Earthforce Sourcebook UK edition!

A friend of mine in a local bookshop has just got hold of one of the
first
copies of the Earthforce Sourcebook UK edition, from Titan books
(licensed
from CE, and SHOULD, in theory, be exactly the same as the US edition).
I
have taken a good look at it (my own contributor's file copies are in
transit from the US right now!) and can report the following:

The book looks nice, (hey, it's got Ivanova on the cover....), and the
art
is generally better than in the RPG book - more CGI art rather than the
iffy painted stuff. Apparently most of the CGI pics of ships were
specially
generated for the book, and are not just video grabs from the episodes!
Like the TBP RPG book, it is in full colour throughout, and at only
£9.99
it is pretty good value.

I won't comment on the ship rules, since they're mostly mine! I'll leave
reviewing them to others, except to say that CE (Zeke Sparkes in
particular) have added quite a few new bits to the draft I sent them,
including some very neat ideas about integrating RPG characters into the
game as ship crew. The rules could have benefitted (IMHO) from a few
diagrams, especially for movement, but CE say they were short on space
in
the chapter.

Now for the big problem, which only affects UK COPIES - UK PURCHASERS
TAKE
NOTE!! Titan books have screwed up bigtime, and forgotten to include the
game counter sheet in the back of the book! There should be a full
colour,
cardstock sheet bound into the back, and it is NOT THERE! Titan are now
aware of their mistake, and say they will have to print the sheets
separately and send them out to the retailers - so if you really want to
buy a copy from the first batch, make sure you go back to the shop a
while
later and pick up your counter sheet....
Apparently Titan has made a few other glaring errors in the UK printing,
such as missing all the captions and colour-keys off the NOVA and OMEGA
diagrams, and using the painting of Gen. Franklin three times, for three
supposedly different EF officers (one of which is supposed to be
female...?!) - CE assure me that the US edition is correct, and it is
Titan's error on the UK one, but I won't be able to check this until my
US
copies (with the counters!!) arrive.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks of the book, when
you
get them....

Jon (GZG)