Or will it be outdated with the surely imminent release of Runner Havens?

"Runner Havens" has a different focus and won´t figure into that decision except for budget restraints.

Is it good?

It's good enough.

Is it as good as Dragons of the Sixth World?

Runner Havens (and SR4 location books for the foreseeable future) will focus on specific sprawls which fit the central theme of the book. For instance Runner Havens will feature Seattle (UCAS) and Hong Kong (indy) in detail with brief coverage of Cape Town (Azania), Istanbul/Constantinople (indy), Caracas (indy) and Hamburg (AGS) to round it out and offer variety.

The Shadows of series on the other hand, paints a broad picture of most countries on each continent, their histories, relations, politics and ongoing plots and subplots they are involved in. They often include brief profiles of major sprawls but nothing in depth.

One thing we've endevoured to do is keep the Shadows of series as relevant as possible. Obviously in the wake of the Crash 2.0 there are significant shakeups across the globe but the vast majority of the setting information is still pretty relevant. That being said Shadows of North America was the first to come out and is probably the one that is most dated in terms of the overall geopolitical situation since North Am was one of the areas worse hit by System Failure.

How much does it say about the NAN?

Quite a bit considering that seven of the twelve nations (plus Denver) are NAN states.

Get Shadows of Europe because Europe > North America

Quick few questions for those of you that played SR3 before SR4 came out since you guys are on the subject of fluff books:

Are the new fluff bits (Runner Havens for example) compatible enough regardless of rules system to make them a decent addition to a strictly SR3 game?

Are they over-laden with references and stories that can only be considered pertinent if you've moved on to 2070 and/or the SR4 rules?

Is there enough of a fluff-content ratio to make them worth buying for SR3?

Some of the stuff coming up/out seems pretty interesting, but I don't want to waste my money if they're too SR4-dependant.

I await opinions. Thanks in advance.

My opinion on SoNA: get it. It's awesome. After the BBB, the "Shadows Of" series are some of the best books for SR, after Mr. J's LBB.

Hey, some parts of Europe are so screwed up in SR, we might not even notice another Bug City happening over there...

Of all the problems with that book and PCC in particular, the disappearance of 16 million people isn't even in the top ten.

Meh. Aside from small, easily correctable things like that, I actually rather enjoy the books that are written as compilations. You actually get different voices for different parts, which in a locations book makes more sense anyway.

Thanks for the answers guys.

The good thing about Sh of NA is that it gives you a good background to build upon for any general area you need to be. It will give you the gist about most countries, and some suprising information that you can work with (like the bit about the mormons in Salt Lake). The downside of course is that a lot of it may never be used in your game, but in my opinion, that sort of information is important for any GM and player to have if you have more than a passing interest in the game, because it gives you a fuller view of the world, so you can better portray charaters interacting with it.

Of course, the foundation of most of that background was set by giants over a decade ago.

things change either way. Shadows of Asia and Loose Alliances in the MIddle East section. They go into all this detail about how things are set, then System Failure comes along and changes it all. BUt they had to do all of that to set it up for that change/overhaul.

You do have to wonder if that was perhaps a change on something they didn't like, or that it was infact planned that way. Anyways my point is that even if that info is based off of old info and style ,it's still something to build on.

I'd be quite eager to kill the IUM the moment I got the chance.

Although to be perfectly honest, there is a considerable amount of retconning I'd be willing to do to as far that the Middle East goes. Goddamn the Germany SB.

I rather like SoNA. They make the CAS more than just a bunch of rednecks - instead they consider themselves the last true remnant of the USA when the UCAS went all socialist on them when they absorbed the remains of Canada. And the NAN are now much more than just a place for "wilderness adventures".

I would like to see some kind of a NA update. The new California Free State and the Pueblo Corporate Council in the former Ute could use some up to date coverage.

I liked shadows of NA. I'd never really made a character from the NAN before, mostly because I didn't feel I had enough info to play it decently. But Shadows was good at fleshing that and the conflicts out, which gave me a couple backstory insights.

It's not like you actually get any idea what it's like to really live in any of what's the PCC (including Ute) in SoNA, but I've still seen it done pretty well by people not from around here. SoNA's not really that big a deal.

You know what? Don't get all bent out of shape if the population stats the author made up don't seem realistic to you. I'm sure he/she did some basic research, made up a number, then wrote it down. In the end, do players really care? Mine don't. What I look for in locations books is what the "feel" of the location should be like. Every location has its own kind of "personality" and SoNA, I think, it great at giving you that sense.

Bottom line: besides what will be in Runner Havens, I don't expect the information in SoNA to updated anytime soon. So if you want to be running adventures/plot hooks that originate anywhere else, get it.

PS The info about the PCC annexation of LA does say that everyone there were considered "probationary" citizen's so it would make sense that they wouldn't list them as part of the "official" population of the nation, if you need a reason for the inconsistency.