Book Description
Ten steps to surviving a family rift, finding peace, and moving on
A family rift is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can face. It can have a profound effect on virtually every aspect of life, causing depression, relationship problems, and even physical illness. Healing From Family Rifts offers hope to those coping with a split in their families. Family therapist Mark Sichel addresses the pain and shame connected with family rifts and offers a way through the crisis and on toward healing and fulfillment. Uniquely, Sichel does not assume that every rift will or even should be mended. Instead, he offers ways to recover from any outcome, including:
- A 10-step process to come to terms with the family dynamics that led to the split
- Methods to find peace and personal reconciliation
- Skills that help to build a second family of people whose values are in line with one's own
- Techniques to fight feelings of guilt when faced with a family rift
- Includes inspiring and instructive stories drawn from the author's patients that help readers put their own situations in perspective.
Average customer rating:
- More than 900 pages of self-indulgence
- TOO MANY CHARACTERS!
- Are minus stars available for a review?
- Read my other Reviews and I Will Bite You.
- Great read, love the characters
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The Rift
Walter J. Williams
Manufacturer: Eos
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Earth Abides
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Lucifer's Hammer
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Eternity Road
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Swan Song
ASIN: 0061057940
Release Date: 2000-04-04 |
Amazon.com
Rock & roll takes on new meaning in The Rift, Walter Jon Williams's huge book about a magnitude 8.9 earthquake centered under the southeastern United States. This is a major departure from the intricate science fiction tales Williams usually writes (City on Fire, Aristoi), but he applies the same thoroughness, complexity, and great character development to this disaster yarn. Some readers might balk at the book's size (it's a doorstopper), but consider the subject: the biggest earthquake in recorded history, a monstrous disaster that lays waste to entire cities from Chicago to New Orleans, flings one of the world's largest rivers out of its banks, and within 10 minutes obliterates countless lives. But the earthquake is only the beginning of this horror story--fire, flood, and chaos follow, and ordinary people are pushed to the limits of ability and sanity as they are transformed into survivors:
Marcy thought the tremor was just another aftershock, but then she saw the flash brighten the shining steel of the Gateway Arch, and turned south to watch in awestruck horror as the bright fireball rose over south St. Louis. Bright arching trails of flame shot out of the fireball, like Fourth of July rockets, as debris rose and fell.... It is the Bomb, Marcy thought. It is the End.... The bubble of fire rose into the heavens, and its reflection turned the Mississippi to the color of blood.
Williams follows the fates of nine people in the earthquake's aftermath. Among the most compelling, considering the racial and political tension characteristic of the American southeast, are the stories of sheriff Omar Paxton, a card-carrying KKK member from a small parish in Louisiana; the Reverend Noble Frankland, a fundamentalist preacher with well-stocked bunkers and fanatic followers; and General Jessica Frazetta of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the woman in charge of somehow repairing the damage. Each character's story would make a terrifying disaster novel on its own, and Williams handles them all deftly, weaving their threads through the apocalyptic postquake landscape. The Rift is a magnitude 9 novel--you'll walk gingerly on the quiet earth when you're done reading. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
It starts with the dogs. They won't stop barking. . . .
And then the earth shrugs--8.9 on the Richter scale in the world's biggest earthquake since 1755. It hits New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi. Seismologists had predicted the disaster . . . but no one listened. Within minutes, there is nothing but chaos and ruin as America's heartland falls into the nightmare known as the Rift--a fault line in the earth that wrenchingly exposes the fractures in American society itself. As a strange white mist smelling of sulfur rises from the crevassed ground, the real terror begins for the survivors, including a teenager separated from his mother, an African-American engineer searching for his daughter, a TV preacher whose visions of hell have become all too real, and a sheriff cum Ku Klux Klansman who seeks racial vengeance in the midst of disaster.
It can happen. And sooner or later, it will.
Customer Reviews:
More than 900 pages of self-indulgence.......2007-08-20
_The Rift_ is as bloated and turgid as one of the corpses that keep floating down the Mississippi River in Williams' overwritten riff on the disaster/apocalypse theme. Williams has pacing problems, plotting problems and, more than anything else, the problem of having done such a massive amount of research that he can't bear NOT to make you aware of all the hard work he went through.
