Ostensibly a book for flavour and background fluff, the Book of Nod starts out strong, with a biblical tone and cadence to it, even including footnotes from the scholars that "researched" it; but ultimately suffers from a hideous mish-mash of artwork, as well as a lack of direction in some parts. The "words of Antediluvians" section seem especially ill-fitting and could have easily been replaced with a "proverbs" style section, like that which the superior Dark Ages book "The Erciyes Fragments" had. "Erciyes Fragments" also benefited from having a single illustrator, which felt more appropriate for a psuedo-religious text.

This is actually the third copy I've ever owned, the first two being the hard and softcover versions of the original White Wolf prints. I was disappointed that the leatherette cover which made the original Book of Nod so distinctive was left off this copy, as well as the formerly brilliant silver lettering on the cover and spine. The fact that the cover is a photograph of the original leatherette, combined with the more drab logo on the front, cheapens the look of it somewhat when compared to previous editions. It feels like a cheap knock-off of the older Books of Nod. There's not even a little red ribbon to keep your place like a prayer book anymore.

And yet, efforts have been made to make this version an improvement on what has come before. There are pages where the background image has been lightened a little in order to show detail or make the text easier to read, and this is a massive step up on the original.

I don't regret buying a copy, but I'm not as happy as I was holding an original print back in '97.