The only record of this book that I've been able to track down, is the fact that it's listed as a reference for some of the information in the Searchable Shadowrun Timline that Dumpshock offers here.

So my question is this. Is it a real book? Has anyone ever seen this thing for sale anyplace? I certainly have been looking on Ebay and found nothing. As far as I'm on the topic, does anyone have this book?

Cause I certainly can't find it.

Indeed sir. It does. I saw one on e-bay last night or Thursday night. It's more of an adventure than a source book.

Thanos

yes it does. Yes it is an adventure. yes I own one.

Ditto.

I wouldn't be TOO bummed. I remember seeing one on sale in one of my local gaming stores many years ago, but it didn't excite me at the time, which is remarkable, because I'd just read House of the Sun, or whatever the SR novel set in Hawaii is called. Basically, it hits the same problem as the NAN books, where to get any valuable info for the setting, you'd have to sift through an adventure first, and I personally just don't care for that sort of format. If you can get your hands on House of the Sun, though, it's a pretty good book that probably has just about as much useful info in it, though I could be wrong. The book definitely made me wish there was an actual Hawaii sourcebook out there.

Haven't read Paradise Lost in ages, but in the two NAN books the setting information and the adventure were very segregated; the setting information was done just like a normal SR location book, and the adventure just like a normal adventure at the time.

To put it more succintly, yes it exists. I think I was one of the last things done by the late Nigel Findley. It is in two parts. Part one is an adventure where the team is sent to investigate a hit on a corp facility. Part two is the SB on the kingdom of Hawaii, complete with history, and demographics.

Well, someone was able to point me towards a copy and I ordered it before I checked back and saw your opinions on it. Oh well. At least I got the copy cheap. Maybe it won't be TO bad.

No, not "TOO bad," but House of the Sun pretty much recounts everything important in Paradise Lost.

But then, it's been almost a decade since I sold it in my first great SR sell-off (along with Bug City, which I really want back). I regret.... yeah. It exists. It's not that important, and like I said, House already covers everything important.

YMMV on the adventure, it depends on what you like to run but the SB portion has some cool info that'll really help if your tired of "Its was a dreary, rainy day and my fixer just...bla, bla, bla."

Now you get, "It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the air was warm, the [ladies/men] were scantily clad and struting thier stuff. If only my damn fixer would...bla, bla, bla."

Seriously though, if you got it cheap it'll be more than worth it. Its a good read if nothing else.

Actually, according to the foreword for House of Sun, Hawaii was one of Nigel's favorite places to go and knew a lot about the place, so I wouldn't be surprised if he gave a lot of advice on Paradise Lost -- I doubt his name was just added to sell copies. I don't think that many people buy RPG sourcebooks for the author (I don't, aside from a very few -- which yes, did include Nigel Findley).

Saw this on eBay a few months ago, but got outbid. I've been keeping an eye out for it, since I recently moved to Oahu and would like to see what became of the island in SR time.

Oahu? Not really a lot from what I can remember. This adventure, and the NAN ones, were literally adventures with a bare bones place guide bolted onto the end- history, population figures, system of government etc. I don't recall it saying anything major though.

Some of my players had memorable encounters in Paradise Lost. Two years later they'll still say "do you remember the time when ..."

Well yeah, there was the whole dragon thing. I was more refering to the information bit at the back rather than the adventure itself. But I suppose you have to include that since it gives you information as well.

-- From the basic overview I was given, you're not missing a whole lot. The background for the independence movement is even more unlikely then it was for the NAN.
-- Pity there will probably not be an update for the island in the forseeable future.

Hmmm, we'll just have to wati and see Tzeentch. Hooves crossed...

The adventure wasn't that great, a bit too OTT IMHO. The sourcebook bit was basic, but well written. House of the Sun is set a year or two after the events in Paradise Lost in SR timeline. Not a bad book, but not as awe inspiring as 2XS. Lots of Hawai'ian lingo and Honolulu location atmosphere though. Now, if only they'd included decent maps...

-- I lived on Oahu for about a year, didn't notice spectacular from the overview that you couldn't get from tourist books (I didn't have access to the actual book).

