Shadowrun Books

Nonstop action, the question of how sentient beings define themselves and the bloodlust for revenge ever present in Shadowrun books merge to form a true gem. Though the characters can be a bit stereotypical, there is a grain of ethical controversy behind the gunfire, screeching tires, and magic. Be careful how you judge some of these characters; there are a few powerful turnabouts.

When a key employee is extracted, Alma Wei, a security specialist, finds herself in the middle of a baffling investigation. Worse, the victim is the researcher Alma needs to to repair some of her malfunctioning experimental implants. Despite her efforts the researcher turns up dead. And DNA evidence points to Alma herself as the shadowrunner who performed the extraction. Suddenly she only has a few days to find the real culprit before a cranial bomb is set off in her head.

Thus begins a story of two women, Alma herself, and Night Owl, the shadowrunner who killed the researcher. They were both members of the SuperKids, a specialised breeding experiment designed to create exceptionally talented individuals. When the experiment is broken up after eight years the children lose all contact with each other. The story expands to include several fixers and mages, various gangs, three dragons and an unusual financial advisor who lives in a condo beneath the ocean. The plot takes countless twists and turns before the truth is finally uncovered. If you miss a couple of early hints final section of the book will come as a real surprise.

This is Lisa Smedman's fifth book for the long-running Shadowrun series, and she is clearly comfortable in the intricate game world where both magic and advanced technology work. I have enjoyed the series for some time, since many of the authors who participated are quite exceptional. Smedman has done her best job to date. Hopefully, Shadowrun will continue to be on of the best game-based series.

Alma has a problem--she has been framed for murder and has a ticking time bomb in her head. If she can't track down whoever set her up, her job will end terminally. Night Owl has a problem too. As a shadow runner, she has to deal with some pretty unsavory characters, but now she has three major gangs and corporate security pro Alma all after her.

Both Alma and Night Owl try to do good, but the two approach things from different angles. Night Owl sees evil everywhere she looks (and in the future dystopia of the Shadowrun world, this makes a lot of sense). Alma sees good. Of course the odds are that neither of them will get what they want with such powerful enemies after them.

Author Lisa Smedman hasn't written a big book about saving the universe--instead, the action is personal. Both Alma and Night Owl are admirable characters in their own way, but also intensely flawed. I found myself rooting for both of them although they are on opposite sides of the action.

Very nice.

As is typical of the best of the Shadowrun sourcebooks, this volume is organized as an electronic document from the fictional Shadowrun world, posted at Shadowland by Captain Chaos, sysadmin extraordinare some time in 2056 (after THE UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD introduced insect spirits but before PORTFOLIO OF A DRAGON and the short-lived political career of Dunkelzahn).

In the Shadowrun universe, the former country of Mexico became the nation of Aztlan, which in turn is effectively a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aztechnology, one of the 10 most powerful corporations in the Shadowrun world, in which such megacorporations are effectively nations in their own right, answering only to their peers on the Corporate Court - or to whatever damage can be inflicted on them by shadowrunners, of course.

In this case, even Captain Chaos is nervous about handling the core information, a large package from Espectro, a single "secret benefactor" suspected of deep connections with Aztechnology/Aztlan intelligence. Aztechnology as a whole is among the most ominous of the Big 10, because of its involvement with insect spirits, toxic shamans, and just generally evil magic and Things Of Which It Is Not Good To Think.

The subsequent Shadowland chat goes a level beyond the usual Shadowrun sourcebook format. The core information is presented in the form of articles marked up with commentary by runners visiting Shadowland, adding information or attempting to debunk it (and each other's claims) on a case by case basis. But in addition to the runners' commentary, an additional level of commentary is present as a chat between several even more shadowy presences, some of whom are identified ("the Big 'D' being Dunkelzahn, for instance) while even the species of others remains in question, though hints are dropped. (*Their* chat was seized and posted to Shadowland by an unidentified entity spying on *them*.)

The book opens with a marked-up news report of the civil war currently raging on the Yucatan peninsula, which in passing provides information about Aztechnology's ownership/censorship of various communications media and of the nature of their military, as well as a sort of current events summary. Next, Espectro provides a history/overview in traditional Shadowrun style, the next best thing to Danchekker: straight from the Aztlan educational system, with appropriate sardonic shadowrunner commentary added - and with severe cuts by Captain Chaos for brevity's sake where the revisionist history gets to be too much.

The subsequent sections on Aztechnology proper - history, formal distinction from the Aztlan government, corporate structure, and business practices - include some "liberated" files from Aztechnology's arch-enemy, Ares, and by Knight Errant (specifically evaluating Aztechnology's security).

