Finally... After trying to read through ten pages of nothing but opinion chatter, I get to post my thoughts on SoE.

Overall it does what I thought it was intended to do, introduce major European players, and give a decent background on how Europe got to where it is and important places.

Things that I don't really like is the fact that everything is just so bleak... Can't people of the Sixth World get a break?

I have to applaud the writers, dealing with Canon that at times was subpar IMHO, while still cramming as much info as they were allowed (or able to get away with). I have not read the entire thing yet - busy working on a proposal, trying to get a game running, and BF1942 - but what I read so far was good. I liked Spain and Portugal, but I wish that the Spanish writer had more space to get a bit more info on Eskal Herria. The AGS chapter was a bit, well it seemed chopped up, and there was stuff missing. I am sure there was plenty of stuff that was left out because of space issues. I can only imagine what the editors had to go through...

My two cents:

Everyone has their opinion, and I think I shall add Shadowrun to that list no one should argue about - you know, Religion and Politics.

For example I like history. The history sections of each of the SoE's chapters are interesting to me. As well as the material in the beginning. If the history doesn't make sense to me then the whole plot that is based upon said history makes no sense. To this day I can't understand how the Nan got started - and yes I read SoNA.

They come like Bus's....... You wait age's for 1 then 3 (or in my case 4) come along together.

ANYWAY moving on....
Although I've only really flicked through most of it (UK, UN, and Switzerland mainly)
But i have now actually started to read it Got through the new old world last night read most of that (exception being Organised Crime) And i really like the way it read in perticular the Banter between 0111011001 and Espion thought that work well, also liked all the new but not quite so big companys.

So far the way its writen is very good, but for me the content score about an 7-8 but it never was going to be perfect.

Sent this privately to Synner, but I figured I's post it here, too.

I wouldn't be expecting anything in-depth about SoE from me since I still haven't even gotten around to typing up my thoughts on SOTA64, and I've had that for months. I received SoE on Wednesday.

I recently bought SoE and have nearly completed it, and I wanted to mention two things.

1. I am really enjoying it.

2. I am sorry for being such a jerk about the whole thing several months ago. What I said and did was uncalled for, and I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry.

I guess once I actually read it, it turned out to be more of the style that I was looking for than what I had expected or presumed it would be. It has the same "feel" to it as SOTA64, which I also really, really enjoyed, and it ended up placing plot hooks and facts and background in a manner in which I enjoyed--that is, it was all over the place. I like the hunt. I liked having to read through the whole thing to figure out what's going on, although going back through it an index would have been really helpful. I also liked the fact that it didn't try to presume to know everything, but also did presume that someone so inclined to run a campaign or have anything to do with western Europe could just as easily look up basic information as have it put in a book at the expense of other more useful material.

One thing to note is that the first thing I did when I got it was skip to the Spain & EH chapter because that was the country I was most interested in reading about. I was also interested in it because I was apprehensive about there even being a EH in SR. I was also intrigued at the dispute over the throne after having read about the outcome in SOTA64 already. The thing about that is that there is a nice big gap between SoE and SOTA64 which can explain the events which subsequently occurred almost anyway you like, and through almost any means you want to establish the given result. But back to Spain itself, I ended up rather enjoying the chapter, although I thought it was interesting that no one mentioned that the line of stones across northern Spain seemed to follow the main Camino de Santiago route. As for EH, my personal bias and the material produced a response eqv. to, "It could be worse, but it's playable." But there's still a damn lot of good stuff in that chapter alone, let alone things that aren't in it, but which could be important in and of themselves--like, I don't know, the presence and role of Opus Dei beyond the brief mention it got.

But the best part is that unlike some books and some authors, and while it may be due to my own ignorance of most of the countries, this book read like the people who wrote it actually knew what the hell they were talking about. While it seems like a given, I can look to the first Shadows of book and say that what threw me off was that given its attempt to, in part, re-write history, I often found myself looking at the text like it was written in Swahili when I wasn't thinking that they had wasted ink. I didn't get that impression with SoE, and found the various voices in the book to be interesting and amusing. I liked the comment about how the Czech posters seemed to be so adamantly and self-righteously tolerant, because 1. they were, and 2. because I can relate to having to read material from or otherwise deal with people who are "militantly tolerant." I also really liked the idea of Brokerage X and its coverage of the corps because it seems like such an obviously good idea for a shadowy organization, but I'd never have expected it to come up in regards to NA, even though the stock market is omnipresent in the news here, and you'd think someone would try to make a buck off the inside info runners have.

Anyway, that's part of why I liked SoE, I think. I've been typing for an hour, so I think that's all for tonight.

Thank you, I appreciate the comments (and the time) and I'm sure the other writers do too. I do hope you get around for a more detailed play-by-play review.

One thing I'm particularly happy you enjoyed was the style, since for my part I much prefer the current approach which gives you the infos bit by bit and allows you to put them together pretty much anyway you like. Though SOTA64 seems to be a lot of people's reference for this I believe it actually goes back to DotSW if not farther (Jon Szeto and Elissa Carey's previous material comes to mind). I'm sure if you go back now, you'll find some of the stuff in that book is cast in interesting new light when you crossrefence with SoE and SOTA64, much like SoE's Poland, Spain and Lofwyr/Spinrad feud spill into SOTA64.