-- Bsides, Oahu sucks, Kaui is where it's AT

hilariously, i stopped by the RPG shop today, and one of the three SR books they had was Paradise Lost.

-- Lived on Pearl Harbor, worked at Camp Smith. I was only supposed to be there for a little while, but was on island for most of the year -- was in Bahrain during the actual war though. I'm SUPPOSED to be going back really soon ™ to get a sat reserve year but they haven't sent my orders yet

-- Don't really like Oahu much. Maui and Kaui are much nicer for haoles like me

I have Paradise Lost and can vouch for it's existence (though that's been cleared up by this point).

Basically the "sourcebook: section is more histroy. Hawai'i isn't much different from the current Hawaii, save that IIRC< it has a higher than normal Dwarf and Ork population for some reason, has a Dragon who's a vassal for Ryumyo, and broke away from the US and reinstated their Sovereignty (With a little help from Ares, I believe).

I wanted to do some stuff for Hawai'i for Year of the Comet, but didn't get it accepted... If the "Target: Ring of Fire" book ever becomes a reality (Doubtful at this point), I'd like to do some more with it. I think there's a good deal of potential with Hawai'i.

Bull

Well, there's apparently going to be a "Shadows of Asia." So, if they consider Pacific islands part of Asia...

Heh Paradise Lost is one of those SR2 books I still manage to have in my collection. Since I have always been more of a reader/user than a collector, its looking a little ragged. Though not as ragged as my SR1 Street Sam Catalog

I generally liked title. Decent adventure, potential to make huge sorts of cash, and quite a bit of karma. The only thing that bugged me, being a Hawaiian (yeah yeah I know those of you who read the book know it should be Hawai'ian not Hawaiian, but since it hasn't been made that way yet in real life, even when I went to the premiere (if you could call it that) Hawaiian private school here, I'm not gonna write it like that)...

Um anyhoo...the thing that bugged me was ALOHA, the terrorist group. The name specifically. I know its fiction and all, but the conversion of hawaiian word that is totally on the opposite side of the spectrum of violence and hate, into the name of a terrorist group...was a bit unsettling.

Be kinda like a modern day middle east terrorist group calling themselves "DEMOCRACY" or something. Bet that wouldn't go over well with Americans in general.

[OOT]Somehow, it reminds me of the old Warlock books, where the bad guys had the acronym of PEST, and the democratic good guys had the acronym of, get this, DDT. [/OOT]

Actually, how close is the history recorded in House of the Sun match with the sourcebook? Is it more or less 100% spot on, or are there additional things in one source that aren't in another?

Don

-- My main problems with what I know of Paradise Lost are:
1) Even more problems regarding the logic of the independence movement and number of awakened (I can see the "dwarves" as the menehune). In particular, the issue of Ares threatening to destroy a carrier group. That one really made me shake my head. The real issues that could have led to independence, not mentioned (the author probably didn't even think about them). Frex, I was on island during the big shipping scare when they closed the California ports -- not riots in the street but it was pretty obvious that there would have been some SERIOUS problems if that had persisted. It's also amusing that the author apparantely didn't really know a lot about the bloody unification of the islands under Kamehameha (which is also historically pretty recent) -- that guy has great PR these days. Then you have the VERY SHADY events leading up to the deposing of Liliuokalani -- I've read books on both sides and it's not clear what the deal was (great for putting in Shadowrun-style backstory events and manipulation) or who was really in the right.
2) No new magical traditions. I think that even if they did an update the way of handling unique cultural magical traditions got the major shaft in MitS. The best we could see for a kahuna is a warmed-over shaman with the spirits renamed. Big freakin' deal. Especially as traditional Hawaiian religion (even the parts that are "Christianized" is fascinating and detailed. Of course, native Americans also got the detail shaft with the "New Age" mishmash of plains Indian religion applied to everyone.
3) Bland. Bland. Bland. It's total whitebread blandness. Hell, I'm don't consider myself a kama'aina but jeeze, even I heard some of the local superstitions and legends (and met people who take them seriously).
4) Unreality. What exactly does Hawaii DO in the Shadowrun future that brings it money and keeps the US from moving back in (it has a longer historical claim to the islands then Kamehameha and his successors do). This was the same problem I had with Tir Tairngire, the state often appears to operate as if they have a magical machine that creates money for them.

