I have a love/hate relationship with these books. On the one hand, they are insanely comprehesive and well written, and the setting is fantastic and unique (even where it borrows from other novels, games, etc, it does so in such a way that it's with love and not a blatant ripoff). On the other hand, science aside (which is always plausible and well thought out) the authors exhibit careless, lazy thinking when it comes to extrapolation of future culture, economics, politics, and social structure. Basically anything the hard sciences don't address.

At first, I had attributed this to the in-character voices of the narrators, but after purchasing a ton of their PDFs and hardbacks I've come to realize that this is not the case. It's the writers' own wishful thinking and biases seeping through. This is not good sci-fi. This has nothing do with whether I agree or disagree with said biases, that's irrelevant. If you want to use sci fi to comment on the human condition or as a fanciful reflection of the real world, fine. There's a long tradition of that. The problem is that it's so poorly executed and ham fisted.

I've left out specific examples because this isn't a review of any one's politics or beliefs (I may very well agree with a lot of them). I'm merely looking at the craft behind this book (which as yet is the most egregious example of this).

Regarding the expansion of the EP universe: I love it, despite my above reservations. These guys are passionate world builders and it shows. The mechanics, as always, are relegated to later in the book. A person who doesn't run EP could buy these books for the setting alone and they would work fantistically.

I've spent entirely too much money on this game and don't regret it.