Rating: 
Summary: Some essential things, but overall weak
Review: From my experience, the rogue is considered by most gamers to be pretty well balanced, while the bard is generally looked upon as somewhat lacking. In fact, I've seen more bard variants than any other class except the ranger. So, how did WotC do expanding on the bard & rogue classes? Let's take a look.ARTWORK: Almost all painfully bad. Check out page 79 for Lidda the halfling's giant-sized hand holding the crossbow. WotC employs some of the finest fantasy artists in the business, but it looks like one of their kid brothers got their big break in Song & Silence. Wayne Reynolds saves the day in places, but those are few and far between. PRESTIGE CLASSES: To get an idea of the prestige classes, let me run some of the names by you. Dread pirate (Roberts?), dungeon delver, spymaster, temple raider (just call it tomb raider!), vigilante. What word would I use to describe those? Generic! That seems to be the general fault of these PrCs: Little or no flavor. There are exceptions. How does the fang of lolth sound? Much more interesting, right? That one is so much cooler than the rest, it seems almost out of place. The thief-acrobat is an old favorite which is nice to see done up for 3E. The virtuoso is debatably what the core bard should have been in the first place! TRAPS: This part can help DMs design cool traps. There are also 90 example traps by CR -- very handy. FEATS: One of the stronger elements of the book. Nice mix of bard and rogue feats. EQUIPMENT: Huge section on bardic instruments. The descriptions are explicit. The unique strengths and weaknesses of each instrument is a great idea. Why no actual stats? Where's the price, weight, size, etc? No idea why this wasn't added. Where are the rules for designing your own instrument? The other equipment is decent, but not terribly inspired. That is, unless you absolutely love garrotes. SPECIAL RULES: This aspect is, to me, the main saving grace of the book. There are variant tumble rules. DMs: Too used to seeing your tumbling players dance away from AoOs with the simple DC 15 check? Well, now there are rules for counter tumble, and environment variables that modify the tumble DC. My favorite part of the whole book is the essential elaboration of the flanking rules. How does flanking large creatures work? How does flanking with reach weapons work? You can find out in Song & Silence. SPELLS: Nice assortment of new bard spells, and a few thrown in for the assassin too! OVERALL: Sorry to say, but I consider this to be one of the weaker class book overall. Don't get me wrong, there is some essential stuff in here, such as the new flanking rules. Still, overall, I walk away with a very generic feeling from Song & Silence. I wish the rogue got a lot more attention; it seems the bard kind of steals the show. In my game, I've switched over to Monte Cook's variant bard from his Book of Eldritch Might 2. I highly recommend that version of the bard for deeper bardic flavor. All in all, this is no Tome & Blood or Masters of the Wild, but it does have some things you'll want in your game. As with all WotC's books, keep an eye out on their website for downloadable errata!
Rating: 
Summary: Am I a better rogue and petty knave for owning this book?
Review: Granted, I am one of WOTC's consumer drones: put a new source book for D&D on the market and I will buy it for my gaming group's library. The section on traps is definitely worth the cost of buying this book especially if your DM will permit your rogue to earn XP for defeating a nasty trap. Otherwise, the prestige classes offered simply give people options for player development. Myself, I favor a cleric/rogue multiclassed character. The saving throws tend to be well-rounded and no one minds that you have a tendency to shun melee combat. Well, except for that lunatic half-orc paladin in the front row.....
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but useful!!
Review: I admit that I was expecting something more from this supplement, but most of the topics covered in it will be useful to me. I play a rogue on a campaing where we have three of us (with different class combinations), and also I'm a master with a bard and a rogue on my games. Most of the prestige classes were poor, but the Thief-Acrobat makes the section worthy. You can take also some good ideas from the Traps section and some of the Feats (see the Requiem one, for example). The spells section it's worth a look, too.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, My Bard can become more useful
Review: I am currently using a bard in my campaign, so when I saw this nice little booklet, I jumped for joy (not REALLY).
