Shadowrun 07: Into the Shadows

One of the fun things about being a fan of the Shadowrun novels that were written during the 1990s is that there are a lot of reoccuring characters in each story, therefore the more books you read, the more you will be following the series. Case in point. Shadowrun "Into the Shadows." This book is a collection of short stories written by various authors. Each short story is a tale onto itself, but as you continue to read the book you'll find that everything ties together in the end. Tom Dowd, Nyx Smith, Paul Hume, and Michael A. Stackpole are some of the scribes who contributed to the book. Each author of a short story, nine stories in total, 7 different authors, has a distinct writing style, but as they are interlinked into a common story you don't mind that as much. Into the Shadows also plays off the events to the "Secrets of Power" Trilogy, which were the first SR novels ever written. The books also sets up stories for the future, ergo "Striper" by Nyx Smith eventually becomes "Striper Assassin." Michael A. Stackpole's two stories eventually play a huge role in "Wolf and Raven." Speaking of Stackpole, this book along with "Wolf and Raven." cemented his status as a Shadowrun author. Into total, Michael Stackpole wrote very little for this franchise, but if you ever meet him in person, and ask him about these stories, he'll speak about them very fondly. In total, Into the Shadows is a good read for any SR fan. There are times when the book drags, because certain stories are weaker then the others, but if you persist, the pay off will be great.

As a general rule, I'm not a big fan of anthologies. However, with the exception of 2 of the 9 stories in this book, it's more of a round-robin style story. Those other 7 stories all have inter-related plots that make the individual ones more interesting and really managed to hold my attention. Of the two unrelated, one was just ok but the one about the weretiger was awsome.

This book is a fine example of the high quality books writen by the great authors FASA has employed.

This anthology is a great sample to get a taste of the Shadowrun world. Most of the authors of the short stories in the anthology went on to write full-length novels for Shadowrun, with the notable exception of Lorelei Shannon, who wrote what was in my opinion the best story in the whole anthology, Whitechapel Rose. I would like to see this book reprinted, and a continuation of Whitechapel Rose would be nice.