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Run Hard, Die Fast | Rating | |
| D | |||
| Mel Odom | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| Shadowrun | Never Deal with a Dragon, Choose Your Enemies Carefully, Find Your Own Truth, 2XS, Changeling, Never Trust an Elf, Into the Shadows, Streets of Blood, Shadowplay, Night's Pawn, Striper Assassin, Lone Wolf, Fade to Black, Nosferatu, Burning Bright, Who Hunts the Hunter, House of the Sun, Worlds Without End, Just Compensation, Black Madonna, Preying for Keeps, Dead Air, The Lucifer Deck, Steel Rain, Shadowboxer, Headhunters, Stranger Souls, Clockwork Assylum, Beyond the Pale, Blood Sport, Technobabel, Wolf and Raven, Psychotrope, The Terminus Experiment, Run Hard, Die Fast, Crossroads, The Forever Drug, Ragnarock, Tails You Lose, The Burning Time, Born to Run, Poison Agendas, Fallen Angels, Drops of Corruption, Aftershock, A Fistful of Data | ||
Argent is a premier shadowrunner in Seattle. But all runners have a past, and Argent's has just caught up with him. An old teammate and ex-lover is in deep, deep trouble. He is her last chance to get out of it alive. There's no way Argent can possibly refuse, but he's going to be knocking heads with some very heavy corporate hitters. He's going to have to assemble one heck of a team if he wants to pull this off. More importantly, he's going to have to sort through some hairy personal issues if he's going to be able to live with himself afterwards.
Odom starts the book out with a wild rescue operation as Argent tries to recover a kidnap victim. It's meant to establish Argent's good-guy morality and is competence to the reader while hooking him in with some exciting stunts and gunplay. But to me it was just a waste of pages. Argent is a character we've met before, so longtime readers of the Shadowrun novels have no need for proof of his credibility, and for those new to the characters, well, there's nothing wrong with a gradual ramp-up. Added to the fact that this mission had nothing at all to do with the rest of the book, and perhaps you can understand why I feel as I do.
Once the real plot began, twenty or thrity pages in, it wasn't much better. The pace was more restrained, true, but it had problems of its own. For one thing, there were an awful lot of sides to this little conflict. There's Argent, of course, trying to reach his friend Sencio and get her somewhere safe. But there's also no less than three corporations interested in the matter. Who wants what, and especially why, are a bit murky for quite some time. Argent and Sencio want to live through this, of course, but for the other teams it's unclear whether they want her dead, captured, or escaped.
Another problem is that the consequences for failure are annoyingly vague. They'll die, of course, but most Shadowrun books have consequences far beyond the personal. So what major event will be prevented - or put into motion - should Sencio not escape? And what, exactly, was the operation that blew up in her face, anyway? Was she on a shadowrun that went bad? An undercover op that was blown? What? I wouldn't have minded being ignorant so much - it'll be revealed eventually, after all, and probably at a reasonably dramatic moment - if the author hadn't included some scenes focusing on her hunters. If we're going to get the chance to listen to how her capture would mean the entire operation is a loss, then at least give us the courtesy of telling us what the operation is. But they do their best to speak obliquely, talking around what this is all about.
The author also had something of an issue with what perspective to write in. Most of the book is in third person, looking over characters' shoulders - usually Argent's, but not always. But perhaps as much as a third of it is written in first person, from Argent as he recounts the tale. At least Odom had the grace to make such areas supposedly a recorded account, as opposed to just suddenly switching, which would have just been baffling. But I couldn't figure out why he'd do it at all. It takes away a little of the drama, as we know Argent, at least, will live through the mission and make a recording. Even if you can't figure that out from the perspective shift, the fact that those areas say very plainly, "recorded at a later date," at their head would be clue enough. And it really does nothing, gives no information that wouldn't have been detailed out in third person. All it is, then, is jarring.
Run Hard, Die Fast was clearly meant to be Odom's attempt to deepen Argent, make him more than just the uber-capable but enigmatic character he was. But it didn't really work. Argent's explanations to his teammates over why he acts as he does, how he became the man he is, frequently turn into lectures. And Argent simply doesn't come across as someone burdened with his past. He knows who he is, and has little reason to be introspective. And he definitely has no motive to tell it all. It all feels out of place.
Odom has taken another author's character and mangled him. Not out of all recognition, thankfully; Argent never actually does anything out of character. But I can't help but feel I would rather his past have been left mysterious. We don't need to know how he came by his skills. It doesn't help that this is one of the lowest-impact stories in the series to date. The only thing this book really affects is readers' understanding of Argent. And since I don't think that was done very well in the first place, it's probably safe to just skip this volume. You won't be missing much.
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