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Just Compensation | Rating | |
| B | |||
| Robert N. Charrette | |||
| 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 | ||
Andy is a corporate suit through and through. But he dreams of living the exciting life of a shadowrunner. But when he encounters some real runners, he finds himself drawn into the shadow life for real. Meanwhile, his half-brother Tom, a Major in the UCAS Army, is beginning to smell something sour. It has something to do with the protesters camped out on the Washington Mall, but is it the thousands of men and women demanding a handout who are a threat, or is it the government that won't countenance deadbeats? Tom and Andy are going to need to thread through the conspiracies and lies of corps and governments if they're to prevent a war - civil or otherwise.
Andy has big time echoes of Sam Vernor, from Shadowrun's opening trilogy. He starts in a corp. He's loyal to friends and family. He hates the very idea of his employer using black ice. He gets drawn into the shadows when an outside run comes across him , takes him hostage, and ends up needing his help. He even gets picked up like a stray kitten by Dodger. Turn him into a shaman and relocate the book to Seattle and he'd be Vernor's clone.
There are differences, though. Dodger doesn't stay around long, and Vernor never had any contacts in the military. Plus, since these aren't the first Shadowrun books, Charrette doesn't need to spend so much time building the universe. The result is a less moody, faster paced story. And of course that story isn't anywhere near the same, either.
There aren't many stories here that are about politics. Usually they're about corporations and the people, not nations. It's a little hard for me to imagine the military ever getting as much of a free hand as they get here, though. They go way over the line, which I admit is part of the point of the book. Fighting evil and corruption too vigorously only makes you evil and corrupt. But they do a good job of getting away with it.
Just Compensation is tough to read, but not for the usual reasons. It's not confusing or poorly written (except for a rather high incidence of typos, anyway), the main characters aren't making nonsensical decisions or spouting lines no real person would ever actually say, there are no significant plot holes. It is hard to read because it is the best of America twisted into its worst. It is an abuse of power that, unlike the situation with the megacorporations, is actually possible in the here and now. It is watching wrongdoing explicitly protected by the law, and justice denied. It is the main characters struggling to follow their own morals - morals most readers will share - when their overseers, the law, and the people with the big guns all urge them to do wrong.
I don't know about you, but I find that really hard to take. But that, too, is the point. And Charrette is smart enough to have his characters stop flailing about and get to the business of fighting the bad guys before it gets too disspiriting. It makes for a dramatic story arc as things hang in the balance. And that more than makes up for any upset caused by bad guys doing really bad things.
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