Williams starts off with the timeworn disaster-novel device that's as familiar and comfy as your favorite bathrobe: he introduces you to the six or eight different groups of characters that he's going to follow through the novel. You know who the bad guys are; you know who the good guys are. You know, going in, who's likely to survive the coming catastrophes and who isn't, but there's nothing wrong with that. You don't read these kinds of novels for their great originality. Rather, you read them to see how well the writer spins a tale you know by heart.
In a novel of this size, however, that creates a massive, two-fold flaw. First, there are WAY too many subplots and WAY too many people running around in these 944 pages, yet Williams manages to write so few "round" characters that the conflicts, their motivations, or (especially) their resolutions are cardboard and predictable. But the fact that there are too many characters with a similar absence of depth is symptomatic of the poor choices Williams makes. When he does provide character detail, he often seems to do so at random. (**SEMISPOILERS**: What difference does it make, for example, that Arlette occasionally breaks into French or that she was hoping to spend the summer in Paris? What does the utterly useless and expendable character of Charlie, the" trading whiz" and soulless capitalist, add to the plot? After front-loading an extreme amount of detail about this character, Williams literally abandons him to an "I-can't-be-bothered-with-him-anymore" conclusion. **END SEMISPOILERS**)
More damaging, from a plotting point of view, is the mundane fact that, each time there is a new earthquake (and there are LOTS of them), Williams retells the same event over and over: Here's how it affected Group A; now Group B; okay, and here's the way they felt it in Group C; over in Group D, meanwhile....
It's massively boring.
No less stultifying is Williams' insistence on quoting thousands of words from letters and newspaper accounts (real or invented, I don't know, but you won't care enough to find out) dating to an actual swarm of devastating earthquakes in the area in 1811. He intersperses these extracts, some of them rather long, at the beginning of chapters and elsewhere in the text. Here's why it doesn't work: (a) they all say EXACTLY the same thing in practically the same words and (b) the quotes are placed apparently at random, and do nothing to illuminate the action of the novel at that point.
I'm sure it was a challenge scouring the thesaurus for words that mean: tremble, shake, destroy, and fall down, but after the thirtieth time you read that a house was reduced to a "pile of broken timbers" or that the earth "rose up and smacked" someone in the ribs or that a boat "danced" on the river, you'll want to reduce _The Rift_ to a pile of broken timbers. We get the picture, Walter. Really, we do. And yet the earthquakes keep coming, for no particular reason, and Williams keeps describing them as though we hadn't already read the previous 200 or 400 or 650 or 812 pages.
In fact, Williams' starts the book off with a great section, set in 700 AD or thereabouts, about the destruction-by-earthquake of the civilization that created the so-called "Indian mounds" in the area. But once that scene has played itself out, Williams doesn't have a lot of room to maneuver: the earthquakes 1100 years later or 170 years after that do the same damage and they do it in the same way: they just do it to bigger and more dangerous structures. Or, let's put it another way: Williams wants the earthquake to be a major character in this novel, but the fact is that it's the least interesting character of all because its features can never vary. The PEOPLE are what would make the story interesting, and there Williams falters.
Finally, there's little satisfaction in Williams' ham-handed effort to say something meaningful about race relations or about the American south (which is, here, cartoonish and two-dimensional) or about survivalists, religious fundamentalists, and assorted crackpots. (The "rift," get it?) He'd have done better to leave aside the clumsy moralizing and cultural commentary. It's a genre novel, Walter, not _War and Peace._
TOO MANY CHARACTERS!.......2007-07-26
I AM ONLY ON PAGE 120 AND AM SO CONFUSED. THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY PEOPLE HE'S INTRODUCING AND I HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO. I LIKE A BOOK THAT GRABS ME SUCH AS PRESTON/CHILD WRITINGS. THIS IS KIND OF BORING.
Are minus stars available for a review?.......2007-05-09
The author of The Rift is very well read but extreemly poorly written. This book should not belong to the End of the World fiction genre, and any comparisons to the likes of Earth Abides, Survivors, or A Wrinkle in the Skin would be shameful. If anyone gives this book a good review, may I suggest they read better books with which to make comparisons.
Read my other Reviews and I Will Bite You. .......2007-05-05
This book was very poorly written. I was very disappointed by the wooden, cumbersome dialogue. I love to read EOW & Disaster fiction, but this entry in the genre should have been denied admittance on the grounds of immature idiomatic idiocy. What was most distasteful was the sex scene that was several pages in length. That description was unnecessary.
