This volume is very rich and evocative, I think it is also more diverse than the savage worlds Mars, and can be better used for sword and planet stories. There are rayguns, alien species, extra supernatural abilities, ancient looking armors, dying culture, ruins, exotic wildlife, connection with the Earth, anything you would like. See the other reviewers, I do not want to be repetitive.

I had two small problems only. First is, that, as a previous reviewer said, it is more like John Carter, and not really War of the Worlds. The problem is, that if it is so, then what shall we do with War of the Worlds elements, e g. the robot playable characters? The robots fit nowhere in the setting. This could have been more grounded. The robots fit a savant, mad scientist, Flash Gordon atmosphere, which we do not get here. The only other element which is similar are the rocketships, but those are neither martian, nor atlantean! So the whole tech style presented here is sort of masters of the universe type, so I think the robots at most can be connected to the Earth! But the Earth is not that advanced yet, either. So this could have been integrated more.

Second problem: It would have been nice, if we knew how the Atlanteans look like. Also how humans happen to be living on Mars! It is mystery. This is pretty big problem to me.

SMALL SPOILERS below (if you did not take a peek at the free sample characters yet)

[On the basis of the Hollow Earth books (and the free sample parts) we have suggestions that the Atlanteans are some kind of nordic "aryan" looking people (essentially semi-humans). And they blended into the earthlings. Perfect!

But on Mars, this becomes blurry. We have info that some Atlantean warlord souls can manifest - but they choose avatars from the existing races. These souls are of a few iconic lords. But are/were there original Atlantean remnants in great numbers? Did they gradually dissolve into the population like on Earth, or what?? This is unlikely because the martian population is very different then the earthlings. Also does not make any sense that there are humans living there. How so? No history is given. If they were aboriginals on Mars too, without any explanation, that would be weird...

SO: 1) how does the original Atlantean race look like? Like the Vril-ya, or like some Martians? If the latter, then WHICH martians? 2) Background and details of the martian humans???]

END OF SPOILERS

I honestly feel, the Martian Atlanteans and the Martian humans are hanging in the air, they do not fit in organically - but this should have been considered very important, because the whole setting explains everything with the atlanteans!. This is also sad, because Atlanteans are perfectly explained in the Hollow earth and the surface world. I expected more when I saw that a whole chapter is about the Atlanteans.

Maybe in the Venus expansion book we will get an overview explanation? I am just guessing.

This will be a short review. This is a genre which can be played both historic-realistic, and pulpy. I was interested in the pulp part mainly, as a pulp sourcebook this is very evocative, has a lot of supernatural elements and superhuman abilities to choose from, as well as superscience. One can play in this world both superheroes, and mere soldiers. superscience here can be considered magic, so with slight alterations, magic exists as well, depending on the GM. And it has Preussan non-nazi Axis (a bit similar to WW I feeling, but much better, more advanced, mystical, but not evil like the nazi scenario). Wow!

The writing style is very easy to read, not convoluted at all.

It's main strong force that it made again playable the Axis party (in other games the Axis are either Nationalsocialists, and thus evil, or it is WW I.).

It's bad side might be, that it should have more information about artifacts with more examples, more superpowers, and maybe more pictures about the available weapons. More info about the aliens. We do not even know how they look like! This just makes the reader want more. (Maybe, additional expansion books?) Also I missed that this book covered only within Europe the following countries: England and France - and soviet Russia. What about whole Europe, especially Germany, Italy in details?? The author made comments about a coming book about the Asian frontier, but we want more about the Axis-European-Preussian culture/society (without Nazis - preussan style without nazis at WWII - this is the most interesting thing ever!) as well. Also I was sad that there was zero word on Mussolini and Italy and Southern-Europe generally, also could have been nice to have some British fascists (Mosley), though Britain is occupied in this setting... These could be added later, however.

Because of these I considered giving 4 instead of five, but the whole thing is so evocative that could not do that.

The Allied (especially the US) and the Soviet (here they are called SSU) factions are nonetheless very detailed. The integration of the materialism and spiritism within the SSU is also very excellent!

Last but not least, the system seems to be very easy, low numbers, (very good for those, who do not like to learn systems for too long), and there are also built-in tactical wargames attached to it.