Yay, cover's up!
Cam was right too, it's very pretty!
Totally my thing 
Which is ironic, since I'm an advocate for lowering the power of Ars Magica... Anyway - really looking forward to this book coming out in pdf (I stopped buying dead wood versions).
Looks very intriguing and beautiful. So beautiful, that I have to say I'm sorry ArM5's trade press takes up so much room. It really leaves very little room for the pictures, which is a shame in cases such as this.
Can those of us who participated in the playtest express our opinions from what we saw in that playtest here? If not, can someone with mod powers delete this?
[Deleted as per request, with regret, because I agreed with the opinion. -- David Chart]
A quick explanation of the playtest opinion policy. The reason why we prefer to ask playtesters not to say what they thought about the books is that they can't back that opinion up with anything specific, and people who didn't playtest can't say anything intelligent at all. Once the book is out and everyone can make informed contributions, please do say everything you want to.
This is a slightly unfashionable policy at the moment, I admit, but it's based on experience. Experience that happened before the companies doing playtests differently existed, in most cases. 
My understanding is that we as playtesters should keep our traps shut until the finished product is out, and then only comment upon that. Because if we inadvertently comment upon something we think is in there but did not make the final cut it may start a whole lot of unwanted discussion of what might have been. And as an author as well I'd rather avoid this.
Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing the final product. As always.
I find that quoting bits of the sell text people have obviously missed, while telling meandering stories about my holidays, my garden, or 14th century coats of arms, is generally allowed.
In related news, I have decided to try and listen to pretty much everything that's ever come out of Lake Wobegone.
My copy of The Contested Isle just shipped from Amazon, so I knew it was time to see what my next Ars Magica pre-order would be. A beautiful game, I have all of the 5th edition books, but no one to play with. But they're excellent reading, so I enjoy them immensely.
I missed ordering this when it was released. By random chance a local hobbie store had a copy and I grabbed this today. That doesn't happen on this side of the world often, so I'm pleased.
Darn good book.
I've been having tremendous fun reading this book. All three sections have a great variety of content, and I'm impressed with how well other books have been integrated into it.