This is Shadowrun. This is my game.
It’s a cut above the rest. It shoots people in the face for money.

My elves are leaner and meaner. They put machines in their bodies, hunt wyrms, and get corrupted by demons.
My trolls use Panther Assault Cannons, but are even better with a bow.
My dwarves are lawyers who make back room deals with dragons.
My orks aren’t some fantasy lemmings. They have AK-97s, mouths to feed, and a will to do what it takes.

My dragons are nastier, They’re at the top of the food chain, and if you torque them off, they'll fucking sue you. Then they'll eat you.
They'll tell you that they used to rule the world, but now they take over cities and corps and take dividends instead of elf virgins.
And even when they get slain they still win (Dunk for Prez!)

My heroes are Captain Chaos, Hatchet Man, and the Smiling Bandit.
Be they cold and cool professionals or sport pink Mohawks,
No matter how I play, you’ll have to pry my deck from deckers cold dead fingers.
I don't need Raise Dead, and I’ll never be 1st Level.
I'll work the Shadows until my Street Cred gets to high, then I'll burn an orphanage to the ground to bring my rating back down.
I'll Never Make a Deal with a Dragon,
And I'll walk from a Cake Run”faster than Harlequin can say"I'm Back!"”

I Shoot straight, conserve ammo, and I know that my game is the best,
Because the owner plays an Embezzling Corporate Master Mind in REAL LIFE!

You don't have to know me, because I’m SINless.
You don't have to like me, because when my run rant ends, yours might begin, and I might be it.
But you do have to know that Shadowrun is the best game, because no where else can you vote for a dragon for President, meet an Immortal Elf that wears Pink Floyd shirts and plays Stair Way to Heaven, and conduct magical rituals with ACME brand paint.
Shadowrun gave me NERPS, it gave me the original Corporate Dragon, and it gave me Lone Star cops on fucking unicorns!
Face it you fraggers, Shadowrun is a sub-divided, pain-wracked schizophrenic, Self-Serving, epileptic, sado-masochistic haven for the divinely warped.
And I love it, and each and every one of you bitter, thrice-damned souls.

That's beautiful, Fisty. But I needed it yesterday.

Jason H.

Meh.

Wait... I thought I had read every shadowrun novel in print!

But I've never even heard of a novel about "incest spirits", that's got to bee the Bestes SR novel Evar! That's going to be better than the borderline beastiality in the Forever Drug.

Does anyone have the title to this one???

I believe that was the one about the twisted mafia black mage and family and the spirits that haunted the house.

In with the Family IIRC

For me every single Shadowrun novel has been a great read (which is not the same as great literature). But that doesn't help much so I will go with, 'Find Your Own Truth'.

I take it you haven't read Nyx Smith then.

Its really hard to explain coherently. SR novels are that guilty pleasure that I read much more for the love of the genre then the actual literary prowess of the authors.

I have read all the SR novels published, more than once, including Nyx Smith. In spite of the titillating tales of that particular pseudonym cloaked writer I will read all of them again.

Lets just say I'm heartened that Striper Assassin hasn't made the list. I'm sure it's someone's favorite but I'm equally sure those folks have troulbe operaitng a computer let alone posted on here.

You are either a better or more confused man than I, but either way, I applaud your dedication and endurance.

Well done sir Bob, well done.

You know nyx smith wasn't the worst SR writer.

Striper Assassin was actually ok through the first half of the book the atmosphere was all dark and cool and violent. Then it turned out that it was really just another fan fic about furries. I still maintain that the book would have been 100% better if the tittle had two 'P's in it.

After that good ol' nyx moved on to Who Hunts the Hunter with still had loads of dark badassitude even if it was just a book about furries. Over all the plot was pretty weak but it was saved by the lesbian chick who took a double-team Troll-Rape somewhere about the middle of the story.

