Shadowrun-like literature Options

[Tanegar]

Yeah, I know there's a topic or five floating around already. I don't feel like searching them out.

I recently read Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow (an awesome runner's alias if ever I saw one), and I think it's the most pink mohawk thing I've ever read. The main character is a real!magician living in a futuristic world with hovercars and personal plasma weapons, and her favored weapon is a katana. The climax of the book is a hoverboard assault from an invisible flying garbage truck on a demon's private island in Antarctica. It's basically Shadowrun meets The Fifth Element. The quality is a little uneven: the protagonist has definite Mary Sue qualities, and spends much of the book in Jerk Sue territory. The action scenes are pretty good, though.

[Lanlaorn]

If you want awesome Pink Mohawk cyberpunk insanity (no magic, but there are hackers who border on technomancers) I strongly recommend David J. Williams' The Mirrored Heavens, The Burning Skies and The Machinery of Light.

They're very well written and the the level of sheer Pink Mohawk destruction involved is incredible.

[Hound]

For the magicky side of it, I thought Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series was okay, though I only read the first few. It's kind of cheesy, but it follows a magician PI in a modern world. So less on the futuristic stuff, but it has the downtrodden/noir aspect that people sometimes associate with SR.

Also, this may go without saying, but there is William Gibson's books. Much of his old work is said to have been part of the inspiration for Shadowrun, especially Neuromancer. Neuromancer is basically set in a Shadowrun world minus the magic/faerie creatures. Excellent book and contains many elements of Shadowrun. Recently read Spook Country which was also pretty good, and could easily have been a Shadowrun campaign in my opinion.

[Lanlaorn]

Well there's a ton of cyberpunk you could read really, Snow Crash definitely deserves a mention. I could definitely see someone naming their character Hiro Protagonist and walking around with katanas at least =P

[ravensmuse]

Jennifer Government. Jennifer Government and unlikely ally Hack Nike try to stop John Nike from overthrowing government in the name of profit. Very modern-esque technopunk.

The author has apparently also done a book about augmentation - Machine Man.

Also, The Good Thief's Guides - Amsterdam, Paris, Las Vegas and now Venice. These are low-key thieving tales of a part time thief, full time writer, who always ends up getting in way over his head (and sometimes dragging his editor into the mess) but featuring lots and lots of the sort of thing runners need to remember: surveillance, planning, and execution. Paris in particular has a great example of a face, by the way, one of my favorites.

Comic books and manga kind of qualify as literature, so I'll throw these out as well -

The Losers is a...little over-the-top re: their view of American politics, but this ex-special ops team shows you how it should be done, through subterfuge, guile, and the proper use of force. Also features a great little scene in Seadonia which is hilarious for all you hackers out there.

Densha Otoko. Now, people are going to scratch their heads at this one, but that's fine. What I like about Densha - and the reason I recommend it - is that not enough Shadowrun players realize just what a profound effect the internet is having on things like communication and connection. Densha Otoko is the story of a geek who stops a drunk man from assaulting women on a train and ends up falling in love with a beautiful lady. With the assistance of, of all things, 4chan (the Japanese equivalent, anyway) the geek and the woman fall in love. Supposedly a true story, I dunno, but beautiful and sweet and shows what technology can actually do for us in a positive light.

[Infornography]

Besides William Gibson's Neuromancer, there are many more Novels Shadowrun borrows from.

Pat Cadigan's Mindplayers is where the idea of datajack man-machine-interfaces comes from.
And riggers are from Laura J. Mixon's Glass Houses.

[Glyph]

The whole urban fantasy genre - it tends to focus on werecreatures and vampires, but a lot of it is a goldmine of ideas about how the modern world might adjust to magic and the existence of fantasy races.

Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams, is another one of those old-school cyberpunk books, and one that shows what it could be like if a prime runner made a serious attempt to bring down a megacorporation.

[CanRay]

The Dresden Files. It's in modern day, but it fits in so many ways.

[Illume]

I just finished reading the Avery Cates series by Jeff Somers, and they weren't half bad. No magic, but its got plenty of cyberpunk.

[TheOOB]

Also, this may go without saying, but there is William Gibson's books. Much of his old work is said to have been part of the inspiration for Shadowrun, especially Neuromancer. Neuromancer is basically set in a Shadowrun world minus the magic/faerie creatures.

Shadowrun is what happened when someone read neuromancer during a D&D session. Neuromancer created cyberpunk.

I'd also suggest Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep aka blade runner. It's not big on setting, but it's got some interesting stuff. Read it during jury duty a few weeks ago.

