I've always loved the Shadowtalk. It was what I missed about the 3rd edition books (Magic in the Shadows, cannon companion, etc) and it's what I'm glad to see back in the 4th edition books. I also like how the personalities are mostly kept consistent (the notable exception being Truthseeker and Dr. Bones' personalities in "Cyberpirates" being at odds with previous material in the canon, but that was a rare exception). I think it says something when you find yourself mentally reacting to some Shadowtalkers like you would to people on the internet in real life (i.e. mentally saying, "Yeah, blah blah blah" when Hugh Mann, Dark Father or Crescent Moon posts, etc).

I LOVED Hachetman's story in the beginning of Cybertechnology, about how he got all of his cyberware at some points in his life. It just felt so believeable. Too often, I think, when we create characters with cyberware, we don't think about what lead them to get it, but this story (how he got his cybereyes after being rendered blind by a shotgun muzzle flash, his cyberhand and eventual entire arm because he didn't want to walk around with his pinky missing after being forced into yubitsume by the yakuza, etc.) has inspired me to really give that kind of thing some thought when creating my cyberware-equipped characters.

I have to say I enjoyed the Art Dankwalther story. It was so unlike anything else that I had seen in Shadowrun.

And finally, I just enjoy the real-world references peppered throughout the books. Ahnuld has been mentioned already, and there have been many others - the Bruce Springsteen song in the Flash-Pak entry in Street Samurai Catalog ("Why am I remembering some song lyrics right now? Something about being "blinded by the light...")...and for some reason I can't remember any others offhand, but there's been quite a few.

See, that is what makes a lot of the earlier books so interesting. If you're going to add fluff, Shadowtalk should be one of the biggest ones. Heck, I wouldn't mind a little less pages of story and a little more pages of Shadowtalk since that is read a whole lot more often.

I would really like to see a new Prime Runners book. For the big names, we don't need stats. A known history, personality, background, etc would be great. And a "What happen to them" section about the old guys that disappeared would be nice too.

I'd never be able to watch it. I couldn't sit through more than 50 minutes of Borat. It was funnier listening to the guy who played Borat talk about the movie than it was to watch the same scenes in the movie (one of the things that they had to make sure of was that he couldn't be arrested; the rest of the crew? Sure, but not Borat. So there's a point at which he knocks on a guy's door to ask to use the phone, takes a shower, and gets thrown out of the guy's house wearing only the dude's towel and the cops are coming so he's hiding under the bench seat of the van trying to figure out how to a) give the towel back while b) not getting arrested for public nudity).

but then, how do you get most of thoese little references that make you go WTF and LOL? O.o

Sadly, I miss them. But if I do not turn off portions of my brain...
Revolts!

AUGH! IT BURNS AND STINGS! x.x . .
Seriously, i really do not like Die Hard all that much . .
And being IT-Guy and in Tech-Support, that hurt me allmost physically <.<

Yep.

Then both of you can understand why I defensively 'kill -9 upperthought'

I had to do that to myself once. I'd like to avoid any more situations that require it.

That's from DotSW IIRC, showing Professor Schwartzkopf at Charles University (see SoE).

The picture that got me was the cover from ShadowTech.

It's been so long that I now just smile knowingly.

The Renraku Arcology Shutdown plot.

Sci-fi horror at it's best. Well thought of, creepy and mysterious. The backstory for this starts way back to the very first novels set in the SR universe (the Secrets of Power triology) and it's just great to see how it all leads to the Shutdown. It has great elements to it, such as the Titanic-like reversal of human ambition and folly, all the sick stuff that happens inside and the whole sheer mass of it all. It goes without saying that the Renraky Arcology : Shutdown sourcebook was itself a little stroke of genius.

(Props to all the SR staff who were involved in that project !)


[Edit : typo]

Hatchetman. Cybertechnology is easily one of my favorite Shadowrun books of all time.

I liked Surge and the YotC.

Could someone post, in order, all the novels/sourcebooks which make up that storyline? I'd love to read it start to finish.

Hope I'm not missing anything (and it's possible my order is a bit off):

Secrets of Power Trilogy (novels)
Technobabel (novel)
Psychotrope (novel, related from the angle of the AI Mirage)
Renraku Arcology: Shutdown
Brainscan
Matrix (not really part of the storyline, just talks about the otaku a bit)
Threats 2
System Failure

I want to say Pax and her dissonant tribe gets mentioned somewhere else before System Failure, but I can't recall where. There also also tiny bits of info scattered into older books, basically just about the Arcology and SCIRE, but those aren't really critical to the story, just bits that tie it back to some old Shadowrun material.

The Novels don't really go into too much Detail of the whole Shutdown . .

Yeah, the Secrets of Power trilogy just basically mentions Morgan (Renraku's first AI) and her relationship to Dodger. It's connected to the Deus storyline basically because Morgan is, but it doesn't cover the shutdown. Technobabel has an appearance by Deus, though he's not mentioned by name. The main character is basically an otaku created by Deus to carry out a certain mission pre-Shutdown, but the otaku refuses. Psychotrope doesn't directly deal with Deus at all, but does deal with some otaku created by another AI named Mirage, who interacts with Deus a bit in System Failure.

The real meat of the storyline takes place over Renraku Arcology: Shutdown, Brainscan, and System Failure. Threats 2 does detail two groups connected to the storyline, Deus' Network and Pax's dissonant otaku, Ex Pacis.

all in All, in the Novels, NOBODY knows what happened in there.
It's only touched upon ny some news broadcasts some characters are watching.
Also, Psychotrope . . i liked it ^^

For me, it has to be the people. Shadowtalk, Hatchetman's story, etc. The Dragonheart trilogy is what got me really into the storyline in the first place. Black Madonna is a great example of what happens when elves meddle in human affairs.

[Edit:] Thanks for the info!

of all the . . well, there ARE lusty brown elven nipples . .

They were the first books I got my hands on, thank you very much!

Am I the only straight male alive who doesn't obsess over Nadja Daviar? She's hot. So are my girlfriends. I can actually TOUCH my girlfriends. This makes my girlfriends more interesting to me. If I want perky brown nipples, I have porn for that.

QED

I loved SR from the start 20 years ago. after playing lots of D&D the idea of being a "magic user" with an SMG tickled the heck out of me.

I liked the original UB- before the bug meta plot got used too much, Queen Euphoria and 2XS

Oh wow! Queen Euphoria! How could I have forgotten that! I remember playing that with my Shaman PC. The GM hid the module cover the entire game which made us pester him to let us see it even more! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

That was a great adventure. I would love to write a sequel to it someday.

It's true, the shadowtalk in 2E was one of the best parts of the sourcebooks. And I'm glad it's back in 4E, but it's still not as entertaining as it was back in 2E.