For those of you who havn't read the book, I'm not making that up. To quote the lesbian chick's GF who assenced the scene astrally; "They're Jacking HER!" I'd pull the book off the shelf to reference a page number but I'm having a contest to see which shadowrun novel collects the most dust. If you happen to be a fan of tandem troll rape on lesbian chicks you'll just have to read the whole thing yourself.)

Steel Rain: This is a story of Elven adepts in the east coast Yakuzza. And there's not much more to say about that. The story is flat and uninspired. The character's are not interesting. As I recall there was supposed to be something of a mystery in the plot but I can't recall what it was so that pretty much tells you what a page turner it turned out not to be. This was a departure for for the author it tottally lacked the dark badassitude elements of the other two books. I can't figure where the author's uninspiration springs from here. Posibly because he's writing about physads; the poor cousins of the combat archetypes. Posibly its because he crushed his own suspension-of-disbelief while fucking up the setting by writing an elven initiatory group into the Totally Anti-Magic, Anti-metahuman, Anti-female YAKUZA! (Dumbass!) Or posibly he just couldn't get his rocks off writing this one because it doesn't have any furries.

A note to all future shadowrun writers, (assuming there will be any after Lauren L. Clusterfuck is done with the property)
Do not atempt to advance the setting by burning down common and beloved Memes. You don't need to make your work interesting by taking a concept like the Yakuza and shitting all over it. In Steel Rain Nyx Smith did just that. He wrote into the universe a faction of the Yakuza that is... What's the word; kinder, gentler, liberal, progressive? No. Pussyfied. The point of writing current concepts into shadowrun is to see how they react to the shadowrun universe, not to change them beyond all recognition. If you're going to write about the Yakuza in the SR universe for chrisake let them BE the Yakuza.

[edit]Oh, and I probably shouldnt be airing your dirty laundry in public, Fisty4, but your lady say's you're in the doghouse because you won't play EP Heh. What am I saying, dumpshock is THE place for dirty laundry lately[/edit]

Definitely confused, very, very confused!

@ OneTrikPony
Now it seems like I have some sort of animal sex/troll rape fetish. I do not!

While I may not agree with a writer's particular take on SR as a GM I can appreciate just how broad of a canvas SR as a setting is and how difficult it is grasp it firmly. Something, that I still don't believe as a GM I have fully accomplished and as a writer would find a very daunting task.

As a writer I read a wide variety of books and I try to divorce myself from how I would have written it, instead trying to broaden my grasp of writing styles, story structure, tempo and most importantly dialog. There have been some gems in virtually every book I have ever read, even if you had to sift through a lot of trash to get to them.

The one writer who I can claim to dislike universally is Willa Cather, thankfully she never had a chance to write for Shadowrun. If there be a hell its book shelves will be filled with 'My Antonia'.

I make no claims as to which sick and twisted fetish Bob Lord o' Evil has. I'm not saying he doesn't. I'm just saying that I'm making no claims.
However it's fairly ovbvious which fetishes nyx smith has. For that matter it's also pretty obvious which parts of his writing caught my attention

One of the great things about not being a great writer, (or even a competant speller), and having no aspirations thereof is that it leaves me free to be highly critical of any writing I come across and to post mostly irelevant comments about that writing here. (lucky y'all ) I'm not looking for hidden gems when I read, I'm looking for entertainment. Quite a few of the SR novel accomplish this very well.

Or you are good sir!

As a writer, I consider myself a mediocre on my very best days. I would like to be a great one but reality always intrudes into such fantasies.

When it comes to SR, my love of the genre (and I think it is unique as a genre) blinds me to short comings that novels may possess. I just enjoy sitting down with a SR novel and reading until I am done (more than a little compulsive obsessive here). So on your point about enjoying SR without looking for gems I agree. I will still find them, a turn of a phrase or a bit of dialog that seems really cool to me but I am really looking for plunging in. I consider time spent reading SR novels to be salacious mind candy. Laying in my hammock on a hot summer afternoon with a twelve pack of MGD (bottles not cans) in the cooler beside me (I may be a bit of a drunk too) well that is a good afternoon for me.

Now that sounds like a good way too be spending the day