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Born to Run | Rating | |
| C | |||
| Stephen Kenson | |||
| 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 | ||
Hooray! Shadowrun novels are back!
After a four-year lull, I was convinced the franchise was dead. That would have been a real shame, since the last book, The Burning Time, ended with vaguely described but incontravertably momentous events taking place. I really wanted to find out what had happened. So when I saw Born to Run on the shelves under the Shadowrun banner, and written by the very same author who wrote The Burning Time, I thought my prayers were answered.
Unfortunately, this turns out to be only half correct. It is another Shadowrun story, true, and it means more are on the way. This is a good thing. But it takes place a decade before the last book did, so it can't possibly (and doesn't) explain or show just what was going on. Which is a bad thing, or at least not the preferred thing. Instead, this is the story of Kellan Colt, who has been running the streets of Kansas City for two years, and now is aiming to make it in Seattle. But while she manages to get a good start, it may be that her first run in the big bad sprawl will turn out to be her last.
Given that long hiatus and the fact that the Shadowrun brand has been acquired by a new company, I'd half expected this to be something of a reintroduction to the setting. Get new readers acquainted with the world of 2053, its history, and some of the basics of the Awakening. And Kenson does do much of this. But it lacks a lot of the depth that Never Deal With a Dragon contained, not to mention its gretty feel and well-rounded characters. Kenson focuses instead on moving the plot forward, and gives readers little more than they need to know to understand what is happening.
Normally, I would approve. I read primarily to be entertained, and I for one do not much enjoy reading pages of fictional biographies so I can understand exactly why a character is as they are. And as a book well into a series, even if it is one that's been on hold for years, a complete retelling of Shadowrun's internal history and mechanics would be a bit much to take.
But if it is one thing to be sparing of unneccessary detail, it is quite another to leave things a near blank. The setting gets some detail, as do explanations of magic and the Matrix, but not very much. And characters get hardly any at all. G-Dogg is an orc, Lothan a troll mage, Max the stereotypical dwarf rigger, and so on - but that's about all readers ever know about them. More importantly, their personalities are almost interchangeable. Take some dialogue, remove the narration that tells who is saying what, and it'd be darn hard to tell if it was Liada or Orion or Jackie Ozone speaking. The only standouts are the Decon's minor hatred of magic, Lothar's slightly arrogant manner, and Kellan herself, who comes across as a rank neophyte to the shadows.
And that, in turn, makes no sense. Kellan may have been running in small-time Kansas City, but she did it for two years! It's implausible that she'd need an explanation of what shamans are, or shadowrunner ettiquite regarding what you say and don't say to your Johnson, and so forth.
I also had a major issue with characters' motivations. Many times - perhaps even usually! - these people do things for no reason other than to push push the plot forward. It's not because they want to do these things, it's because the author needs them to. For instance, why does G-Dogg take a shine to Kellan? She has a confrontation in his nightclub, and knocks down a troll. Good for her; but then she leaves, and the troll comes after her, and G-Dogg sees this and helps her out. I just do not understand why he'd care once they leave the premises. But Kenson needs to give Kellan a contact with the Seattle shadow community, and this is how he does it. This sort of this happens with fair frequency. It's never worse, however, than when Kellan gets upset because their Johnson lied to them. Oh no! They're being used! She takes this as a personal affront, something not to be tolerated. But that's what shadowrunners are for. They're there to do their Johnson's dirty work. So long as the Johnson doesn't turn around and try to kill them, or isn't working on a plan to destroy the world or otherwise cause massive mayhem, who cares? Being lied to, the Johnson telling them one thing but his goals being something different, is simply no big deal. I just could not understand her attitude at all.
This was a thoroughly average story, with below-average characters. There is no depth to anyone, and the plot has little in the way of surprises. There is simply no complexity to it at all, in any fashion. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is a good way to get killed; at the very least, it should destroy any respect you might have garnered. And this book is in serious risk of doing that for the series, as well. It's not the best way to get things going again after four years without, that's for certain.
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