Subject: Reviews: The Forever Drug by Lisa Smedman and Headhunters by Mel Odom

From: "Aaron M. Renn" <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 May 1999 23:57:19 -0400

The Forever Drug, by Lisa Smedman
	Headhunters, by Mel Odom
	Review Copyright 1999 Aaron Renn

I hate movie, TV, and RPG spinoff books as much as the next guy, but I've
got to admit that Shadowrun is a secret pleasure.  I picked up the first
trilogy of novels set in this Fantasy/SF role playing universe not knowing
they were for an RPG series.  I thought the books (the Secrets of Power
trilogy by Robert N. Charrette) were pretty good and soon I was hooked.

The Shadowrun books - for an RPG tie-in series - have a lot to recommend.
First is that the publisher hasn't saturated the market.  There have only
been 37 books in the series since 1990.  This contrasts greatly with the
infinitude of Star Wars and Star Trek books that seem to come out every
month.  You can keep up with the series without blowing your budget or
precious reading time.  The books are light fiction (Shadowrunners are
basically mercenaries who go around blowing stuff up and the like), which
everybody needs some of from time to time.  Plus, there is always a
healthy dose of mystery involved, oftimes with deep, dark secrets about
the nature of the world revealed.  The Shadowrun universe is a near future
cyberpunk setting with magic thrown in.  It lets me get my fantasy,
cyberpunk, and military SF fix all at once.

Unfortunately, all of the trend lines for this series seem to be going the
wrong way.  Books are coming out more frequently and are of generally
lower quality.  The most recent in the series - The Forever Drug by Lisa
Smedman - exemplifies everything bad that has been happening to it.
First, I noticed that the title was recycled from a 1995 book by Steve
Perry.  Interestingly enough, he is also an author of numerous media
tie-in type books.  Not a good sign.  And the book was thin, weighing in
at only 271 pages in large type.

Unfortunately the content was also thin.  The main character Romulus, a
shape shifting wolf who does independent work for the local police, is
trying to find a way to get himself officially onto the force.  Lone Star,
the private entity that holds the policing contract, refuses to hire
non-humans.  To accomplish his goal, he attempts to solve two mysteries.
The two mysteries are barely related, dividing the story in half in a way
that doesn't mesh well.  One of the situations is so minor as to be
completely unimportant.  The other involves a couple big names in the
Shadowrun universe, but is ultimately of no consequence either.

The Forever Drug is by far the worst novel in the Shadowrun series and
only hard core Shadowrun collectors/gamers will want to buy it.

Lucky for me I also picked up another Shadowrun book this week -
Headhunters by Mel Odom.  This one was from 1997.  I'd read it before but
somehow lost the book.  I figured since I was buying a replacement copy to
keep my collection complete, I might as well re-read it.

This story is much meatier.  Jack Skater and his band of Shadowrunners are
well known as a tough and professional outfit in Seattle.  They're hired
for an apparently simple run.  The job is to extract a dead body from a
funeral home and deliver it back to Mr. Johnson (that being the code name
Shadowrunners use to refer to the person (usually anonymous) who hired
them).  The drek hits the fan fast as another group of well armed runners
shows up looking for the same piece of meat.  Skater's crew escapes with
the body and they spend the rest of the book dodging the other runners and
trying to figure out what's so important about this body.  The secret this
time actually means something and the story ties in indirectly with the
assassination of President Dunkelzhan that occurs in Jake Koke's Dragon
Heart Saga trilogy.  There's a lot of action, a lot of familiar faces, an
interesting mystery to be solved, and a number of personal dilemmas that
must be resolved.

For people who've never read a Shadowrun novel, this is a good pick as the
first one to try.  I just wish I could say better things to say about the
way the series is going.

%A Smedman, Lisa
%T The Forever Drug
%S Shadowrun
%I New American Library/Roc Fantasy
%D 1999-06
%G ISBN 0-451-45747-0
%P 271 pp.
%O mass market paperback, US$5.99 C$7.99

%A Odom, Mel
%T Headhunters
%S Shadowrun
%I New American Library/Roc Fantasy
%D 1997-10
%G ISBN 0-451-45614-0
%P 293 pp.
%O mass market paperback, US$5.99 C$7.99

-- 
Aaron M. Renn ([email-masked]) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/