Overall, a bland and vile book.
Great read, love the characters.......2007-04-25
I know many people find the frequent insertions of letters and other info from the 1811-12 New Madrid quake to be annoying and/or disruptive, but I really believe they're important. They show that what the author is proposing is not unbelievable--au contraire, it's happened before, but also before there were major cities, nuclear reactors, large areas of propane storage, and other bits and pieces of "civilization" in the path of the worst of the earthquake. This book shows an all-too-likely scenario of what will happen when the New Madrid goes again. And after Katrina, can anyone believe we're even a little bit prepared? I agree with the reviewer who said this book should be mandatory reading for FEMA officials! It's a well written, well thought, and well developed story, and I love nearly every page. Then again, I don't have to have action on every page, and I enjoy a good deep character development, even if that character goes nowhere. Perhaps if I hadn't grown up just south of St. Louis, I wouldn't have been as fascinated with the entire Arch storyline, but since I've been up in the Arch multiple times, I was enthralled! I've read this book probably 4 times now, and I think it may be time to read it again soon. Just looking over these reviews makes me want to go renew my aquaintance with the book and its characters.
Customer Reviews:
Could Have Been Better.......2002-01-06
I was really excited to learn about Atlantis in the Rifts main book and looked forward to an intricate, exotic realm. I was left slightly cold.
Rifts Atlantis is the heart of a massive alien empire which thrives on a slave trade, including many unfortunate human and humanoid races. This makes Atlantis could be a bad idea for greenhorn PCs, because if they act up, the heat will be on them in no time. If you do run an Atlantean campaign, you have to be careful in setting up the game balance.
On the other hand, there is a great variety of new OCCs, RCCs, and magic, including Splugorthian biomagic (biotechnology meets magic, rather like a technowizard, although this stuff is much more powerful than a technowizard). There is quite a bit of fodder for GMs, and this alone may recommend the game to you.
My chief gripe is that with all the new gear and character classes, we have more of a sourcebook than a worldbook. In the Vampire Kingdoms book, we had a map of Ciudad Juarez which showed buildings of note and the turfs of the various gangs. We have some general descriptions of the Atlantean cities, but nothing that really does justice to them. I really think that such a big, advanced and decadent society should have had a deeper treatment, at least for the capital city of Splynn.
In short, if you buy this expecting learn about Atlantis, you may not get all that you want to learn (I have, however, heard that there is a worldbook specifically for the Slave Market in Splynn, so perhaps they do justice to the continent after all). If you want new baddies and technology to supplement a campaign in perhaps North America or Europe (i.e., a Splugorthian party is scouting out human settlements or advising demons on how to fight the CS or NGR), this has a lot of stuff.
Rifts World Book Atlantis.......2000-03-29
Although this book is full of great information for players and game masters looking for new and interesting characters to mix it up with in their campaigns, it lacks the depth that other of the rifts world books have. The book may touch on the basic motivations of the Splugorth and their minions and allies, but it doesn't get into the specific plans that each has. These details would make it easier to see how one might work the new powers that be into an existing campaign. The author suggests in the preface that this is some of his best writing to date, but I have to disagree when this work doesn't include any stories or excerpts from the lives of rifts characters that have seen Atlantis and experienced its realities first hand (see Rifts Federation of Magic and one Coalition officer's experience with some demons his troops run into)
A must buy!.......1999-09-27
Characters such as the Tattooed Men make this book unique and intersting to play. Information about the Splugorth give it the variety of both good and bad characters needed for a good champain. And the equipment and weapons are awsome!
I have just purchased this book for my Rift's campaign........1998-10-30
This is a well written book, with tons of information on the Splugorth, and other minions of Atlantis. There are also plenty of O.C.C.'s and R.C.C.'s to choose from and loads of ideas for new adventures. A must have.
Product Description
Not exactly a Second Edition, because most of the rules will remain unchanged, Rifts Ultimate Edition is expanded and improved. There will be more world information, tips on how to use the time-line and World Books, rewrites on O.C.C.s, and in some cases, expansions of and more details on O.C.C.s such as the Headhunter, Mercenaries, the Techno-Wizard and Shifter, as well as a few new O.C.C.s. Our goal is to make Rifts® more exciting and compelling than ever, while at the same time making the rules better organized, clearer and easier to use. The wonder and infinite possibilities of Rifts® all brought to pulse-pounding life like never before. Of course, there will be a few fun changes and additions, but nothing so dramatic as to make the 40+ available sourcebooks obsolete.