[Infornography]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep aka blade runner. It's not big on setting

What? I don't think we read the same book.

[wasgreg]

Well there's a ton of cyberpunk you could read really, Snow Crash definitely deserves a mention. I could definitely see someone naming their character Hiro Protagonist and walking around with katanas at least =P

The first chapter of Snow Crash is one of my all time favorite bits of prose. And darnit, I can't help but smile whenever I say his name, "Hiro Protagonist."


wasgreg wassmilin'

[CanRay]

Best name I've ever heard for a main character indeed!

[Remnar]

I'll perform some minor thread Necromancy to add a few books I just read/am reading.

Running Black by Patrick Todoroff
- No magic, and not so much cyber, but its got deniable assets performing tasks for mega corps. Good tale about how a split decision during a run can have ... interesting... concequences.

Under The Amoral Bridge by Gary Ballard
- I'm still reading this one, but it seems to be about the life and times of a fixer type character. Reminds me of the old Nigel Finely novel... Shadowplay?

Pocket Full of Spells by Ash Stirling.
- Not my cup of tea with the writing style, but the protagonist is a cyber-enhanced magic user slaughtering vampires (and the like) for fun and profit; whats not to like there?

Eternity Falls by Kirk Outerbridge
- More of a cyberthriller, but there's some good hacking and detective work. Lots of religion as part of the focus though, might not be for some people.

Dead Dwarves Don't Dance By Derek J Canyon
- Not quite so much Cyber or Magic, but a great Pink Mohawk esk tale of revenge.

[JonathanC]

I'm always the first guy in a thread like this to recommend George Alec Effinger's Budayeen trilogy (When Gravity Fails, et. al), but that's okay. It just means that more people get to experience the awesomeness of reading the books for the first time.

[TheOOB]

What? I don't think we read the same book.

The book spends almost no time explaining the setting, the world the story takes place in, how things work, why the way thing are, it jumps right into the plot and expects you to follow along, the significance of many of the setting elements either explained briefly much later in the book, or not at all requiring you to make inferences and guesses. I suppose it does have a good setting, but it doesn't spend much time explaining it at all, instead focusing almost entirely on the characters.

It's a great book, but it focuses on the human aspect of cyberpunk, not the kind of world where cyberpunk takes place.

[Lanlaorn]

It's a novel, not a campaign setting book. "Show, don't tell" is pretty standard in good writing, I don't expect exposition about why the world is how it is, just tell me what it's like and let me work it out. You say the reader has to "make inferences and guesses" like it's a bad thing.

[nylanfs]

I would HIGHLY recommend the Cassandra Kresnov trilogy by Joel Shepherd.

There's no magic, but I draw alot of inspiration from those three books. I just wish he would write some more of them.

[KarmaInferno]

I would HIGHLY recommend the Cassandra Kresnov trilogy by Joel Shepherd.

There's no magic, but I draw alot of inspiration from those three books. I just wish he would write some more of them.

I just wish his publisher didn't set such a high cover price for the books!

Seriously, it's like double that of most other books of the same size.

Also, Re: Gibson, don't mention Shadowrun to the guy. Just don't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)




-k

[Blade]

I'm always the first guy in a thread like this to recommend George Alec Effinger's Budayeen trilogy (When Gravity Fails, et. al), but that's okay. It just means that more people get to experience the awesomeness of reading the books for the first time.

Yeah, great series.

And I'm always the first guy to recommend Dr Adder and Noir, both by K.W. Jeter. The first is cyberpunk with a huge emphasis on punk. The second has ridiculous pro-copyright rage but other than that is filed with good ideas.

[TheOOB]

Mnemosyne, an anime series, had an interesting bit which explains some of the hazards of AR. A father had to tell his daughter to wear some real clothes because not everyone is seeing the AR clothes all the time.

The series doesn't have much else like this(only one episode is from the future of six), but it's an interesting scene none-the-less. Don't take this as a recommendation of the series though, it's great...but not for the weak of stomach.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Mnemosyne, an anime series, had an interesting bit which explains some of the hazards of AR. A father had to tell his daughter to wear some real clothes because not everyone is seeing the AR clothes all the time.

The series doesn't have much else like this(only one episode is from the future of six), but it's an interesting scene none-the-less. Don't take this as a recommendation of the series though, it's great...but not for the weak of stomach.

Have not seen that one, will have to check it out.

[Kirk]

Finally got and read my copy of Charles Stross's second Halting State book -- Rule 34.

No magic, slightly different dystopia, but otherwise it's solid SR matrix just like its predecessor. (Halting State, if that's not obvious.)