The Whitebox, Savage Swords of Athanor and Equisite Corpse

Some short and honest reviews:

The S&W White Box: The art is nice. The cover image is easily my least favorite of the new images, but still it's pretty neat. I liked the Mullen cover. The lower box is flimsy. I wish the box was about an inch or so thicker, so I could put some of my other digest sized booklets inside of it. The trim job on the covers is less than perfect. All my books have overlap; one of them (Book III Monsters) is kind of sloppy. It took too long to get here. The Old School Primer shouldn't be in the set. The included adventure looks pretty cool, if a bit short. I won't use it anyway. The layout is very good. I like the digest sized books. Over all, I'm glad I bought it, but I have some reservations.

Savage Swords of Athanor is an imaginative planetary romance setting for Swords & Wizardry. The book has lots and lots of typos and a few confusing and awkward sentences. Aside from two maps, there is no interior art. In every other way, though, it is excellent. I am especially fond of the mutation tables and the magical mishap tables. The monster section is nice too, providing, among other things, a groovy selection of strange vat creatures and dinosaurs. The player character races are original, weird and cool. There's also a neat little system for character skills. The author's blog can give a you a more in depth idea of what the setting is all about. If you aren't overly bothered by typos or spider people with German surnames I recommend this without reservation.

Exquisite Corpses is a funky little spiral bound book. The bulk of the book is made up of full frontal body shots of monsters divided in three sections (head, torso, legs) by dotted lines. Cutting the drawings at the dotted lines allows one to mix and match the body parts of different creatures. There are guidelines explaining how to stat up the creatures. The book also includes some sample creatures and a bunch of nifty random tables for making your monster special. I like this book. It is great idea well executed. I'm told it's fun to look at while one is chemically enhanced. Furthermore, there are naked tits. Recommended.


Notes:
1. More actual content next week. Two words: Metal Space.
2. I will not engage in any discussions regarding the Old School Primer here. I wont delete your comments, but I've said what I have to say elsewhere (mostly at The RPG Haven).
3. I'm not sure I'll ever review anything ever again.