Born to Run novel, I don't get it Options

[mintcar]

Thanks for clearing that up. Sure sounds like bull :) .

[SL James]

[fistandantilus4....]

[Deadjester]

I have read the newest two book by SK and while I think they are a good instruction manuals for noobies, as books they left me feeling cheated.

Not enough about the characters are known so that you can get a good feel for them and it all feels rushed.

And I think for the price you pay for those books you get robbed. The printing is larger then normal and the space between the lines are pretty large which probably added another 40 pages to the book that it should not have.

Paid full price for what amounts to a book that is just larger then a short story.

For SR books one of my favorit series (I forget the titles) was written about this guy Sam looking for his sister and he ended up being the golden boy for the totem dog and ended up with the babe Heart.

But you got to meet all sorts of charcters and see alot of how the shadows worked on small and grand scale.

THAT was a real series.

[BookWyrm]

I think that's the novel Lone Wolf by Nigel D. Findley.

[PBTHHHHT]

wrong, that series is the Find Your Own Truth series. One of the first srun novels if I recall. NOT written by Nigel D. Findley. Lone Wolf is about an undercover LS cop who gets hung out to dry and he must find out why.

[hyzmarca]

Sam "Twist" Verner appears in the Secrets of Power trilogy.

[PBTHHHHT]

oops, that's what I meant, the secrets of power. where the heck did I think of find your own truth? Ah well, it's past midnight and I'm at work trying to complete deadlines, that's my excuse... yeah...

I stand corrected. :-) i think i need caffeine right about now...

edit: Ahhhh, now I know where I got the whole find you truth thing from, it's the name of the third book in the series... duh. And to make it exhaustive, the Secrets of Power series, for those who want to reminded are 'Never Deal with a Dragon', 'Choose Your Enemies Carefully', and 'Find Your Own Truth' by Robert N. Charrette. :)

[Rajaat99]

[SL James]

Shadowplay by Nigel Findley (the novel's plot is heavily referenced in Corporate Shadowfiles, which he also wrote).

[Cynic project]

Again I'll post the thing that killed the whole story for me. Trust.

Your team should trust each other enough to take a gun from your teammate and know it is loaded, cause he said so. You should true your team mates with your life,cause if you don't you will get dead. Each and evrytime you go ona run you are putting your lives on the line based on the trust of your teammates. This kind of trust is not earned over night,over a fist fight with a bunch of ganger that could have been easily staged.

You do not trust you Johnson.No mater how many times they hire you.You look them in the eye and nod, but you don't take their word that water is wet without tuching it. any and all info you get from them has to varrified form another source. Yes Johnsons do bad things.Yes they lie. Get over it. Get over the fact they are highering you do bad things.Get over the fact they will use and throw you away when it suits them.If you can't deal witht aht level of pragamtic people, you shouldn't be a runner.

[BookWyrm]

Ah, got it, thanks PHBT & hyzmarce.

[BookWyrm]

[Kremlin KOA]

[BookWyrm]

Well, the book's finally finished. Not bad, keeps the story going. Can't wait for the next.

[fistandantilus4....]

wow, 300 some-odd pages, and that's all it gets. Man, a review with that little to say says very little for the book. I may acutally skip this one. Now i can't wait for May. X-Men comes out, Hardy's book comes out, wife's birthday.. err wait... that just makes me spend more money. May sucks!

Seriously BW, that's all you've got to say for it? I've had more to say about salt on snails.

[BookWyrm]

I didn't want to spoil it for anyone else. The toxic shaman seemed a little....tame for my taste, his description being something akin to a Cenobite. And it's written as an introduction for new players/readers to the SR world. Stephen Kenson pulls this off very well, but I'd rather wait until the trilogy is done to give a full review.

[fistandantilus4....]

That still seems to sum up my problems with the first one (still haven't found the second novel locally). It just seemed to tame. Like something a GM that was new to the game would do. No real embellishments, nothing out of the ordianry or particularily exciting. Oh well.

[BookWyrm]

Fistandantilus, try ordering it through a local Barnes & Noble or Borders. My local ones have not let me down. Of course, I order my RPG stuff through Previews & my local comic shop, but all my novel needs are met by either one.

