Review Assault on Absalom Station

Tim Pratt has done it again. They have taken a TTRPG setting and turned it into a fun adventure. This book has a similar framing device as the previous one - in the present Dae and Chk Chk are reading the journal of Tyrcell the Android which takes place about 20 years before. The past portions of the book take place about 3-4 years after the events of the first book. Things have calmed down a bit since the events of The Gap and The Society (what eventually becomes the Starfinder Society) has been formed. The main portion of that story has to do with an attack on Absalom Station by Eox, a planet of undead.

The “present day” portion of the story continues on directly from the first book as the main characters continue to go on the hunt for Yaraesa’s clues as to the location of Lost Golarian (the setting of Pathfinder).

The past deals with both the sad and hopeful things that happen when a community is under attack by an identifiable group. I think Pratt does a great job with that theme without getting preachy. The present continues to be a set of puzzles. To be honest, Tim always leaves me wanting more of the present-day story, but I know that the format works best limiting that aspect of the story. I also think that, potentially, we’ll never get a resolution to that part of the story until Paizo is ready (perhaps as part of Pathfinder 3e?) to reveal what’s up with Golarian.

I hope that Paizo continues to give Pratt the assignment to keep fleshing out the early history of the Starfinder universe. He writes compelling characters that are flawed enough to be realistic without tipping over into anti-hero. (Which I think matches the setting of this TTRPG quite well) Also, while I have some guilty knowledge of the Starfinder setting (just finished running my first SF2e adventure) I truly feel that Pratt writes this books so that anyone who enjoys SF can read it whether or not they play Starfinder.

Final thought - I think the plot of this book pairs quite well with the Guilt of the Grave World adventure path for Starfinder 2e. So if you’re both a player and a reader, I would check that out.

• Starfinder
• Paizo