Approximately 30 unique Occupational and Racial Character Classes, including Cyber-Knights, cyborgs, Glitter Boys, Psi-Stalkers, Dog Boys (mutant humanoid dogs), Juicers, Crazies, Techno-Wizards, Ley Line Walkers, Mystics, Shifters, Elemental Fusionists, Mind Melters, and many others.
Supernatural and magical creatures, like dragons, available as player characters, others are horrifying menaces from the Rifts.
Bionics and cybernetics offer a vast range of mechanical augmentation, meanwhile chemical enhancement (Juicers) and brain implants (Crazies) can turn a human into a superman, though with tragic results.
Psychic powers are the source of the Burster, Mind Melter and Mystics abilities.
Strange forms of magic are at the command of characters like the Ley Line Walker, Shifter, Elemental Fusionist, Rifter and Techno-Wizard (who combine magic and technology).
Super-technology with Mega-DamageTM body armor, energy weapons, rail guns, power armor, and human augmentation.
The Coalition States. Humankind's salvation, or its own worst nightmare?
Character sheets.
Color end sheets by John Zeleznik.
New artwork and color pages throughout.
Written and created by Kevin Siembieda.
Customer Reviews:
HELP! Palladium is in TROUBLE!.......2006-07-04
I'm writing this as another way of raising awareness on Palladiums troubles.
Due to internal treachery Palladium books has recently been taken for close to a million dollars. Not a sum easily absorbed by a publisher of RPG's. The very definition of niche.
At any rate YOU CAN HELP.
GO TO PALLADIUMBOOKS.COM there you will find information on what has happened and how to help.
Please.
If you love Rifts or any other of Palladiums games as much as I do HELP ME SAVE THEM FROM CLOSING THEIR DOORS FOR GOOD!
A Great Update.......2006-06-28
I enjoyed this game the first time it came out, and while there are really minor changes, I'd recommend anyone who has to update, as well as new players to fully enjoy this edition. The reasons - first off, it was one of the few "multigenre" games that actually had a setting that made sense; its system (used in all of Palladium's games) is fairly easy and intuitive; the characters are exciting and dynamic; and it just seems to capture the essence of adventuring best over older, more established games.
Siembeda does a great job in packaging this book, making it more durable (hardcover) and beautiful (additional color artwork). His company suffers from many issues, most notably delays (this being no exception), but he and this series deserves gamers' support. If for nothing else that he makes his product inexpensive and worth the wait.
Tne quibble I DO have about a new basic edition for such an established game is how many of the extra books you will no doubt want to buy in order to truly develop a global campaign. It can be expensive, which is why one must take care in finding out just WHAT kind of campaign or world you wish to develop. Here, the author does TRY to take care of the beginner by adding a suggestion section to the back of this book, and I advise anyone buying the Rifts game for the first time to read through it. There's a temptation to buy all, but, as mentioned earlier, costs will keep one from doing so.
Well worth the purchase price.
Rifts - Orginized!.......2006-03-06
The Major draw back to all of Kevin's books in the past was a lack of orinization. That has changed. In addition to the massivly detailed Table of contents (more like a subject oriented Index at the begining of the book) this books actually has a stucture to it! The Main rules that apply to everyone are in the back of the book right ater the second full color art section. All the classic Core OCC's and RCC's (Classes) are back and they brought along some friends like the Elemental Fusionist (Very cool idea think Magial Bi-polor disored then you'll start to understand)
If after reading the history of the world you feel there is not enough information the GM Guide has a large section devoted to explaining the world and it's major events up to the seige on Tolkeen. (Which is a 6 book story arc in itself if anyone is interested)
The rules are all clearly orginized making this system easier to understand then D&D 3.5 and much more fun.
He who Lives by the Vibroblade Dies by the Particle Beam
-Rifts Bumper sticker
The Book Rifts fans have been waiting years for!!!.......2005-09-03
I became a fan of Rifts back when the original books were published in 1990. In it's 15 year history it has become one of the most diverse and richest RPG settings ever published, with over 25 World Books, 7 Dimension Books, 5 Sourcebooks, a quarterly magazine (The Rifter), etc.
