John Tynes

Is it a good book? Yes. Does it live up to the hype? I am not sure. After the Handler's Guide left me with the impression that most of the ingenious stuff that made old DG so interesting in the first place (MAJESTIC-12, the Karotechia, OUTLOOK, etc.) was destroyed without giving the handler new metaplot-relevant material to utilize for their own campaigns I placed high hopes that this book would finally carry on the torch and might even be a worthy successor to the incredible work that was Countdown. But in the end you get four antagonistic and four potential friendly organizations for DG of varying quality, each of which change through their growing knowledge of the unnatural by being in contact with DG. One can furthermore link them together to create the eponymous labyrinth but I will mostly ignore this and briefly go through them one by one:

Potential Allies

- Center for the Missing Child

A nonprofit dedicated to the cause of missing, exploited and murdered children. The general idea is not bad but the capacities of this organization are very specific and I don't really see an easy way to integrate them into a campaign as long as it is not centered around missing children. Perhaps God's Teeth (if it is ever going to be released) will be a good fit for this. Furthermore it is not really new - something like this organization could easily have existed in the 90s. 3.5/5

- Dream Syndicate

An online group of people who have identical dreams of unnatural events. The premise is intriguing and I really like the distinctively modern tone of the plot which revolves around the two admins/moderators of the board. Something like this would not easily work in the 90s. Still it is again difficult to see how this might be integrated into a DG-campaign. The provided hooks don't seem very convincing. Why on earth should a high-school wannabe-hacker be able to provide the group with information they can't easily get by their own research, especially if one of the players is a computer scientist? Instead one might use the presented ideas for a modern CoC scenario with more mundane characters. 3.5/5

- Agent Renko

A GRU SV-8 agent who is surveiling the agents and tries to steal information or artifacts from the Program. Or is he actually willing to defect and allow DG to gather a plethora of intelligence on their russian competitors? I really like this "organization". The premise is creative and presents a useful way to integrate the GRU into a running campaign. The idea for first contact with Renko is amazing and I am already looking forward to use him. The only weird thing is that for a certain necessary escalation of the relationship between Renko and the agents a trip to Ukraine is required and no sane agent would do this based on the given information and motivation because the whole operation is obviously a trap. It is not, actually, but that doesn't make it better. Still very useful. 4/5

- The Witness Alliance

Some kind of weird mashup of the SPLC and the State Security of the former GDR. Maybe I am on the wrong side of the culture war but the organization itself is a social-justicey trainwreck which I have hard time to consider to be part of "the good guys" (which the text heavily implies they actually are). I appreciate that there is at least a single questionable NPC in the organization who characterizes the more problematic aspects of the modern regressive left but he is almost comically evil compared to the other reasonable and well-intentioned people at the WA. A more greyish tone might have made all of this more bearable. Furthermore the plot surrounding it is the same old story of "everybody who fights the unnatural will see his complete life fall apart piece by piece". As the Karotechia is gone this write-up in addition presents the only information on political extremism and the mythos in the present. And from this perspective it is just utterly disappointing as well as besides some really bland, uninspiring and unhelpful comments concerning so called "Neo-Völkische" (1-2 lone wolves among them who might be in contact with the unnatural) we learn absolutely nothing. 1/5

Enemies

- New Life Fertility

A private company which provides infallible fertility services based on IVF (and Shub-Niggurath) to the global elite, whose offspring are not what they might seem... This is actually a really interesting organization with many potential uses. Without time constraints I'd love to write a campaign on them. 4/5

- The Lonely

Unnatural lonely people interacting online and haunted by a mysterious book... Not bad and indeed a creative use of the King in Yellow. However after reading Impossible Landscapes I am tempted to compare both interpretations of this great entity of the mythos and then The Lonely don't evoke the feelings I most strongly associate with the KiY. 3/5

