Having decided to see what the new Amazon print-on-demand GURPS 4th Edition books might be like, I was delighted to receive them today. I wanted them for use at the school RPG club and I plumped for the cheapest option: paperback with black and white interior.

Here they are about 2 minutes after pulling them out of the shipped package, which was a sturdy cardboard envelope. As you can see, they almost immediately reacted to the temperature change in the house and curled at the edges. Past experience has shown that stacking them under a couple of heavier books for a few days helps them to flatten.

Black and white interior feels slightly weird if you have (like me) already bought the full-colour hardback books from 2004. That said, the print is crisp and I don’t think I am too worried about the art in greyscale , especially for a reference copy.

The paper Amazon print on demand uses is not the highest quality but it does hold the ink well enough and isn’t so thin that you can see the text on the other side. It has a matt finish which makes the books about the same thickness as the hardback versions.

I like the bright colours of the covers and although these are cheaply bound with glue the overall feel is that they will last regular use over time. I know from previous buys of GURPS books from Amazon that the books wear just fine.

Overall, for a total cost of about £50 this is a reasonable purchase. You can opt for full-colour interiors for a higher price, and you can opt for hardcovers for still more. For my purposes, having a relatively cheap copy in paper with black and white interiors – a total of 575 pages – feels good enough.

Game on!