Same for France…
Same for the western USA.
Amazon has it, for those in the US in a hurry. They got it to me at the end of last week.
I received a pick-up slip for the post-office today. I think it's probably my copy....
I seem to be responding to criticisms today, so I'll jump in here.
This is layout, not editing. It's a different process, and done by different people. I suspect that the problem here is that the boxes were just hard to fit on the pages and still have a sensible-looing layout, so they got bumped around. There may not be a solution to this; putting things into the main text does not always solve the issue, and as long as we have boxes it will arise.
This is arguably editing, but not in the narrow sense. It has become apparent that our process is bad at catching these sorts of inconsistencies. I'm trying to think of a way to improve it, but it's a hard problem. So, yes, this is a problem, sorry, and we're working on it.
I'm not sure that this is soluble. If the description of Berber religion were all in one place, then the Magic and culture things would be scattered around the book. Something has to be split to unify other things. Unfortunately, we can't duplicate everything, nor can we release all possible versions to see which one is easier to follow.
Quite likely. We ran into word count problems with this book early on. That's why it doesn't cover Egypt. This, again, is not a soluble problem. We have to make the compromises that we think are best, and I doubt we always make the right call. I'm sure we don't make a call that is ideal for every reader of the book.
This is a problem with trying to introduce an almost-completely neglected culture in a relatively short book. We keep working on improving, but it's not an easy task.
Oooh,
I finally have this from my ~Thanksgiving order. Started to read, so far so good.
The word count issue has me wondering: Since the font size varies dramatically across books, why does word count matter? BS&S:MA seems to have fonts on the larger side.
Layout is a black art, strongly affected by the number of chapters, sub-headings, and inserts, and where they come. For example, at one point it looked like it would not be possible to fit all of the locations into Mythic Locations. As a result, we don't know how much space there might be in the book while we are writing the draft.
If, however, we get up to 150,000 words, it won't fit into a standard book, and we have to ask for an expansion. Through the Aegis will be big, for example.
First errata:
On p. 86 (top of first column), Aisha Qandisha if noted to be "a famous Jinn from Morocco", but her statbox on p. 85 does not include the free virtue "Jinn".
This is relevant for anyone trying to call upon her with Sihr.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. What you say makes a lot of sense, so I'll just comment on a couple points.
Very well, I meant editing in the broadest sense. Publishing is not an area of expertise of mine. 
Point taken on the dilemma. You might consider putting cultural religion and magic together with the rest of the culture section, but I expect that wouldn't work in all cases either.
Point taken here too. As a fan I like seeing all the information that can be crammed into a book, but perhaps in some cases you might consider whether you're being over ambitions. One example - I see Tellus is writing in this thread about Aisha Qandisha. I know just enough to understand her significance (and not much more). If I didn't already know this, the little bit of information provided in the book would be absolutely meaningless to me.
Regards
Ordered mine from iguk this morning.
My author copies have just arrived in Oz.
I've been too busy to read it properly, but I'm really proud of this one, even though my part in it was significantly smaller than the others.
Really enjoying the interior art (as authors we rarely see exactly what the art is until the book is published, so it's a "new" treat).
BS&S:MA available in France, but not yet mine (I'll purchase it very soon !)…
Got my copy yesterday and had a brief flick through. Very impressed so far. Of course I went straight for the new magic to see what was on offer there. You know, at one time I was not such a fan of adding new hedge traditions. I have to say, I was wrong. Of course we should. And the guys have done a great job. I get a real sense of the traditions on offer being drawn from local folklore.
Looking forward to taking a deeper look, including all the geography and the rest of the realms, over the weekend. Loving it so far though.
Ok - I've finally given the book a read. I think it does a very thorough job (given the length of the book) describing the customs, the peoples and some of the magic of the area. Lots and Lots of sidebars with good stuff. Overall I'm not sure I'll use it for my current game, but as a regular buyer of Ars Magica books - I'm a happy customer.
In reply to this, reading through this first section again (mainly Timothy and Mark's work IIRC), I was struck by how useful this material would be for Iberian Sagas, specifically those set in the southern half of the peninsular but also for characters from this region as the overlap between the North African cultures with the south of "Spain" (particularly for Sagas set before the canonical 1220 start time eg at the height of the Caliphate of Cordova).
This was not an intentional part of the design from memory but I think it does a great job. By extrapolation, some of the material would be quite useful (with some adaption) for Levantine and Mythic Middle East Sagas potentially.
I'll link a comment and some further thoughts about it in the Andalusian Magi section of my blog when I get a chance, but for those people questioning the relevance of a book on North Africa to Mythic Europe, think again - there's a lot more in here that could be used in a "Hermetic heartland" Saga.
Lachie
I'm not done yet but I'm thoroughly enjoying what I'm reading.
I really appreciate those hints and tips given to the storyguide about how to describe certain cities, reinforcing how different in character they are. Nice touch. And I can see how those additional virtues provided for thieves would make for a great cinematic chase through the markets and city streets. Again, very clever.
Also liking the different options that are provided in some key areas, not least of course what's south of the great desert. Each option provides service as rumour and conjecture and a player reading the book might not know which way the storyguide is going to go with it.
All in all, so far, I'm getting a good sense of a place very different to Mythic Europe. Even the Cradle and the Crescent, as packed and thorough as that was, couldn't help but feel like an extension to Mythic Europe rather than someplace entirely other. The North African coast on the other hand feels highly mythic, with magic and superstition stitched into its very fabric (literally in a few cases), and yet outside the influence of the Order of Hermes.
I could easily see a saga or two based along the coast and further inland in which only the native character archetypes are played. There's certainly enough variety and support for setting and characters that adding a Hermetic magus seems to me very out of place. In fact, that may be my only criticism so far; I haven't yet seen a cast-iron way to get my player magi to go to North Africa. Not as an adventure in foreign lands and certainly not to settle. That may be easier if my saga were set closer to the Med, but I'll keep looking for that opportunity. There was a little mention of slaves being taken by pirates as far north as England, so that might help.
Nice work. Really impressive.