively destroyed, and Black Star (German) is dead to a man, despite 'several' having been in custory of the FMC (being unintentionally realistic?) - but we have the Free MarySue Corps now (I will refer to them as this only after this post), who popped up out of nowhere and suddenly are the second biggest mercenary company because ... I dunno, reasons and manifest destiny? Roskosmos apparently employs only Americans on Gagarin base too, despite being a Russo-Japanese company. It was already pretty annoying in 10 Mercs - where all but three units were American. And before, in blanket assumptions that everywhere works like the US of today (like a few in Gun Haven II), with the casual disregard that GeMiTo was treated as something like a horde of bums in the desert somewhere (not even SoE makes it out to be that), with the Africa writeup in the Almanac that might just as well have been labeled 'here be black people'. I'm not saying this is a conspiracy, or even a conscious effort. However, there's thisattitude, and it shows more and more, and FEELS more and more distasteful. And I am certain I am not alone in the observation that SR seems to drift towards a highly America-centric and American-dominated world view. Kind of like Tom Clancy was made Line Dev.
Then again, at least Clancyrun books would be properly proofed and edited.
Edit: All in all, this book has some bad and some good in it. I rated the chapters individually, but as a tl;dr: I rate it 5,8/10
