Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: SoA
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Trashman
Having read half-way through Shadows of Asia I must say I'm blown.
This is the best SR publication in some time. The same high levels of quality research and imagination as in those 'grand old days' of Chicago, Super Tuesday et al.
Together with LA this makes a wonderfully high mark for me to plan the final chapters of my group's shadow life before the Matrix crash (when I will retire the team for good and stop with SR).
Thumbs up to everybody involved in those two books!
If anybody takes a deep look into his/her wallet to decide whether to buy or not - buy SoA!!! (then go back and get LA)
Absolutely brill!
(even though a part of the Israel entry appears to be missing...)
JongWK
What do you mean by missing?

(Oh, and thanks for the comments. Hope you liked Korea) smile.gif
Ed Simons
QUOTE (Trashman)
This is the best SR publication in some time. The same high levels of quality research and imagination as in those 'grand old days' of Chicago, Super Tuesday et al.

I take it you didn't read the section on Shinto on p.20, which doesn't appear to have been researched at all.

Fortunately, the rest is better.
fistandantilus4.0
You do realize that there was a whole thread for this where Synner , OtakuMike, and Jong (and all the others I'm sure) were trying to get specific feedback, right?

Linky goodness

Not to be a downer on your enthusiasm, 'cause I liked it to. But I think they were hoping for something more constructive.

Ed: Being largely ignorat of Eastern (and western, northen, whatever) religions, don't suppose you'd be willing to fill in some blanks on what they missed then?
Trashman
How embarrassing.
Nope, completely missed that thread on chapter-by-chapter.

Yep, liked Korea a lot (especially since all I knew about the real Korea was Japanese occupation, Japanese racism, Korean War 1951-53 and once fortunately cheap electronics). Made me want to give my team blue helmets and go totally retro to reclaim the 38th parallel for the UN (God, I like Loose Alliances).

Shinto's shite? Well, totally escaped me. I'm more versed in Old Europe's belief businesses. Hope, noone from my team knows anything about it because I'll certainly be too lazy to research the correct material.

But, hey, does anybody realize?
We're only two publications away from having the whole of the Sixth World on our proverbial collective shelf!
i.e. SoSA-Shadows of South America (south of Aztlan) and AM/AA-Awakened Mother/Awakened Africa (everything south of Sahara and east of West Africa).
twirl.gif

The part about Israel missing is on page 107, second column, and reads out under the heading 'Olive Trees and Nuclear weapons':
'This land is smaller than your average UCAS state and
Most of it, making the populated area even smaller...'
Or is this supposed to be some sort of poetic scripture? Especially the 'Most'.
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (Trashman)
How embarrassing.
Nope, completely missed that thread on chapter-by-chapter.


NP, I had to dig through 3 pages to find the link for you. smile.gif

If you want SoLA on your shelf (like I do) you're probably going to have to download it in pdf in chunks, because it's not being released in dead tree form anymore unfortunately. Bugs the hell out of me (and hte writers even more I'm sure). But let's be honest, I'll take what I can get.
Trashman
Yeah, checked the official site and saw that too.
Bleeding-heart conversationists! Just because they are afraid some dragon in the middle of Amazonia might be slightly opposed to having more rainforest cut down.
Ah well, I expect, somebody will take on the Captain Chaos persona and pirate the e-document to give it to some shadowy printers...
(oi, FanPro! That was a joke!!)
hahnsoo
QUOTE (Trashman)
Bleeding-heart conversationists! Just because they are afraid some dragon in the middle of Amazonia might be slightly opposed to having more rainforest cut down.

Don't you mean conservationists? I'm not sure what a bleeding-heart conversationist would be trying to save... maybe trying to save the English language from the depredations of 1337speak.
mfb
bleeding-heart convershahahahaha
Ed Simons
QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
Ed: Being largely ignorat of Eastern (and western, northen, whatever) religions, don't suppose you'd be willing to fill in some blanks on what they missed then?

I'm far from an expert on shinto, but I know a lot more than the person who wrote the section on shinto in SoA. (Which isn't setting the bar very high.)

Try this mistitled thread, where I show what was wrong with shinto in SoA.

Adarael nicely sums up actual shinto later in the thread.
Ed Simons
QUOTE (Trashman)
Shinto's shite? Well, totally escaped me. I'm more versed in Old Europe's belief businesses. Hope, noone from my team knows anything about it because I'll certainly be too lazy to research the correct material.

It requires less than five minutes of research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto_shrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miko

Considering they weren't willing to do that for SoA, it makes me wonder how screwed up the rest if the Eastern Spirituality section is.
SL James
QUOTE (Trashman)
The same high levels of quality research and imagination as in those 'grand old days' of ... Super Tuesday

A-ha a-ha -ah hahaha ha ha

Well, that's a lofty bar to set for a book.

Re: Shinto... Eh. It happens, but it's not like they moved Russia or anything.
Synner
QUOTE (Ed Simons @ Oct 8 2005, 05:15 PM)
Considering they weren't willing to do that for SoA, it makes me wonder how screwed up the rest if the Eastern Spirituality section is.

For what it's worth, I wrote (and heavily researched) the Hinduism and caste material in the India chapter and fact checked all the stuff on Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Zoroastrianism that went into Eastern Spirituality. Pretty much all of it is spot on as far as I'm concerned (I'd have done certain things slightly differently but that's an author's perrogative). From personal interest, I also went over the Shamanism material and that too bears out with current Anthropological and Ethnic studies adapted to the Sixth World cosmology.
fistandantilus4.0
Ed; thanks for the link, 'preciate it.
SL James
Having read the parts on Transcaucasia and Turkestan, I still fail to comprehend how they can even exist. It's not like Armenia and Azerbaijan haven't been on the verge of war for the last 13 years, especially when it comes to Nagorny-Karabakh. You think more non-Muslim and Muslim metas/magicians (and eventually changelings) from the south is going to make them any more eager to deal with each other?

Turkestan... I don't know. My only belief is "Dragons," because dragons cure what ails ye.
Enigma
Because this thread seems to have a life of its own despite the last one ...

I would also like to voice my heartfelt support for this book. Shadows of Asia is simply superb. It is not one of those books like Tir na nOg and the ilk, where every bar in the major cities gets a write up - I own all of these books and find them completely useless. SoA perfectly finds a balance between too much pointless information and too little useful information. It sets a tone for the game which will hopefully survive the great SR4 mistake, and is extremely well written. I particularly like the way that people who actually play and use the game wrote the bits on each country, and they did so with a view to what is actually useful in running shadowrun. For example, I don't know about everyone else but when I read the Japan bit I flipped through all of it until I found the bit about ninjas, read that, sighed deeply in contentment then read everything else.

A heart-felt very well done to all involved in this book - long overdue but very much well worth the wait.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012