You can never have too many monster books in my mind. Even I use one or two per book and my players are surprised or go "what in the hell is that!?" then it is money well spent. Monsters have taught me so much over the years. Monsters lead me to Greek Mythology. Monsters helped me learn how to write code to create databases and then later helped land a DBA job while I was still in school. One day I'll update my old Access95 Monster Database, but that will have to be later.

Malevolent and Benign has long been a staple on my game table. 128 pages with 150 monsters, all in OSRIC format. The monsters are all new (to me), with some converted from other OGC sources. The art is quite good and the feel of the book is something like a Monster Manual 3 or a Fiend Folio 2 really. It sits on my shelf right next to my monsters books, or in theory, it does. It is actually out on my game table more often than not. The softcover is very nice to have and the PDF is fully bookmarked.

The book also has a small section on new magic items associated with these monsters.

For $10 it is a good deal.

This tome is one of the top three OSR 1e Monster books out there. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's close enough. And it does stay true to it's name as it has a good blend of both malevolent and benign critters unlike a few other out there. It feels like it fits OSR like a well worn pair of Boots of Striding & Springing.

Excellent collection of monsters from Expeditious Retreat, statted for use with OSRIC (and therefore 1st edition AD&D). I am using the monsters with my C&C campaign right now, and the conversion is trivial.

PROS: the book is cleanly illustrated and the monsters all get some great write-ups. There are a lot fo interestign creatures in here, and the book is not an eyesore...even the retro cover, reminiscent of Erol Otus (by peter Mullen, whose got the Otus look down pat) is actually rather quirky and fun rather than an eyesore as in other retro games where the need to emulate the bad art of the 70's and 80's accompanied the retro-rule feel. The book is navigable as well with full bookmarks, a big plus for laptop-equipped DMs. Finally, as a resource designed fors classic style AD&D play, it both looks and feels the part, with all the appropriate bells & whistles, right on down to the layout and design. But the art in this one is much, much nicer than anything in Fiend Folio, I assure you!

CONS: I found that putting the monster description at the end of the entry rather than the beginning was a bit disconcerting....sometimes I needed to reference it first to figure out what the heck the creature's weird properties were. A few of the creatures are very...ah...complicated, which is to say, my head started throbbing thinking about managing the creature in-game, but don't take that as a con unless you are keen on simplicity of design.

Appearance: 4/5 - good cleanlayout, design, and nice art; a portion of it is definitely royalty-free and been seen elsewhere, but it's still good

Content: 5/5 if you need new monsters for OSRIC, C&C, or 1E/2E games.

VALUE: 5/5 for old school gamers.

A fantastic 1E supplement full of monsters. It is worth the price of admission:).