When I did a thurough read, the amount of spells and feats that my bard can use just blew up in my face. Now I dont think that a Bard is as useless as most people say.
The only thing that I do have to complain about is the Prestige classes. Out of the 10 they have only 1 would compliment a Bard. That kinda made me fell ripped off. What I don't mind.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, better for bards.
Review: I guess that I was expecting a book that was as good as the "Complete Thief's Handbook" from a few years ago. I think that the book is geared a bit more towards bards with all of the spells. If you are planning on getting all of the guidebooks, this is as good as the rest. All in all not bad, but some of the prestige classes were a bit un-imaginative. i.e. Tomb ... er... I mean Temple Raider. Come on guys. But, if that is what people want, I guess that is fine.
Rating:
Summary: Song and Silence Review
Review: I have found what I was looking for in this book. Namely :
- new prestige class
- new rules (or rules modification) specific to rogues
- great rules on traps (how to create them and sample of typical traps with the different DC to search them and disable them).
What more could I say ?
I am not a big fan of the bard character class, therefore I skipped most of it in the book, but the rest is interesting.
Anyway this book is far more valuable than the Defender of the Faith sourcebook but I would rate it slightly below Tome and Blood...
Rating:
Summary: Best of the WoTC Expansion Book
Review: I own all of the WoTC expansion books and this one is the all around best. The other books are geared towards DM's, in that they create prestige classes which would make colorful NPC's. Song and Silence has a healthy selection of prestige classes that players would actually like to become. Futhermore, the feats are very well defined and thought out, and in some circumstances, improved (S&S redefines, for the better, some of the expansion feats in Sword and Fist).
Rating:
Summary: Best of the WoTC Expansion Book
Review: I own all of the WoTC expansion books and this one is the all around best. The other books are geared towards DM's, in that they create prestige classes which would make colorful NPC's. Song and Silence has a healthy selection of prestige classes that players would actually like to become. Futhermore, the feats are very well defined and thought out, and in some circumstances, improved (S&S redefines, for the better, some of the expansion feats in Sword and Fist).
Rating:
Summary: It would probably help if I liked bards...
Review: I waited for this with baited breath. My current character is a rogue, and after seeing the Blade Dancer in Oriental Adventures, the idea of having my character be a Thief-Acrobat was all I could think about. And so, when I heard it was at my friendly local gaming store, I ran to get it. And I'm just a tad disappointed. Basically, this is the bard & rogue splatbook for D&D3. In it, we find 10 prestige classes, rules for creating traps, new uses for skills, new feats, new items, both mundane and magical, organizations, role-playing tips, and new spells for bards and assassins (because, you know, assassins are rogue-like...). Things that I liked, well, the dungeon delver, royal explorer, and thief-acrobat prestige classes were pretty cool. The skill discussions and feats are nice and useful, and I like having a system for creating traps that's not painfully stupid (thankfully, no treadmills here!). The bardic organizations are quite interesting. Now, unfortunately, the remaining prestige classes...I consider them uninteresting at best (Virtuoso, Outlaw of the Crimson Road) or obscenely stupid (Fang of Lolth) at worst. Most of the prestige classes suffer from reduced skill points from what rogues have. And...now, this is a personal bias, but, to be frank, it affected what I thought of this book. I don't really care for bards. I've thought about playing bards, but I can't, really. I would've appreciated the parts devoted to bards to have been replaced with things that are useful to rogues. I realize the classes are related, and that not a lot of people are going to share my disdain, but...still. All in all, I'd really hoped to give this 5 stars. I'd give it 3.5 if I could, but out of memory for my anticipation, I'll round it up to 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: A little to little
Review: I waited with anticipation for the release of this sourcebook, but was sorely dissapointed. The section on traps was interesting and is a section I will use, but thats about it. The Prestige Classes gave the impression of thrown together the night before, and the choices of discussions never went to the heart of the bard or the rogue. This product has put me on guard for further releases. Is third edtion heading the way of the 2nd edtion, lots of quanity, but zero quality? We will see.
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