I'm very excited to continue what is rapidly turning into Good News May by announcing the electronic release of the Spells & Chrome fiction anthology. Edited by Hugo-nominated editor John Helfers, this packs in 15 new stories with one Michael Stackpole classic, covers a range of cities including Manhattan, Lagos, Los Angeles, and of course Seattle, and brings a bunch of quality writers together including Shadowrun novelists Jean Rabe, Stephen Dedman, and Steve Kenson, along with skilled scribes like Phaedra Weldon, Kevin Killiany, Matt Forbeck, Ilsa Bick, Steve Mohan, and more! Including me! It's available from the Battleshop now in both ePub and Kindle formats. I hope you enjoy it, and as always I look forward to Dumpshockers putting their incisive critical eyes to work!

Jason H.

<yawn> Let me know when and if it ever hits print.

[/edit] There's a bit of lingering bitterness over this much-delayed anthology because when it was first solicited, the actual Shadowrun freelancers weren't asked (or really allowed) to submit for it because we weren't "industry professionals." Kenson and Hardy, natch, had more than a few novels under their belt at that point. I haven't read Jason's piece, but Steve Kenson turned in a very decent short story. The others...well, I didn't read all of them, but you can imagine the difficulties when fantasy authors not familiar with SR start trying to write SR with no real idea of the setting of the game. I can only hope that they were finally edited into something resembling SR now that they're being release.

We get it, AH. You burned your bridges and you're pissy at the company despite everything they're doing to try and fix things. Jesus Christ. Get over it all ready.

I wondered how many posts it would take i'm not sure if I'm disappointed or amused.

Never let it be said I disappoint, then.

Seriously, it's not my intention to denigrate the authors of the short stories in this collection or their work, if for no other reason than I simply haven't read most of it. Of the stories I did read that I know are in the anthology - Kenson's and Stackpoole's reprint - they are both solid pieces of work. I do think that not letting the actual SR freelancers submit was a shitty thing to do.

So this is the fiction book that delayed all the sourcebooks?

Jeez, AH, you are turning into Trollman 2.0.

Is this actually in print and not electronic? I actively hate reading books on the computer, but buy up anything in print I can get my hands on.

It was one more piece on the pile that needed editing and layout, and it too went through several developers and various people saying an anthology wouldn't sell well. Other than that, I don't believe it appreciably delayed any sourcebooks.

You don't think it's reasonable that people who have written a very large proportion of the current Shadowrun fiction should be annoyed when they're told that they wont be allowed to even submit work for consideration? Sounds reasonable to me and some of us are interested in hearing what goes on behind the scenes, thanks, so it's not your place to tell others that they shouldn't post.

Thanks,

K.

As a general comment, more things in Kindle format would be good

no. i want hardcopy. analogue text-files. dead tree format. not buying.
Sourcebooks and stuff where i want to search with text strings or comics with many images and little text are okay, but if i wanna read a story, i'm gonna stay with a book.

I hate to say it, but I'm with Stahlseele. I buy my sourcebooks in digital format, because I rarely read them cover to cover, but novels... I like to be able to read

Well, being the owner of a brand new B&N Nook e-reader, I am loving anything in epub as far as novels and such.

Grexul

For loving a setting set in the future where almost everything is digital, I find it a bit ironic that a lot of you refuse to read something that's not made out of paper.

In defense of AH, there are others on these boards that much more closely match both Trollman's acerbic style and penchant for wanton personal attacks.

AH, at least, has confined his attacks to a single entity.

Oh no... in a future setting where everyone is using all means at their disposal to get ahead, I find it appropriate that most people without the hacking skills want to buy a book in hardcopy. Afterall, you never know what additional software the e-version might contain, but purging a hardcopy of RFIDs may well be within the means of the average Dumpshocker.

Hm. I haven't yet found an ebook reader for my desktop I am even remotely happy with, so I hope this sees print. Furthermore, I hope there will be more novels to follow. And I am unwilling to buy a third computer - besides my netbook and my desktop - just for reading one single file format. If anybody could recommend me a decent program that has a working search function (unlike Stanza), and can actually *scroll the text*, I'd be very much obliged.

