Anyone read the books

[The Marvellous Breadfish]

I've bought the majority of the 90's books, and I'm going through Sam Verner's story now. Which are the best ones from that series?

[BionicDance]

Any of the books by Nigel D. Findley.
Best. Shadowrun author. EVER.

[Manlor]

I wish they would re-release the old novels. They are really really hard to fnind these days. :(

[flatlyne2001]

I have all my old ones in a box

[Velijah]

Most of the old novels are scanned. If i am remember ing correctly, you can find around 30 + novels on internet.

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

"Any of the books by Nigel D. Findley"

Shadowplay :)

[Dasyanna]

I just moved last month and happen to have the box with my Shadowrun stuff right here (under almost every Terry Pratchett novel written). Let's take a look!

By Nigel D Findley:
2XS
House of the Sun
(In that order - I do not know if any of his other novels cover the same character, I appear to be missing them)

By Tom Dowd
Burning Bright (about a dude who's in Chicago when it goes all Bug City)

By Jak Koke
Stranger Souls (The assassination of Dunkelzahn, UCAS President & dragon)

By Lisa Smedman
The Lucifer Deck

By Stephen Kenson
Technobabel

It should be notes that a lot of the sourcebooks are good reads, too. Many of them are done to be like BBS postings from Shadowland, with comments from various runners. With either rules or a "How to incorperate this sourcebook into your game" section in the back.

Edit: Oh! and Worlds Without End by Caroline Spector. Because Harlequin is the MAN.

[looorg]

The quality of the series (40ish novels from FASA as I recall it) varies somewhat.

The first trilogy "secrets of power" (never deal with a dragon, choose your enemies carfully and find your own truth) are a very good introduction to the shadowrun universe.

Then it becomes alot more about what type of content you like; high magic, low magic, gritty, etc.

Findley wrote some good books about his hero Dirk Montgomery which where all fun to read.

I liked Kubasiks book 'Changling' about a boy that turns into a troll.

I know alot of people really REALLY hated the novels that Carl Sargent and Marc Gascoigne wrote since the heroes of those books had so much money and resources it didn't feel gritty and "shadowrun" enough. I thought they where all good (Streets of Blood, Nosferatu, Black Madonna) -- Streets of Blood has a main story in-common with the Dead Man's switch campaign of Shadowrun Returns in that it is a mad 'jack the ripper' like serial killer on the loose.

Mel Odom wrote a few really good once to. Jake Koke wrote the second trilogy (dragon heart saga) which was good -- but as I recall it I think I enjoyed his Earthdawn works more then I enjoyed his Shadowrun work.

I say just read them all, read the old once first -- as I recall they where alot better then the newer once. It became a bit much superhero-runner-style and vampirkillers as the series progressed. I never read novels released by Whizkids.

As Sarinn pointed out previously. You could/should also read the sourcebooks instead, they aare usually quite funny to read. Not just for the gamedata but for the story that gets told.

[The Marvellous Breadfish]

Yeah, I own a lot of the sourcebooks too, The Runner's Companion, Blackbook, Augmentation, Corporate Guide and Augmentation.

[Telestrian]

Preying for keeps and headhunters were two I really liked, also it can be good to read the intro stories at the start of the published modules if you can lay your handfs on them.

[›Kolanaki]

The only SR books I've read are the core rule books and some of the "expansions."

I think the only non-rule books I've read for a PnP game was the Icewind Dale trilogy and the Krondor series.

[QBecca]

Originally posted by @Velijah:

Most of the old novels are scanned. If i am remember ing correctly, you can find around 30 + novels on internet.

It wouldn't be Shadowrun if we didn't use the digital age to our advantage ;)

[›Kolanaki]

Originally posted by QBecca:

Originally posted by @Velijah:

Most of the old novels are scanned. If i am remember ing correctly, you can find around 30 + novels on internet.

It wouldn't be Shadowrun if we didn't use the digital age to our advantage ;)

Not to mention getting that data illegally to screw over the megacorps that would profit from it!

[QBecca]

Also, I'm glad I found this thread. I can't wait to read some Shadowrun books, I just needed some idea of what to look for. I've just gotten into Shadowrun this summer, we plan on running a campaign soon, and this will just be fuel to the fire.

[telles.dajello]

I second the Nigel Findley mention... best ever. Shadowrun Returns is basicly an amalgam of all of his books. In an interview with the responsible for the story of the game only one of his books is mentions as inspiration, but if you read them all, you weell see the mix of them all...

He wrote two of Derek (Dirk) Montgomery: 2XS and House of The Sun. Two other of his books are with different protagonists, but some characters from the first two novels appear. Lone Wolf and Shadowplay.

Unfortunately he died young. He wrote dozens of source book for shadowrun and AD&D, but only these four novels for Shadowrun.

All the main characters are supposedly low low level runners... the recorring characters in all novels are the high level shadowrunners eventually contracted by someone to deal with a specifi hard part of the plot.