Shadowrun 10: Night's Pawn

'Night's Pawn' by Tom Dowd is one of the more under-appreciated Shadowrun novels, as evidenced by the single, 3-sentence review on this page. But it's certainly one of the very best in the series, and considering it's written by the same author who brought us 'Burning Bright,' I'd expected there to be more love for this one. The story itself is pretty standard Shadowrun fare. Retired shadowrunner Jason Chase has been laying low in recent years, hopping from city to city under various assumed names to try to keep from being noticed. Of course, his past eventually catches up with him. He's contacted out of the blue by a young woman from his past that may have some big-time family trouble, as her father, a head-honcho at Fuchi, might be marked for death by terrorists. Too bad she and her father aren't on speaking terms for her to warn him, and he's always under guard. Plus, it seems she may be in serious danger as well. One can see where this is going, but that's not really the point. The story is so well-written that it hardly seems to matter. Dowd has a much more stark, 'distant' writing-style when compared to his Shadowrun peers such as Findley or Charrette. There's not much background info thrown at you. You're sort of just dropped in the middle of everything, and Dowd expects his audience to be intelligent enough to follow along, which is quite refreshing. Also, there are not many 'interior monologues' where you basically get inside the main characters' heads. Dowd seems to have a 'show, don't tell' approach. He's not going to slow down and explain every little plot-point or revelation, unlike Findley, who takes constant time-outs to explain to the reader what exactly is happening. The style's not necessarily better or worse because of this, just different. I however, think his prose has a very William Gibson-esque tone to it that fits the world of Shadowrun perfectly. He keeps the intensity at a constant high level here, with some pretty nifty twists along the way, without letting the plot get too ridiculously far-fetched as with other books in the series, and is the main reason I consider this one of the top Shadowrun novels. On a side note, the interior illustrations by Larry MacDougall have a very unique, almost cartoonish quality, and are some of my favorites of the entire series. 4.5 stars as far as gaming-related fiction goes. Very nearly a 5, but as I mentioned, the plot is a little underwhelming (but still better than 75% of the Shadowrun novels). Ranking among Shadowrun novels, imo-6th (BTW, for those interested, Tom Dowd has two stories in the Shadowrun novel 'Into the Shadows,' that are well worth checking out. Those, along with the two Stackpole stories, make that book well worth tracking down for any self-respecting Shadowrun geek, like myself.)