As such the original 15 year old rule book had become fairly dated, which I discovered when I became re-acquainted with this game early in 2004. While reading the early rulebook I found page after page of rules that had been totally re-written in the various supplements. Ranged Combat, for example, had gone through 4 or 5 different re-writes from the time of the publication of the first book. Many crucial OCC abilities (like the Zen Combat skills of the Cyber Knights) were added years after the original publication. Sorting out the current, official rules was difficult; generally I had to check the publication date of a book to validate the rules that it contained, as often rules in a newer book superseded an older book.
All of that has changed.
In this 376 page volume the Palladium staff has managed to collect all of the important rules needed to play the game, from all of the supplements published to date. Additionally, this book is organized in a much more novice friendly way. Fans of the original book will recall that it opened with a one and a half page into by Kevin Siembieda and then went straight to the character generation section. This new volume starts with another into by Kev, but then goes straight into a complete history of the coming of the Rifts and the Dark Ages. After the history section we are given an overview of life in the current time, included here is info from a number of books (including a lot of info from the recent, post Tolkeen, Aftermath book.) The book then proceeds to detail character classes, magic, equipment, vehicles etc. Finally at page 274, we get to the "Game Rules"; a design choice that I feel is brilliant. Siembieda truly immerses the reader in the world of Rifts before ever requiring them to work at actually learning the rules of the game itself. This seems to be a much more effective writing style than the previous convention of "rules first". Included in this section are the current (and hopefully final) Ranged Combat rules, including another reworking of the Dodge rules, that is quite cool.
Lastly, the layout of this book is much improved over any previous Palladium effort, it's a hard cover, for starters, and contains page after page of illustrations, including a ton of smaller color plates from the Rifts CCG that are just amazing. Palladium books can almost always beat those of the competition with quality and quantity of content; this is the first Palladium book that I've seen that can kill the competition on looks alone.
If you're a fan BUY IT NOW!!!!
RIFTS - Science Fiction & Fantasy RPG.......2004-02-25
The RIFTS rulebook is a complete set of role playing rules for $24.95. While there are literally dozens of optional, supplemental rulebooks available, this main book is more than adequate to allow years of playing by itself. Like most role playing games written in the 1980's, it requires at least one set of polyhedral dice (also known as a "d20 dice set", a set contains dice with four, six, eight, ten, twelve, and twenty sides,) to play. It is preferred that each player has their own set of dice, but it is not required as people can share them. If you wish to give a role playing game as a gift, then the RIFTS main rulebook and a set of dice (if they don't already have a set,) would be a fine choice that would allow them to play almost immediately.
RIFTS has been in print continuously since 1983, and has been a perennial steady seller in comic book stores since that time. Strangely, RIFTS has not received the respect it deserves from mainstream bookstores, which tend to only carry Dungeons and Dragons and White Wolf's role playing games. Hopefully this will soon be remedied, as at this time, spring 2004, a motion picture is being filmed set in the world of RIFTS.
RIFTS uses Palladium book's house game mechanics, which are the same as those of their other games, including Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy, and the now defunct Robo-tech and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The mechanics are similar to, but simpler and easier to use than the current "d20" rules, which they pre-date by about twenty years.
The setting of RIFTS is a unique, post-apocalyptic North America, with both technology and the supernatural. At some time in the distant future, man developed bionics, cybernetics, genetic engineering, and other advanced technologies. Then a nuclear holocaust decimated the population and opened a number of inter-dimensional portals, called rifts. Various people and creatures wondered thought the rifts from alternate realities, including fantastic beings like vampires, elves, dragons, and wizards. Some factions, most notably a totalitarian state based in Chi-Town (the remains of Chicago), still have access to high technology, such as Mecha (giant fighting robots as in Robo-tech or Battle Tech) and suits of power armor. Since inter-dimensional travel is available, players can encounter anything conceivable. Using the main rulebook alone, players can pick from thirty character types, including: scientists, rouges, Mecha pilots, high tech soldiers, mutants, medically enhanced humans, cyborgs, genetically enhanced dogs, psychics, wizards, and dragons. This means that if one player wants to play a more-science fiction type character, and another wants to play fantasy type character, both can easily be accommodated.
