Note: I've yet to use this book in play, so this is just my overview and thoughts on reading it.

I bought this a while back thinking it was just a zombie setting for Mythras. I like Mythras, I like zombies... so it was a given. Then I got distracted and didn't pay it any more attention. But I finally got around to looking at it today and WOWZA! Seasons Of The Dead is a whole lot more than just a zombie setting... it's tool kit for running gritty post-apocalypse adventures with Mythras Imperative (the basic starter rules for Mythras).

There is plenty of information on zombies of various sorts, but SotD has stats for a host of other creatures as well, natural and unnatural. There are stats for vampires, robots, xenomorphs, pod people, alien parasites... lions, tigers and bears, oh my! It's wide open on whether to use any or all of these threats... or none of them. The book would work fine for an end of the world without any monsters except the human variety. There is information on diseases and poisons and the various dangers of trying to stay alive... but, strangely, I couldn't seem to find any rules about radiation. That seems like a glaring omission. There's a whole chapter on vehicles, so Mad Max is a possibility as well.

The PDF is bookmarked and there is an index, sort of... it's really an expanded version of the contents by chapter. Better than nothing, but not as useful as an actual alphabetized index.

Despite being a tool-kit, SotD definitely favors the grittier end of the post-apocalypse spectrum. There are no radioactive mutations, no giant monsters, no Gamma World wackiness, no magic. It's closer to a 'serious' setting... but with options for some nasty monsters. I'm tempted to say I could emulate the earlier (first and second) Fallout games with it, but I'd still need to add a few things. It could easily find use as a parallel for Mythras' Luther Arkwright game... as an Earth that has fallen into ruinous horror.

One other point, is that graphically this book is not up to the standards of higher end games. Its layout and illustration are closer to those 'monographs' that Chaosium has put out, or various RPG 'zines... except that this 'zine is over 300 pages. This doesn't bother me too much at all, but I know some people prefer their rulebooks pretty.

Overall I'm enthusiastic about seeing what I can do with it on the table, but it is a tool-kit and will require some work regardless of what I use it for.