As for subsequent sections, "Religion and Magic" covers blood magic in passing; briefly, Aztlan has a state religion based on the ancient Aztec myths, and Roman Catholicism has been suppressed (and hence the underground faith serves as a nugget around which resistance to the Aztlan establishment tends to gather). "Getting In" discusses entering Aztlan itself rather than Aztechnology facilities in general. (As a UCAS intelligence document subsequently stolen by Aztechnology, then stolen again and posted on Shadowland, this is the next best thing to public information, so gamemasters have considerable latitude with how Aztechnology counters such known threats.) "Living in Aztlan" talks about what the place is like once you're in. "Tenochtitlan" (formerly known as Mexico City) gets its own section, with some emphasis on government and mass transit.

Designed for use with:
SHADOWRUN, 2nd edition
GRIMOIRE, 2nd edition
CORPORATE SHADOWFILES
DENVER
THE NEO-ANARCHIST'S GUIDE TO REAL LIFE

This book is a whopper. It has everything...maps, npc's, a new and scarry type of magic, and (if you look close enough) a threat to the world. Not to mension the constant war, the polution, the fact that azatlan is really a...well wont tell you that. Got to read the book to find out!

This book has everything you need to run a campaign in azatlan. It is a book worth looking for. With it's almost 200 pages, it is worth the price.

dna/doa is a something Fasa should of kept try it then you'll see that it's a needed game for all roleplayers great story, characters and excelent mapps an rpg gamer's dream

Fasa has made new editions for almost all their games, WHY NOT "DNA/DOA"!! This game is used as a souce for so many sites and other games. For new games it's much more of a "1st Run" type thing just to get your feet wet "chummer". But anyone who plans to play or even make their own mission should add "Dna/Doa" to their library.

I've read several of the books in the Shadowrun line and this one is my favourite to date. It is one of the few shadowrun books that gives a decent portrayal of shadowrunners and shadowrunning as described in the game. It does an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere of the world, and gets heavy into the nuances of the etiquette and wheeling and dealing a shadowrunner must go through to survive. If you are new to the game and want to get some tips for roleplaying shadowrunners this is the book to read. It is also an excellent source of inspiration for the GM. There are no grand sweeping, save the world sort of plots in this book, just good old fashion shadowrunning as it should be.

Absolutely the finest of FASA's Shadowrun fiction, this one has it all. No BS game-speak, a killer plot, believeable (if not exactly likeable) characters. Great setting as well, expecially for the overall texture and subculture; Smith's Newark is a character in and of itself. Compared to earlier SR novels (including Smith's Striper Assassin), this was the first that impressed me as a viable story outside of the SR mythos; FTB can stand on its own in the sci-fi/cyberpunk genre. I recommend this book to all new players of the game, as an intro to a non-comic book version of the SR world. I was particularly impressed by the lack of plot devices; the story isn't some cutesy mystery or heroic fantasy with a pat ending. It reminded me somewhat of Ellroy's books. I also recommend Smith's "Who Hunts the Hunter" and "Steel Rain". A must-read for all non-munchkin Shadowrunners and GMs; this book makes the GM screen's characters come to life (heh heh).

What you have here is not a sourcebook. It is a set of 5-6 adventures in one package that all relate to each other in a way you probably won't expect. The adventures all (eventually) link to a pivotal character in the Shadowrun universe. It's actually one of the few adventures that has you connect so closely to a pivotal character (kinda). That character is Harlequin (i.e. Laughing Man for those that have the Tir sourcebook) and your runners will get swept up on a crazy ride that takes them all over the Sixth World.

For you gamemasters out there this book is made to have the adventures spread out between other adventures you give your runners, but in the end the runners will figure out that they played part in some elaborate plan all this time. It's kinda cool when you see them start putting the pieces together by the third or fourth run, and by the time it's all done the looks on their faces is worth the price of admission.

Sorry if I'm being a little vague on the details. I don't want to spoil the fun. The gist of it all is this is a really well written book with a nice set of adventures. Technically the individual adventures themselves are not all that long on details (or run time for some of them) and that can give the gamemaster a little room to be creative. Then again these adventures aren't meant to be individual, big as life kind of runs. They are meant to be relatively simple runs in regards to complex twists and such since they all end up linking together. Trust me, it's fun.

I recommend this adventure set to any SR campaign, especially those who like to dabble in metahuman and magical elements (even for just a little while). It's not just fun adventuring, but an intersting read as well.