Book Description
The greatest Christian split of all has been that between east and west, between Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox, a rift that is still apparent today. Henry Chadwick provides a compelling and balanced account of the emergence of divisions between Rome and Constantinople. Drawing on his encyclopaedic command of the literature, he starts with the roots of the divergence in apostolic times and takes the story right up to the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century. Henry Chadwick's own years of experience as an ecumenist inform his discussion of Christians in relation to each other, to Jews, and to non-Christian Gentiles. He displays a distinctive concern for the factors - theological, personal, political, and cultural - that caused division in the church and prevented reconciliation. His masterly exposition of the complex issues discussed at the Ecumenical Councils (issues that eventually led to the separation) is characteristically clear and fair. This is a work of immense learning, written with sensitivity and spirit. Its fascinating detail and full analysis make it invaluable to anyone interested in how this lasting rift in the Church developed.
Average customer rating:
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Continental Rifts: Evolution, Structure, Tectonics (Developments in Geotectonics)
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
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Binding: Hardcover
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Book Description
This multi-author book has been prepared by an international group of geoscientists that have been active in rift research since the late 1960s. In 1984, an informal,
grass-roots
study group was initiated to compare individual research results and to explore in greater depth the apparent differences and similarities in the interpretations from various rift systems. The group became known as the CREST working group, an acronym of Continental Rifts: Evolution, Structure and Tectonics, which not surprisingly became the title of this book.
Continental Rifts: Evolution, Structure, Tectonics presents an overview of the present state of understanding and knowledge of the processes of continental rifting from a multidisciplinary, lithospheric scale perspective. The chapters have been structured on each rift system in approximately the same synoptic sequence, so as to facilitate comparisons of rifts by the reader. The book complements its predecessors by presenting a more
unified
picture. It succeeds in presenting the status of a representative majority of the continental rift systems that have been at the forefront of recent research. For students and experienced researchers alike, this book will be of significant value in assessing the current state of knowledge and in serving as a framework for future research.
Book Description
The latest Fantastic Locations release, with stunning new maps.
Fantastic Locations: The Frostfell Rift provides 2 double-sided poster maps designed for use with D&D miniatures, plus a 16-page black-and-white encounter booklet for use with RPG campaigns. The maps in this product showcase exciting environments, including the icy Frostfell Rift, while the encounter booklet illustrates how DMs can use the maps again and again in their D&D roleplaying game campaigns.
Customer Reviews:
Great for D&D miniatures.......2007-04-01
I have all the "fantastic locations" maps, this one surprised me with a two storied building. The module is not that great but it works just fine with inexperienced players and a little modifications in the plot would make it great for those game groups looking for a visual description of the setting, but If you're looking for a good module, I don't think this is good for you, only if your interest is to bring more maps to your miniature battles.
Customer Reviews:
Yeah, yeah, yeah..........2000-04-25
World Book 11 is very good if you are interested in new equipment. If you are looking for some fleshing out of the North American environment, it's not bad. If you want to know about the details of the "Campaign for Unity", you'll be disappointed.
Asides from a short rundown of those potentially involved, there just isn't much about this long awaited war. No estimate of the total number of units involved, their composition or their locations are given, no dates are provided. No real idea of the paths that the Coalition will use to advance are mapped out. None of the "special defences" that we've heard about, prepared by those in the Coalition's path, are discussed.
Palladium took the approach with this book that the GM will detail everything but the new equipment, OCC's, etc...
A good Book.......1999-10-26
this book is by far the best book for a north america Campaign. I remeber when you reach about 5th level, in a group of 5 or 6 the average S & D unit is a push over.... well now you will run and run and run when a S & D unit sees you.
An all around great book.......1999-08-04
insanely huge amounts of thoughtful world information, well-rounded OCCs, equipment & weapons, and adventure ideas make this book one of few "diamonds" in palladium's "rough" rifts series. has munchkin potential, however, but that can be easily curbed with the reminder that only cs officers in need get firestorm tanks (kidding..)
