Link

Well...more power to him, I guess.

$57 is a little bit ridiculous.

I can't think of the proper sentence to express myself, so I'll settle on "WTFSAUCE".

$57? No.

I got the impression this was possibly designed as a textbook for a class project, in which case, $57 is a bargain. Most of my textbooks ran $50-100 each 15 years ago, and the prices have just gotten more and more steep since then.

Granted, all textbook prices are fucking idiotic.

I'm curious to find out more about the book, though.

I'm curious to find out who the hell this guy is

Okay, I may not have been paying attention, but what exactly is this book?

And $57 for a 68-page paperback book is, at best, retarded in any circumstance.

Some more information has come to light.

Wow, I didn't even see the page count. A dollar a page? Are they gilded in orichalium?


Wow... that summary... mother of god. That sounds boring as hell.

The thing I'm scared of is that the novel Herr Professor picked to dissect is one of the German-only ones, making this truly worthless to anyone that isn't bilingual, the biggest Shadowrun fan on the intrawebs, and with several pockets full of euros they desperately need to get rid of or else they'll die.

What he fails to mention, at least in his introduction, is that "fantasy" is science-fiction.

I wish I could dumb myself down to the academic level, make some quick nuyen.

Edit: I hope he's not a DS user.

What he said.
And don't think you can make quick with that, unless you can force all the students in your class to buy the book and can do so for several years- which is, of course, a popular method by which professors increase their salary a little bit.
If you're not that high up in the academic apparatus, on the other hand, you can be glad if you don't pay a whole bunch of yourself for having put out a book of your own instead of being wise enough to just publish your work in a periodic publication or anthology.

Return rates on books aren't that high in general- for this type, even if the price is as high as this, it's even worse.



In fact, German-only SR novels in themselves could be rated as truly worthless.
I mean, even as a big fan of Genre fiction, most RPG-based novels are...well, i don't want to sound too high brow here, let's just say that i don't consider any i've read this far more than the literary equivalent of regurgitated fastfood that was already past its expiry date when it was eaten the first time.
And the German SR novels where, without any doubt, the worst of them.

Which, on the other hand, would make them outstanding material to dissect the basic clichés of the discussed genres, as well as the implied fantasies regarding race, gender and body politics (the latter two especially if it is the novel i vaguely recall...you can't just unread something, which is truly a pity in this case) as well as popcultural intertextuality.

In other words, it would, in this day and age, be fantastic material from a purely academic point of view and the result would most likely leave most fans feeling slightly insulted.

Incorrect. Fantasy used to be a sub-genre of science fiction. I forget when exactly, but I believe about 10 - 20 years ago, fantasy was classified as a separate genre, and no longer has any direct relation to sci-fi.

Fantasy now deals in the mystical, typically involving magic & the creatures of myth.
Science Fiction deals with advanced or non-existent (currently) technology, often with timeliness set in the future or current, but occasionally the recent past.

The author keeps "only" about 50% of the money, according to the website. That´s 25 euros for printing a 70-page book(let). You could beat that price with home-based printing by about 15 euros ("outsourcing" the binding process), while going for quality.

Theoretically nearly all currently playing German players of SR should be able to read the book. But why should they? That price pays for a few novels...

Guys you are missing the point. Why would someone write a book like this? Who is going to read it? No one. The bottom line is that he is a college professor who must 'publish or perish.' He is writing to define genres using SR as the example. This will be inflicted on students who, if they are smart, will pool money, buy one copy and photocopy the bejezus out of it.

A genre argument? Good gravy, what is the world coming to? In American libraries and bookstores science-fiction, fantasy and horror are all considered to be sub-genres of speculative fiction, like how cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science-fiction. Sometimes they're grouped together, sometimes not. What constitutes what has never been officially resolved nor do I ever foresee it ever being so. Especially given how many popular authors such as Neal Stephenson, Stephen King or, oh, I don't know, Kurt Vonnegut smash down those genre barriers.

True and I'm curious as well. Frankly I find it a bit odd that someone in academia would see the need to publish a treatise on licensed property tie-in novels. If I had a fiction professor who decided to do a unit on Michael Stackpole's Star Wars: X-Wing paperbacks I'd ask for my money back. Yeah, I like Shadowrun but this stuff isn't exactly high literature. Now if you'll excuse me I have a lecture on the Howard the Duck novelization to prepare for.

Low-brow does offer some potential for cultural studies.
I attended seminars about David Cronenberg movies, Vietnam films and robots and haven't regretted one of it.

There's even the academic sub-genre of Buffy-studies.
No, i'm not making this up.

The university I attended offered a "Science of Star Trek" course for credit. I didn't take that though I would have aced it along with "The History of Contemporary Graphic Novels". And I wouldn't regret attending any seminar on Cronenberg, Vietnam films or robots. All three have shaped our contemporary pop-culture. I suppose where my snobbery comes from is this burning question: outside of role-playing games where has Shadowrun affected the mainstream pop-culture landscape? D&D has made some inroads (there's a great book out there called Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game about a girly-girl woman who was introduced to role-playing) but it's the largest p'n'p property in existence.

I love Shadowrun as much as you all do. But until the theoretical Shadowrun MMORPG meets or surpasses World of Warcraft I also know it's a niche fascination.

As an aside, there is a fine line between Fantasy and Science Fiction. That line is whether or not magic is involved. That's it. They can happily borrow from each other all they want. But Sci-fi becomes fantasy when it involves magic.

Star Trek is science fiction. Star Wars is Fantasy.

Shadowrun is a fantasy roleplaying game centered in the near future with a strong cyberpunk / dystopian theme. It's a game where Magic & Machine collide.

I don't see the reason for a published book (especially at that price) that will in a long and drawn out manner state what I did.

Considering some of the powers the alien races exhibit... Telepathy (Spock, Kes from Voyager) being th eleast among them, and reality bending powers ala Q and some of the aliens from TOS (I just watched like the 2nd or third episode of TOS which featured Kirk's original second in command getting Q-like powers). Not to mention magic-like Technology in the form of replicators and teleporters.

Seems to be one and the same myself

Yeah, but you just stated it. You didn't support a word of it, and so your conclusion has no resistance to cries of "Bullshit!"

Or better yet, go out and buy the BBB and start playing. Any exposure is good exposure.

D&D is being introduced into high schools as a way to improve vocabulary. The ALA was at GenCon promoting this practice. I'd rather study role-playing games for a college class than read an over-priced treatise by a professor.

Except that the magic aspect has always been treated as a pseudo-science, with ambient mana levels, metagenes, spirits-as-aliens and what not. If telepathy can be allowed in science-fiction there's no reason to discount Shadowrun as a purely science-fiction game...

Or not. In other words, what you choose to emphasize is what determines your genre placement. Horror :: fear and viscera, science-fiction :: technology, fantasy :: the manipulation of reality via willpower, romance :: love and relationships, action/techno-thriller :: guns and bullets, etc.