IIRC, one big massive free port with little to no taxes- make it back on bulk apparently. That and Japanese and corp tourism. Whether any of this is even remotely feasable I have no idea though.

Paradise Lost

You know, discounting the haircuts, that has to be one of the most 'normal' Shadowrun covers that I can recall. And yes, I know that those hairstyles aren't all the extreme - I know people with even weirder ones - but I'm talking mainstream society here.

I was thinking about something Pistons said about the cost of living there. It's the most expensive state in the union today, because the state does not produce enough food to support it's population, so it must import foodstuff. There is no reason to bleieve this will change after the awakening.

Well yeah, it is partly that. When a lot of your food is imported, prices are much higher. That bottle of Pepsi that costs maybe a buck here in Delaware? That's at least two dollars in Hawaii. And while the islands do have some cattle herds, they can't feed everyone so some of the meat has to be imported, too. That also affects milk... and so on.

It's also the very limited space on the island; when everyone and his brother wants to either vacation or settle down there, that drives up the prices for houses, condos, rent and land. On top of that, the Hawaiian government is, from what I understand, strict on how much land gets developed even with the space available. Hawaii has some unique environmental and cultural concerns. Just the difficulty of constructing H3 demonstrates what it's like to build over there.

Right now, a major portion of Hawaii's money comes from tourism. Some of its other industries like agriculture (coffee, pineapples, sugarcane and macadamia nuts being among the biggest in that area), fishing and support for the military bases, are also fairly big but not quite as big as tourism is. I think most sovereignty groups are smart enough to recognize that threatening one of its major sources of income would imperil Hawaii's economy, which makes some of the antics of the extremist groups in Paradise Lost pretty silly.

If you want some ideas on what the sovereignty movement really looks like and how it might operate, check this out.

I have paradise lost. I've had it for years. And by the time I've a team ready to deal with the dragon they've all to a man decided never to ever leave Seattle again. Every campaign. Anyone would think the sixth world was dangerous. Sheesh.

I've never run it. I've read it and re-read it quite a few times and even made notes on how to make it followable (it does tend to leave the links between the scenes a bit tenuous sometimes imho), and to oomph up the fight at the end a bit, but never managed to run it. Shame.

But I've finally got a team where one of them foolishly chose to play a physical mage, outcast from his shamanic people on Hawai'i for being a nasty hermetic sorceror freak type, but still a follower of the kahuna religion even though he can't get the magic to work that way (breathe, man! Breathe!). The point is he's from Hawai'i which gives me a link and more importantly, leverage. The smeggers are going to Hawai'i this time, like it or not! They've been playing smugglers and have no fear of the unknown, more's the pity.

I know nothing about hawai'i (which is why I put the glottal stop in when I spell it - it seems a likely place to find one. I don't know, and I'm afraid care little whether its supposed to be there) for real and neither do my players, so I'm playing it by the book I've got, which was written for a game and not worth getting upset about - I don't get upset at the London sourcebook do I, and lord knows i should! If I was ever going to Hawai'i (un-freakin' likely on my salary) then I'd read the proper history so as not offend anyone but for now, FASA's effort will do. It looks entertaining, if nothing else!

More recently present-day Hawaii is attempting to lure high tech industry to base themselves here. Biotech, etc. But yeah, the bulk of money hawaii earns comes from 1)tourism 2)the military. To digress a bit into real world stuff for a bit, hawaii is never likely to be totally sovereign again. It was possible back in the day when the population was small and the land was able to sustain it, but nowadays, even with advances in aquaculture and farming, Hawaii is nowhere near self sufficient.

Hawaii, in Paradise Lost, essentially appears to have traded getting resources from the United States, to various megacorp and likely criminal elements. By granting concessions and trade agreements, the King of Hawai'i has stabilized his kingdom, but traded one controller for another. Though, in Paradise Lost, it seems the King has a bit more control than say the current day Governor, etc etc.

I did like the idea that Orcs and dwarves were better liked than elves

I have it. I think it's pretty good and I like the adventure (except the maps and the insane amount of karma you can get... somehing like 30-40 karma for the whole adventure )