Very pretty, very well written. The engine, however, is a major paradigm shift away from normal RPG's, and the book is not a good introduction to the Burning Wheel system. On the other hand, it does do what it sets out to do: evoke a setting by use of rules without having to use lots of exposition about the setting. The setting itself is based on the Iron Empires comics, which I have not read, but boils down to this: The remnants of a larger empire are collected into a group of smaller noblity-dominated empires, and are being invaded by a Go'uld-like alien race, but one operating by stealth rather than worship, and having the same technology base as the humans. The minimal setting exposition is wonderful, and rather than detail the universe, it encourages players to build their setting, and then their characters, and then the story arc. This game is not suitable for novice GM's, and while novice players may have no problem, it can take a good bit of digging through the Burning Wheel Wiki to grasp some concepts which are not covered in the rules. Also, the style of play expected includes a very strong meta-game/out-of-character element, including negotiating what kinds of scenes to play.