Alien Compendium: Creatures of the Verge is an accessory for Alternity and its Star*Drive Campaign Setting, essentially a sci-fi monster manual for Star*Drive's unexplored frontier. This book requires both the Alternity Player's Handbook and Alternity Gamemaster Guide for play, but may be used with or without the Star*Drive Campaign.

This full-color, 128-page volume details 57 organisms from the 18 solar systems of the Verge (an area just beyond the borders of Star*Drive's "civilized" sectors), six sentient species and one laboratory creature of "Old Space" (right, the civilized areas), and six sentient "External" species (from outside the bounds of Galactic society). Five of the entries from "Old Space" will be familiar to any Alternity gamer from the basic books (it would have been nice to pad out the roster beyond two new entries: the laboratory Warbeasts and the insane Cykotek cultists). Plenty of good concepts here and high-quality art. There are a few irritating glitches in the book, such as the authors' unnecessary straining for pseudo-scientific description (sorry guys, arachnids don't have six legs), and a few stinkers, such as the alien koala bears and a picture of an egistron that doesn't match the text. Still in all a nice collection.

Good for Star*Drive and for general Alternity use; a decent idea mine.

--Sharon Daugherty