This big (152 pages) adventure book is a collaboration of some well-known names in RPG writing (W.G. Armintrout & Tom Dowd & Jerry Epperson & John Faughnan & Paul R. Hume & James D. Long & Lester W. Smith & Ken St. Andre). Yeah. Very popular and out-of-print.

Note: Inexperienced sellers often confuse this book with "Harlequin's Back" (ISBN 1555602487). They are NOT the same.

Back cover text follows:
"IMAGINE A HATRED THAT HAS ENDURED FOR 5000 YEARS. The shadowrunners are sent on a string of missions, collecting obscure items, all seemingly unrelated... or are they? From the streets of Seattle to the heights of the Bavarian Alps, from the magical mayhem of Columbia, Missouri to the headwaters of the Amazon the adventure unfolds. Who would go to all this trouble to destroy one man... and why?. * A datafile. * An ancient magic Tome. * A flower. * A collection of Elven ears. * The manuscript of a soon to-be-released bestseller. * A young woman of mysterious heritage. * A world famous Elven societal theorist. All are pieces to the puzzle. Finding them is one thing. Putting it all together is another. HARLEQUIN is a series of eight adventures for SHADOWRUN designed to be interwoven into in already existing campaign. Over the course of these adventures, the players are presented with a progressively larger picture of a very complex tale of revenge."

Shadowbeat has information on underground trid pirates and all that media stuff that plays into everyday life! No other SR sourcebook has yet to include any of this information. Think how much you would miss if you had no media influences in your life, now think how much your SR campaign is missing!

Shadowbeat is IMHO one of the best sorcebooks ever published by FASA. It covers the nitty gritty stuff mentioned in other sourcebooks (like Seattle) like Urban Brawl teams and Simsense recording. Combine this with new rules for being a Rocker, and a boatload of other stuff, and you've got a soucebook well worth tracking down. A must for any GM looking to put a little more spice and depth into thier SR game.

The books great, the ordering process and delivery quick and easy. Overall, I'm coming back to order more!

Dragons of the Sixth World is something that I (and probably many others) have beeen waiting for for a long time. Dragons have always played a significant, if behind the scenes role in the Shadowrun universe and this book finally gives us some decent data on them. Much of this information is brand new while some of it is simply collected and updated from previous sourcebooks and novels.

The book gives a brief (and sketchy) treatise on dragon biology and life cycles and then goes on to give dossiers of several great dragons and then a few pages of blurbs on lesser dragons. The game information section is actually quite small but it gives some harder information on the Great Dragons and rules for creating Drake player characters.

This book, in some ways, is like Threats 2. It's a lot of speculation, shadowtalk, and provides many, many hooks for adventures. It may also be the last of its kind in some time, as Shadowrun is said to be switching to more "street-level" look and feel.

The book itself is about 200 pages long and is quite an interesting read. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered of course, but that is the point of this kind of sourcebook. Some of the art in it (sparse as it is) is quite nice.

One note: If you're aware of the Shadowrun/Earthdawn crossovers then this book will have somewhat more meaning for you, especially if you've downloaded and read the FASA sourcebook "Dragons." Before FASA closed its doors it had just finished putting the writing together for the Eartdawn sourcebook on dragons. They very kindly released it for free in PDF format on the net as one of their last acts. Dragons of the Sixth World will make much more sense if you've read its Eartdawn equivalent.

This manual is a great suppliment for Shadowrun. It greatly expands upon the magic rules given in the Shadowrun source book and is needed to use any of the other more specialized magic sources.

Magic in the Shadows is essentially a consolidation and update of the Grimoire and Awakenings: New Magic in 2057. Most of it seems to be the Grimoire but they did include (in abbreviated fashion) material from Awakenings.

It updates all the advanced magic stuff like initiation and meta-magic to 3rd edition rules and does a pretty good job of it. My only gripe is that section on Voodoo is cut down and a lot of the "flavor" of Voodoo from Awakenings is gone.

I'm not totally up on the 3rd edition magic system but it does appear to have been cleaned up quite a bit and simplified. I'm sure this removes some of the complexity but I think overall it's for the best.

This book was written by Stephen Kenson who seems to be the magic guru of the Shadowrun universe. It's not an entertaining read just for fun but it's a better "textbook" than the previous magic books were. There's more examples, clearer definitions, and better organization. It provides a little new information on ghosts as well.

If you have magicians in your games your going to need this book sooner rather than later. It's pretty easy to find and you might have some luck finding cheaper used copies of it.