A must have for Rifts fans.......1999-07-10
This is one of the best rifts books ever made. A must have for Rift fan
The Coalition States Get Their Due..........1998-10-26
You either love them, or you hate them. Either way, the Coalition States of America is THE part of any Rifts game set in North America. Until this book, the New German Republic has been the undisputed high power in the dwindling human domain. Now, with new weapons, armor, tactics, and ambitions, the Coalition States flexes its human supremecist muscle with all new force. The new CS Body Armor rivals even that of Triax, and the new weapons have a destructive capability that dwarfs other North American forces. And with new power armor and robots (from the organic-looking Glitter Boy Killer to the fearsome super-SAMAS) they forces of the CS can tangle with any supernatural baddies who get in their way. The design of the new equipment has a serious "Jim Lee" feel to it, where the guns are so large you have to arch your back to carry them, and the armor suits have sleek curves and exagerrated muscular molding. I'm more of a fan of the Triax design (designed more for function and less for fear factor) but the new styles are perfect for Coalition motivation. Like them or not, you can't ignore them in your campaign any longer.
Customer Reviews:
Vampires-Rifts Style.......2001-11-12
Paladium tackled vamps in an all new way. These critters are the bane of any Rifts campaign! This book was awesome in that it opened the first new area of the Rifts World. If your heroes think they are tough, send them into Mexico. I promise you hours of entertainment!!
Over the top at times, but really well laid-out.......2001-10-29
The premise of the Vampire Kingdoms is that with the collapse of human government, vampires thrived in the dry (i.e., no rainstorms to wipe out an unwary undead)wastes of Mexico. Towards the north, near Texas are human cities and outposts like Ciudad Juarez, Tampico, and the anti-vampire crusaders like Doc Reid.
Now, if you had a nation of vampires that are as strong as say, the vampires in Ravenloft or AD&D in general, humanity is going to die. So what Palladium did was weaken vampires considerably from what you would see in other gaming systems (they are basically the same as vampires in Beyond the Supernatural). Therefore, PCs will have a fighting chance. I personally think they may vampires less fearsome, and while I make vampires much less numerous and organized, I make them more personalized and stronger (I yoinked ideas from Ravenloft for this).
Despite my gripes, I really like most of this worldbook. Ciudad Juarez is described in great detail, with loads of information on the gangs, government (often indistinguishable from the latter item), and people of the city. I wish that Rifts Atlantis had a similar eye for detail--Splynn could have been fleshed out better. The technowizard anti-vampire weapons are a particularly good concept.
Now what I really dislike is the often graphic nature of the worldbook. Yes, vampires are gross--never get an undead supplement expecting cheeriness!--but some of the Vampire Kingdoms often have an Auschwitz twist to them (these are one of the aspects of the vampires that I delete for campaigns). Likewise, many of the Reid's Rangers have become hardened and depraved by continued exposure to the undead, which can become a little unsettling. But by making those dark elements in the Rangers, Palladium gives PCs a chance to be heroes who can redeem a noble idea, so perhaps I'm being too pessimistic.
A book is only an outline for a GM--if you are willing to exercise discretion and are not particularly put-off by the book (I wasn't, and I hope I didn't make the few bad points too magnified), this is one of Palladium's best pieces of work.
A good source book for vampires........1999-03-25
Prsonally I like all the vampire goodies it has in there. As it's a unique and refreshing look at them, and there society.
I feel this was one of Kevins most in depth books to date........1999-02-24
I think that Kevin jumped into this book head first and gave it one heck of a go. When i was first starting to role play, Rifts really attracted my attention. I relish the detail that the Palladium the masters threw into this series of books and have been playing for 6 years. Vampire Kindoms is one of the most in depth books i've seen so far for Rifts. This book comes highly recomended from some one who has been with Kevin ever since the release of the RPG. Bang up job Kevin and all the guys at Palladium. Just one more thing, I need to see more art work from Long.
A better buy would be the South America duo and/or Atlantis........1998-11-01
This book could have been way better! After all it is Kevin Siembieda's first world book. World book Two Atlantis is a MAJOR improvement in writing! The only things in this book I found semi-redeming were: stats for the Vampire, TW anti-vampire weapons, Reid's Rangers, gangs, and travling shows.
The book fleshed out cities more than ENTIRE KINGDOMS in other books! I also think Mr. Siembieda made the vampires WAY to hard to kill by a "normal human"- you have to be a dragon or something! I hope all the G.M.'s out their feel free to modify the Vamps stats, (esp. the wooden stake thru the heart not killing it!)
Like the summary states the South America books+Atlantis have PLENTY of nasty things to throw at your P.C.'s!
All in all the book wasn't great but wasn't bad.
Books:
- Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Editions)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
Books Index
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