And on what Ancient wrote: I suppose they were going for known names in that anthology, shutting out people only known to the hardcore fanbase for names that would (maybe) grab the attention of a wider audience. Understandable from a business standpoint maybe, but really nothing that makes for a good atmosphere when you have to work together, I imagine. I can understand Ancient is angry about this, though I also see why this may have been laid out as it was by the Line Developer. Maybe a mix of stories by known authors and sourcebook authors would have worked too, but wat's done is done, I guess.

Stanza for iPhone is very nice, but for some reason Stanza for desktop is quite poor. I was just checking out Adobe Digital Editions and I like it better for desktop ePub use. It has working search, and it scrolls text. Give it a shot.

Jason H.

Thanks. Will check it out.

I have to agree with knasser. AH's insight into the workings of the company, and the knowledge of shadowrun before I even heard of it is quite nice. I, for one, like having him around to point out neat things.

Yeah, sometimes those choices are tough. My story lost out to someone with more name recognition for the 25th Ann. BT book. I actually got the opening fiction for the Tech Manual but it was cut due to space. Sometime this industry isn't totally egalitarian. Some people can write sourcebook fiction, others can write standard fiction. Some can write both.

And some aren't given the opportunity.

Yup.

Actually, at the time, the Line Developer (Peter Taylor) wasn't given this responsibility. Randall and Loren decided to have someone else manage the novels and fiction work. I believe Peter didn't see the stories, or have any input at all on authors, during his stint as Line Developer. I saw the stories during my brief stint as co-developer; mostly because I'd written one of the stories. None of the line developers - while I was still working with CGL - had any input on the anthology (outside myself, and my input, like I said, was very limited).

If it makes you feel better, the "actual SR freelancers" weren't the only ones that didn't get that shot. I got a handshake on it (after a long series of emails) at GenCon, that some fiction of mine -- submitted, read, and replied to with praise -- would be considered for this anthology project, about two years ago. Then, like magic, I stopped getting PMs replied to, stopped getting emails replied to, etc, etc, for months and months. When the lead developer position changed hands, yet more messages were exchanged, I was promised (again) that I would be contacted in the future about it, then they went back to ignoring my messages rather then even having the decency to just say "no." And now, ta da, here's the anthology.

The really funny part is that this string of fiction, and these strings of communication, aren't the first time I've gotten the cold shoulder where Shadowrun fiction is concerned. I've written three different stories so far (and that's counting this latest batch of a half-dozen short stories, presented and formated in serial fiction form, as just one story) for Shadowrun, had them all read, received all kinds of positive feedback and promises, and then been suddenly ignored.

Guess the joke's on me.

Classic, is this the same as reprint? If so I'm assuming that it's his piece from Into the Shadows, one of the stories from Wolf and Raven, or possibly a piece of fiction from one of the sourcebooks? Either was it's a little disappointing for me as whilst granted it's good for a lot of the new players that have been brought in via Third and Fourth Edition since those books were published it effectively makes a fifteenth of the book dead wight as it were. Still, nice to see us getting some new fiction. Will reserve judgement on it until I read it.

Yes.

I believe it's from one of the adventure modules, but I don't know which one was picked.

Admittedly, I can see the idea of having well-known writers with published novels as something for the first of these. Why? Because this is about setting the
hook to get people to take that first taste of the setting. I would hope that future anthologies would be more open to the Sourcebook Fiction authors.

The thing is....What has William Keith ever written for Shadowrun? He is the (still living) Grey Death Legion author. Same with Kevin Killiany and Steven Mohan. It
seems those authors were picked solely for the cross-over potential for Battletech Players. I would make the same speculation of Phaedra Weldon, but apparently
she created another novel series outside of stuff relating to Battletech/SR, so is a good potential "hook 'em and reel 'em in" author.

However, I wholeheartedly agree with the people wanting it in Dead Tree. However, the Dead Tree of the novels is likely going to be like Holostreets and
Duke Nuke'em Forever and the return of the Battletech Martial Olympiad events: we might see them...one day...but don't hold your breath.

I've been impressed with very few Shadowrun novels or anthologies, and unsurprisingly, the ones I was impressed with were written by the original SR game designers.

I travel, a lot (200,000 miles last year). Having something simple like my Kindle to read books when sitting on an airplane or airport is significantly easier than pulling out the laptop. While an actual book is good - and I have all my SR stuff in both hard and softcopy - it is nice to have 100+ books on my Kindle to choose between.

In short, I buy both.

