This book really helps to give a storyteller ideas about what steps the Camarilla and tbe Sabbat take when either side decides to beseige and take a city. While much of it would seem logical, White Wolf goes into some depth here, and examines all sides of any potential conflict: Camarilla, Sabbat, Anarchs, Independent clans... And it looks at what they do when they are defending or attacking.

Taken side by side with "Gilded Cage" this book helps to redefine Vampire: The Masquerade away from the brutal ultra-violence and more into the environmental-spanning manipulations necessary to run a political campaign.

Some of the graphics (one or two full-page ones, and most of the NPC templates) are way too dark, though (I can barely see any detail). But beyond that, there's definitely something for everyone here.

I'll get to the point quickly and without repetition, unlike the book itself: Jon Katz makes some good (but often obvious) points; unfortunately, he feels it necessary to repeat them ad infinitum. What takes up 200 pages could have easily been summarised in a magazine article.

I'm a parent of boys 9 and 12. I try to choose which movies they see, but they see the ones on my 'black list' at the neighbors down the street. When my older boy is on the net I wonder what he is looking at (usually it is the 'Hate Hanson' chat group, cheat codes for a computer game, or email to a friend). He likes 'gangsta rap' and I don't know why. I've spent a ton of time working on fatherhood issues and I do everything in my power to be a good parent. I am 50. This book is important because Katz reminds us: 1. the world is complex, more so than is comfortable for us to think, 2. human nature is resilient, more so than we may trust, 3. morality and conscience arise from the quality of day to day (minute by minute?) life in our families and communities, and they will not be undermined by dirty pictures or songs, 4. the modern media, internet and culture provide an incredible vista for our children, both awful and sublime, but an incredible amount of information by any measure. My 'take away' from Katz's book is to trust my children, and myself, in negotiating the new media culture. My job is to help my kid come to terms with the reality of our world, not to try to block it out. As Katz reminds me, it is not going to go away anyhow. This is a good book. I give it a full 5 stars because Katz is such a good writer. Some of Katz's prose jumps off the page.

Katz's faith that his 15 year-old daughter has the savvy to negotiate the internet wilderness is a wonderful testament to the new generation which has to endure morals-preaching presidents of Oval Office sexcapade, virtuecrat Republicans who whine when their affairs are exposed, and a so-pious adult generation whose own morals are nothing for the young to copy. Katz's fury at the ridiculous hippie-prig anti-cyberspace unholy alliance of the '90s is worth the few facts on youth risks that he gets wrong. A great book, a needed message, and one ironically large in the post-Starr era.