I'm also happy you enjoyed the voices. I've long thought a couple of them stand out particularly as both very European and interesting in their own right: €spion, 0111011011, Kephalos and Fleur-de-Lys are my personal faves.

As you've probably seen elsewhere, you can expect some more on Brokerage X (as well as the aristos, the Guild and Aegis for that matter) in upcoming books.

Indeed, which is why I'm looking forward to Loose Alliances, and want a Brokerage X office in Seattle.

To be fair, I have not really kept up with much of the SR material for a while until recently, although I've skimmed SOTA and DotSW, both of which did have the feel in some of the parts I read (specifically the conversation in the Lofwyr chapter, which would also have baffled me if I hadn't read the Shockwaves thread here). It did remind me of Szeto's work in T:SH about northern Europe, albeit much better.

BTW, what is 0111011011 supposed to be? Those two (0111011011, €spion) were great.
Also thought it was interesting that I happened to read about Sepherim's (the PC) background before I read SoE, which otherwise would have produced as "huh" reaction at the opening.

Sooner or later I'll learn to type faster, since spending hours on posts (not these ones, per se, but others) has become impossible. I'll try to get some more details once I finish up a deadline I have next week.

Where is Sepherim (the PC) mentioned? I mean, where can i find his background?

Well, I was referring to this post, which may or may not have anything to do with the Sepherim (PC) who wrote the Spain & EH chapter of SoE.

OBTW, the boat city in Copenhagen was great in reminding me why Neal Stephenson had to be high when he wrote Snow Crash.

Actually, that was Costan's original character. The "Sepherim" seen in SoE was a later version conceived as a long-time American ex-pat living in Spain.

Several voices in SoE have quite extensive backgrounds that remain in my 22Mb+ of EuroSB files somewhere. Some like Kephalos are canon (from Prime Runners), the writeup on Johnny Spinrad I did after DotSE can currently be found on SRRPG.com, and several others will follow when we finally have the time to get the Helix website off the ground.

Ah... I see. Cool.

I won't answer the in-depth comment around Spain since this is a more general forum, though I appreciate it in a great deal since almost none have done an in-depth comment like yours. But I'll tell you that there still is, sitting aroun somewhere in my hard-disk, a map that compared the menhir line to Santiago's Path, and we had created several special places around it.

And yes, that was the "official" Sepherim as I wrote him, since I used my character in a "paralel universe" to my campaing because Sepherim commited suicide in January 1, 2058 in my campaing. Still, he does express himself and do things as my Seph did, and he did somehow "move to" Spain as a Ghost in the Machine (he needed to have a home base somehow). In fact I needed a couple loose ends in some places, and used my own campaign (where they did visit Spain and it had some importance) as a "base ground" for it.

Sepherim, for example, tied into a little Galician corporation that didn't make the cut for SoE (which is normal since it was a B corp ) where he boosted them a bit and handled ties with Sol (boosting them a bit on the way and explaining Sol's growth after 58). And Nagarë was a character from my campaign too. Everything is explained in my web, if you know spanish.

Anyway, this is strictly un-official, and just a way to create ideas for future use. No more AI's in SoE please, not even me.

You have no idea how much I continue to kick myself over this. From back when it was just a fan product with never a hint of published flavor and *nobody* was doing Italy. I was more than happy to take it up (And, amazingly, Synner was willing) when I had a complete and total Internet meltdown.

Back when I'm online again months later, teh project has (rightly!) moved on without me.

Then I find out that it's actually getting published.

And that it's good. Very *very* good.

So, I started kicking myself around, three months before it hit the stores. Haven't stopped yet, either.

-- Johnny Reb, so very, very sad.

No need to be so harsh on yourself. Of the 42 people who were involved in this project at one point or another more than half didn't stay the course (for a variety of reasons) and a couple dropped out at the most inopportune moments (and I ended up doing much more than I ever intended). Fortunately, I'm proud to say most of the "founders" made it to the end and several have continued to contribute to new releases. This was a labor of love all the way and one of the projects I'm going to hold dear for the rest of my life. Not only did my fanboy dream project get made and I got a break into freelancing, but I made several very good friends. It's hard to believe it was almost 5 years from inception on the then-Deep Resonance Forums and holding the final printed version in my hand but it was all worth it.

Thanks for the praise.

If I ever get the chance to polish it, I'll ship it to you anyway, just as a personal soothing point. Some of what I planned as kind of in there, some wasn't, of course.

Of paticular note was that I'd had a rough plan for a 'Cascading government failure' setup... By 2000, Italy had gone through over 60 governments since WWII. I was going to project that to the future and have more or less an annual governmental collapse. Three forces kept pulling it politically ... the politicians in the Mafia's pocket, those that the Vatican controlled, and, of course, Pawns of Lofwyr. It gave him no small case of indegestion that whenever he'd almost have the country in his grip, the other two factions would drag the place down and he'd have to start over.

Some stuff on the traditional 'North vs South' split, and a Metaenclave up in the Alps, along the Switzerland border (They fled there after the 'all Metas are evil' Papal speech and never came back down.)

It was fun to write, up until my own personal Crash.

Bah.

So, my Big Break failed, but I'm not giving up yet. I'll find a way to get something written yet.

-- Johnny Reb

Well, I've seen arround here more people that are thinking about that possibility, since more fans entered freelancing. You might make it, so good luck!

BTW, when I get a chance the first in-depth review will be about Spain.