Hoi Chummer, I found a review of the ShadowBoxer Novel. It provides some details of Miami. Folow this link for more.
http://www.magespace.net/revtext.htmlShadowboxer (novel)
by Nicholas Pollotta
Rating:
Spoiler Warning: This review contains spoilers for Shadowboxer.
I was very disappointed by this latest Shadowrun novel.
Where shall I start? Let's be positive about the whole thing and start with the things I liked, shall we? First of all, some of the characters were intriguing. I especially liked Delphia, the natty samurai with the unique weaponry. Thumbs, the street troll, was also an interesting character, though he had some flaws that were difficult to get past. The elven mage Emile was well done, and it would have been nice to see him (and his ferret familiar, Grand) more.
Another positive thing I can say about Shadowboxer was that the writing style was good. Pollotta is adept at engaging the reader and keeping the pages turning. Even with all the novel's problems, it was hard to put it down.
Now on to the negatives. There are many. In no particular order:
For one, I find it highly unsporting for the author to ignobly kill off what is ostensibly the novel's main character halfway through the story. Despite the fact that the back cover of the book claims that the story is about a dwarf named Two Bears, the bulk of the action takes place after Two Bears has been eliminated. He didn't even get a "good death." I felt a bit cheated by this development.
A second problem is characterisation. While some characters, such as Delphia, were reasonably consistent, others, like Thumbs, were not. The troll was presented at the beginning of the book as a street dweller, reduced to following a likely-looking prospect to look for jobs, but yet he showed remarkable savvy and experience when his services were engaged. Further, his cyberware seemed inconsistent with his situation. Where a street ganger obtained the money for wired reflexes, a reflex trigger, and cyberspurs was not explained: I would have liked more of Thumbs' background. We got more background on Two Bears, who was much less important.
A third, and perhaps the largest, problem in my opinion is one that is purely subjective. Pollotta seems quite enamored of the "world is a sinkhole" view of life. Characters were being killed faster than we could count, many of them in graphically messy ways. Almost no one was trustworthy, and a large percentage of the characters were depicted as either thorougly vile or at the very least dishonourable and without redeeming virtues.
Characters, notably a fellow named Wesley (later to become Attila), were introduced, played with a bit, and then forgotten about. One can assume from the narrative what befell him and his companion, but after following their exploits throughout much of the novel, it would have been nice to see their eventual fates. I'm still not certain why they were included in the first place.
A minor point, but the book could have done with a bit of editing. I counted a number of typos (such as "Tir Taingire") and outright misspellings (such as "Buddah"), the effect of which was jarring in a professionally-published novel.
Finally, the ending of Shadowboxer was extremely unsatisfying. Cheated--that was how I felt when I reached the end. The completion of the story was, in my mind, not an adequate reward for the events that occurred.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, in that I prefer stories to have protagonists who prevail over odds, a worldview that's a bit more optimistic, and an ending that makes one feel like the effort of getting through the book was worth it. Shadowboxer provided none of these.
The only thing that saved Shadowboxer from our lowest rating is the writing style, some of the characterization, and the excellent background material about Miami and piracy.
Cheers
QM