I approached this roleplaying supplement with three prejudices. First, it had been delayed in publication by a year, so I had that time to speculate excitedly about its probable contents. Second, I had been reading quite a bit of Tekumel/Empire of the Petal Throne material -- an extremely detailed science fantasy gaming setting. Third, I was concurrently reading another rpg supplement, 'Celestial Empire' which reminded me of the unmatched richness of historical settings. Through no fault of the author, these three prejudices did negatively affect my feelings toward this book, if only by comparison.

The Chronicle of Future Earth alludes to a much-changed world (Urth) of the far future. There is more than a dash of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, Jack Vance's Dying Earth, M.A.R. Barker's Tékumel, Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon and no doubt many other science-fantasy references which escape me. However this is not strictly a 'Dying Earth' setting. An ancient empire rules half the globe. Demons and gods exist and provide power to sorceries. Humans share the Urth with other races: the descendants of genetically divergent human stock and extrasolar races. As in the sources mentioned above, this is a post-technological society. Ancient artifacts of technology exist, but their workings are largely unknown to the most recent inhabitants of Urth.

Science fantasy is a tricky genre to get right. To me this book leans too much towards fantasy. The things which make it so are pantheistic gods and chaos. I'll start with Chaos. In the north of the world are chaos things which threaten the borders of the Venerable Autocracy. This is very reminiscent of the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, where Chaos comes from gates at the poles. This unsubtle Chaos vs. Law, goodies vs. baddies setup is more characteristic of a fantasy world.

Pantheism is something which our world accepted as fact two millenia ago, and may do again. Active gods had a profound effect on the settings of Tékumel and 'Lords of Light' by Roger Zelazny. In the Chronicles of Future Earth gods exist after (re?)manifesting themselves in a past conflict with the evil Hegemonist (another god or godlike being -- or maybe the Devil?). More good vs. evil. Maybe there's not enough information there but I didn't find it convincing. Multiple gods tilted the setting more to the fantasy side of science fantasy.

Game information is generally good,including demon summoning rules (very similar to Elric!/Stormbringer), character generation and equipment. There are good quality maps and illustrations and an introductory setting (the city of Korudav) with an adventure.

Overall, this is a good product, in spite of my prejudices. I find the setting a bit too much fantasy, not enough science, but the book provides some good tools for science-fantasy roleplaying, and it is probably more accessible as a setting than something like Tékumel. ( )