- The Sowers

A Christian fundamentalist sect in the Rust Belt is building self-reliant communities with the help of Nyarlathotep and will retaliate against DG using some really good lawyers and a PR-firm? Sounds like fun! Indeed I like the Sowers but unfortunately due to the fact that they are only active in a certain locale one would have to play a campaign which focuses on this area in the first place or write a story which only concentrates on the Sowers. This however is as time consuming as with NLF. 4/5

- The Prada Sodality

A new-age nonprofit at a remote compound in Washington State has developed an energy healing technology in an old ICBM silo to help people get healthy. Throw in a joint venture of GRU SV-8 and March Technologies as well as the Lloigor and you got all you need for a great campaign! This is by far the best and most extensive part of the book. You get the description of the city Stanton in Washington State including a small selection of NPCs and locales plus some information on the fascinating and violent past of this place. Seriously, this is might be the best setting so far devised for a sandbox-campaign in DG. It is a pity that this chapter did not evolve into its own publication. 50 additional pages (including a more epic finale) and this would have been a system seller. 4.5/5

In conclusion I fear this publication is not quite sure what it wants to be: The chapters on the antagonists (especially Sowers, Prada and NLF) have great ideas but read more like campaign-sketches which need additional work than new shadowy and nefarious organizations which can compare to OUTLOOK, Karotechia or MAJESTIC working in the background. The friendlies are actually more or less interesting and can be incorporated relatively well (sometimes easier, sometimes with more work) into a running campaign. The result is a weird but interesting mix which will require some time by experienced handlers to be used properly in game.… (més)

Note: mild spoilers are included.

Not to keep anyone in suspense (not that anyone was in suspense), I really liked this story collection. It may be hard to come by so if you really want this title (and you should!) just be diligent.

By now the spy/noir/governement conspiracy mythos subgenre is pretty well established, what with novels by Charlei Stross and Cody Goodfellow, and stories in The Spialing Worm. It's easy to forget how ground breaking Delta Green was. For me it was revelatory, but I had never played Call of Cthulhu or Delata Green before reading the ficiton. I found The Rules of Engagement and the first few stories of Dark Theaters to be superior to those in Alien Intelligence, but this book is just great on its own merits. I have not read the original source book but it did not lessen my enjoyment of the stories.

John Tynes - The Dark Above: There were certain things about this story I thought were too over the top, particularly the lead man going ballistic when he smelled a fish-like odor from a woman. Also I don't know if Forrest was a character from the source book, because you just had to accept his hardened attitude toward the deep ones half breeds. What I mean was this emotional aspect of character development wasn't as well realized as the rest of the story. Too bad, because the actual substance of the story and its imagery were terrific. I wish Mr. Tynes would retturn to Delta Green for a few more stories.

Dennis Detwiller - Drowning in Sand”: A great read!

Ray Winniger - Pnomus: Another great read!! Both of these stories epitomize the best of modern, creative mythos fiction.

Bruce Baugh - Climbing the South Mountain: An OK conventional brain robbing mythos type story in poem form. I'm not too into mythos poetry. The very end of the narrators's poem and the memo from Delta Green were the best parts for me.

Greg Stolze - Potential Recruit: Yet another great read, this time about trying to infiltrate cult with darker connections than suspected.

Adam Scott Glancy - An Item of Mutual Interest: Perhaps
the most coventional type mythos story in the book. Enjoyable but nothing special.

Bob Kruger - Identity Crisis: Did not knock my socks off. Maybe it tried to cover a little too much ground and would have worked better as a short novel. Still a very agreeable read.

Blair Reynolds - Operation Looking Glass: A fast paced roller coaster ride to ice the cake of this nifty anthology.

My complaints are perhaps too cantankerous. This collections beats out any of the Chaosium collections (except maybe The Hastur Cycle) for consistent overall quality. Those anthologies have too much chaff with the wheat. It tops most of the Fedogan and Bremer collections too (except Cthulhu 2000, the first place I saw Black Man With A Horn). Essential reading for the modern Cthulhu mythos reader.… (més)