OK, so I have read some of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series. That is a weird and thoroughly engrossing far future fantasy series if I’ve ever seen one. There is magic AND technology, mutants, monsters, a complex portrayal of a society that only dimly mirrors my own. I’ve a bit of trouble wrapping my head around it all, honestly.

The GURPS New Sun (1999) sourcebook is a great help in this! It breaks it all down, makes the whole world understandable, fills me in on mysteries I couldn’t quite parse. So horses look like that? OK. I kind of love this, because it enriches my reading experience, but also hate it, because it strips off a fair amount of the mystery (not unlike the sort of Companion books for fantasy series that were a thing in the 80s).

Do I want to play an RPG set on Urth? Not really? But that is true of just about every GURPS setting book — these are made for very specific players. It is kind of amazing that Steve Jackson Games had the capability to license and produce as many as they did and keep the quality on all of the fairly high, at the very least always putting out a well-presented sourcebook for the reading experience if not a playable setting. I don’t honestly know if New Sun is playable. It nails the big picture, but Urth is big and varied and weird and I don’t think enough of the details come through, and those are where I find my campaign materials. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I was disappointed by the art in this book. It isn’t bad, but the digital tone coloring makes me see red for some reason. Again, though, capturing the mental imagery Wolfe conjures would be a tall order for any artist.