[fistandantilus4....]

my lovely wife just got me the membership thingy through them, plus I 've got a spare gift card sitting around here somewhere. I'll probably look for something else, and then pick that up if I can't find anything. I'll probably get the Special Edition of Snatch first though. Priorities and all that. ;) The reviews I've seen so far haven't really pushed it to the top of my list.

Besides, I still need to order Cara Fahd, and Crystal Raiders of Barsaive. So much to do...

[BookWyrm]

True, true. It should stay available for order for a while yet.

[BookWyrm]

OK, novel 3 (Fallen Angels) is out, because I picked up mine one Friday the 10th. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'll report after I'm done.

Steven, if you're seeing this, keep the good works coming, brother. :smokin:

[JonathanC]

I'm not familiar with Kenson's previous Shadowrun material. I did, however, buy Born to Run and Poison Agendas recently, because I'm a big fan of his Mutants and Masterminds work.

From what I know of his writing ability, Born to Run was certainly disappointing. But then, I was expecting a novel. This is, I think, intended as a promotional tool to get kids to play Shadowrun. Which is cool. It's written at about the reading level of your average "Young Adult" novel, features the stereotypical young, gifted, good-natured, naive-yet-somewhat-worldly protagonist that tends to occupy most of these books. I found some of the plot points interesting, but the issues surrounding the amulet, Kellan's mother, etc. were mostly ignored, in favor of introducing Kellan (and the reader) to the general flavor of Shadowrun Seattle, as seen by Steve Kenson. I mostly saw the "people should be trustworthy" theme as being a reflection of the youth and naivete of the protagonist...and it should be noted that by the end of the novel, she is witholding information from Lothan, considers killing him in cold blood, and then lies to her "friends" (including her pseudo-love interest, Orion) about Lothan nearly killing them on behalf of Ares Macrotech. And by the time we hit Poison Agendas, she's doing the exact same thing to her 'team' that Lothan did to her in the first book - keeping information away from them that she feels they don't need to know yet, if ever. It's a growing up story; she starts out as basically an SR-flavored Luke Skywalker, and by the second novel she's packing a machine pistol and holding gangers at gunpoint.

The second novel, speaking of which, is a slight improvement. There's still way too much exposition and description of the Shadowrun setting, but the intrigues hinted at in the Epilogue of the first book are finally starting to take hold, and Kellan's lack of guile has gone from being something glossed over by deus ex machina (having the other runners watching her back so she doesn't get in trouble) to something that actually serves a purpose in the story. She foolishly swallows Midnight's story as soon as the words "I knew your mother" are spoken, and basically starts trusting an elf she just met a day ago more than the mage who's been teaching her and watching her back when he could have easily fried her and taken the amulet for further study. Again, the writing style is a bit juvenile in its simplicity, but Shadowrun has been needing some young blood for a while...I can't blame them for wanting to aim the novels at a younger set.

Overall, not a bad way to kill a lazy sunday, but not really worth the price of a paperback novel. Good for what it is, for sure, and I have a sneaking suspicion that using the iconic characters from the action figure game (G-Dogg, Midnight, Liada, Lothan) wasn't Kenson's idea. Taking the constraints of work-for-hire writing into account, Kenson can be forgiven a few more of the book's faults. I'd have preferred something with the depth and imagination of Kenson's work on the Freedom City sourcebook, but nobody has a perfect record. Every writer has their lesser works. And for what it's worth, even Kenson's C-work is reasonably entertaining.

[JonathanC]

Alright, I finished Poison Agendas...it took a serious turn for the worse towards the end, going from a Shadowrun novel to a book adaptation of a summer blockbuster (chemical weapons in downtown Seattle! And only a ragtag team of misfits to stop the unthinkable!) Seriously disappointing.

[BookWyrm]

I'd have to agree with you, Jonathan, it appears that SK was indeed 'suggested' (in the broadest sense) to use the action-figure characters, but I have not been disappointed in his works yet. Check his site for a listing of his books, or over on the official site for a complete listing.