-M&P

Works better so far, thanks.

As for the stories: Just starting to get into them, but the Stackpole Story is curiously all about Tir elves and seems unchanged from Elven Fire. Since this doesn't mesh well with the Horizon Disneyland run by an orc (for maximum orxploitation) that 4th put in the Tir's place, I am slightly surprised. It even mentions a 'High Lord'.

I love my Kindle. Though I can't really see using it for RPG books (novels, sure). I still buy physical books, but after a leaky roof destroyed a box of books I had in a closet, I came to realize that I didn't need physical books for many things I read.

Edit: Does this program just engulf all your RAM too, over time? It's demand started out moderate, but I had to shoot it at a demand of around 600K, which was grinding my machine to a halt.

Oh, and 'The Art of Diving in the Dark' also is pretty good. The idea of reincarnation is a little off what is usually done in Shadowrun, but not THAT far off, as it has been played with in 1st and 2nd already. PErsonally, I like such stuff, but YMMV.

And for the next story till the enxt lecture begins. Seems someone's been channeling Lovecraft.

I also love a setting where 80% of the population is too poor to afford real food. I'd rather get something I might find for $2 at the library store, or $10 on Amazon, than something that requires a $200 dedicated reading device.

(Plus, I can burn the book for heat in the winter. Burning a kindle stinks up the box.)

The only paper book I've bought in the past 12 months have been SR4ALE.

I've bought and read over 100 books in the past 12 months.

Haven't been to a bookstore in ages.

Also, the book is more durable and will never require updates, cannot be manipulated by amazon, google or whoever from afar - nobody will delete books you bought, but it can and will happen on a Kindle, and will never, ever, die on you because the battery's empty.

In Story review news, Dead names is kinda meh. Nicely written, but a bit too blunt in it's homage to HPL for my taste. Weakest story so far.

On to Snake in the City, by Jennifer Harding ... a story about Mamba, and in Lagos. This looks interesting.

Heh. I remember proofreading that one.

Motherfucking Snakes in motherfucking Lagos? O.o

So, Snake in the city. Was this a flavour piece for DotA? Because it seem to take place just before DotA 1. Nice to get to know Mamba a bit better, and generally good writing, which makes this a good story again.

Onwards to the Good Fight (Yes, In am reading this backwards). All in all, good story; some of the cyberware descriptions of Khaine are wonky - Wired aren't capable of working in different settings and a couple of other things - but that is, IMO, forgivable (though YMMV). Nice writing.

It was intended to be a DotA prequel/tie-in. Which should give you a smidgen of an idea of how long this thing's been in the works.

So this was once slated to come out before DotA? Well ... at least it got out, I suppose.

Yep...

Still a pretty story, if I may say so.

Holdouts. It happens every time something new comes along. Give it another generation and the attachment to paper will be forgotten.

Speaking of PDFs though, has there been any news on 30 Rides? I've been checking diligently and thought it was supposed to come out last month, although a delay would not be surprising obviously.

30 Rides? Did they translate the cars from German Arsenal?

I dunno, it was in a sticky post a few months back, slated for release sometime in the near future. Of course that near future has come and gone, I was just wondering if it was canceled altogether or if it was in a holding pattern or... something.

It hasn't been canceled. Our next eBook release (not counting Missions) should be Rotten Apple 2; 30 Rides should follow that.

Jason H.

If I may ask, what would Rotten Apple 2 cover? And 30 Rides?

The main reason I refuse to get into electronic reading media (electronic readers) has two parts...

Part 1 - I'm not sinking a few hundred dollars into a dedicated book reading device. I'm a dead tree person and will be until the end.
Part 2 - DRM. Too many companies are more concerned about DRM and protecting their assets than they are about serving their customer base. If those companies are going ignore me, then they don't want me. That's fine.

I'd like to see someone DRM a dead tree version.

Jason H,

You (CGL/TOPPS) could make every book for SR (that has ever been released) available for ePub. I won't buy them. I refuse to buy such devices because of their limited use and functionality. Maybe if they were like commlinks from SR circa 2070 you might entice me. Until such time though, I won't be a customer of that format.

I'm quite okay with my house smelling like a library. It's one of my favorite smells. The older, the better. Some of the books in my collection are early 1900s. So yeah, you have a long row to hoe to entice a dead tree book owner like me.