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Shadowrun Novels #1
Never Deal with a Dragon
WHERE MAN MEETS MAGIC AND MACHINE
The year is 2050. The power of magic and the creatures it brings have returned to the earth, and many of the ancient races have re-emerged. Elves, Orks, Mages and lethal Dragons find a home in a world where technology and human flesh have melded into deadly urban predators. And the multinational mega-corporations hoard the only thing of real value - information.
For Sam Verner, living in the womb of the Renraku conglomerate was easy, until his sister disappeared and the façade of the corporate reality began to disintegrate. Now Sam wants out, but to "extract" himself he has to slide like a whisper through the deadly shadows the corporations cast, through a world where his first wrong move may be his last... the world of Shadowrun.
The year is 2050. The power of magic and the creatures it brings have returned to the earth, and many of the ancient races have re-emerged. Elves, Orks, Mages and lethal Dragons find a home in a world where technology and human flesh have melded into deadly urban predators. And the multinational mega-corporations hoard the only thing of real value - information.
For Sam Verner, living in the womb of the Renraku conglomerate was easy, until his sister disappeared and the façade of the corporate reality began to disintegrate. Now Sam wants out, but to "extract" himself he has to slide like a whisper through the deadly shadows the corporations cast, through a world where his first wrong move may be his last... the world of Shadowrun.
378 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 4, 1990
381 people are currently reading
1605 people want to read
About the author
Robert N. Charrette
34 books56 followersCredited on some German editions as "Robert N. Charette".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 171 reviews
March 19, 2008
One day at work, I had a craving for a salad. Events conspired to keep me from going out to get one until well after an hour past my usual lunchtime. By then, I was so ravenous as to be almost beyond rational thought. I went to the salad bar across the street and loaded my big plastic bowl with every single ingredient from the bar that, individually, I enjoyed having in a salad. It was several forkfulls in that my hunger abated enough to permit me to process the input from my taste buds. That input was not good: even though I liked each flavor in and of itself, the combination created a riotous, aberrant gestalt resulting in a thoroughly unsatisfying experience I soldiered through out of sheer stubborness.
Categorical discrepancies notwithstanding, the only difference between that salad and this book is that I would have given the salad two stars for at least serving its most basic purpose of providing nutritive sustenance.
Categorical discrepancies notwithstanding, the only difference between that salad and this book is that I would have given the salad two stars for at least serving its most basic purpose of providing nutritive sustenance.
April 13, 2013
Ok, I am a Shadowrun junkie. This book was decent but you probably wouldn't care for it if you didn't like Shadowrun. I enjoyed it because it was set in my favorite scifi-fantasy world. I appreciated the book because it gave me another persons perspective of the Shadowrun world. That perspective helps me create my own stories when I GM a Shadowrun RPG.
I have read another of Charrette's books. It was also a Shadowrun book and I would rate it the same. Never Deal... stood out to me because it told the story of a wageslave becoming a Shadowrunner. That's cool because it gives you a little more flavor for the life of an average person on the Shadowrun universe.. One aspect of Charrette's writing that annoys me is that it seems as though he has used the thesaurus to add fancy words that he is really not used to using. Instead of making his work sound better it sounds a little contrived. The level of his writing doesn't match some of the obscure vocab he uses.
This is the first Shadowrun novel in a series.
I have read another of Charrette's books. It was also a Shadowrun book and I would rate it the same. Never Deal... stood out to me because it told the story of a wageslave becoming a Shadowrunner. That's cool because it gives you a little more flavor for the life of an average person on the Shadowrun universe.. One aspect of Charrette's writing that annoys me is that it seems as though he has used the thesaurus to add fancy words that he is really not used to using. Instead of making his work sound better it sounds a little contrived. The level of his writing doesn't match some of the obscure vocab he uses.
This is the first Shadowrun novel in a series.
May 22, 2023
For those unfamiliar with it Shadowrun is originally an old school RPG- i.e. with actual dices and characters elaborated on sheets of paper- with the originality of mixing cyberpunk (mega-corporations, cyber-enhancements, netrunners, rogue AIs...) and fantasy (magic, dragons and other critters, elves, orks...). Against all odds it actually worked pretty well and me mates and I spent quite a few good games back then.
So this book is part of a series of novels taking place in this environment.
The prologue started quite poorly with contrived illogical actions from all protagonists for necessity of bonding them (or not) for future reference. I didn’t like it much and was afraid that’d be the whole book but it gets into gear after that.
Charrette then writes a decent plot if a bit convoluted (I lost count of all the double-crossings after a while) using all the elements provided to him by the game. Magical/cyberpunk aspects are fairly dealt with and it flows quite smoothly.
The main characters are a tad bit cliché (naive do-gooder Sam, foppish elf Dodger, Corporate bitch Crenshaw, stone-hearted "business is business" Hart, etc) but well developped within their own frame.
You don’t need to have played a game of Shadowrun to enjoy this book. It will appeal to gamers, of course, but anyone interested in the original concept who wants to relax a few hours with a good action sf/fantasy book will too.
So this book is part of a series of novels taking place in this environment.
The prologue started quite poorly with contrived illogical actions from all protagonists for necessity of bonding them (or not) for future reference. I didn’t like it much and was afraid that’d be the whole book but it gets into gear after that.
Charrette then writes a decent plot if a bit convoluted (I lost count of all the double-crossings after a while) using all the elements provided to him by the game. Magical/cyberpunk aspects are fairly dealt with and it flows quite smoothly.
The main characters are a tad bit cliché (naive do-gooder Sam, foppish elf Dodger, Corporate bitch Crenshaw, stone-hearted "business is business" Hart, etc) but well developped within their own frame.
You don’t need to have played a game of Shadowrun to enjoy this book. It will appeal to gamers, of course, but anyone interested in the original concept who wants to relax a few hours with a good action sf/fantasy book will too.
February 1, 2017
-Otro desarrollo bajo franquicia.-
Género. Ciencia ficción (desde premisas de Fantasía, claro).
Lo que nos cuenta. En el futuro, lleno de tecnología y virtualidad, se ha producido un fenómeno conocido como El cambio que ha traído a la vida la magia y criaturas fantásticas como los elfos, los orcos, los dragones y muchas otras. Sam trabaja para la corporación Renraku, su hermana está mutando y él ha sufrido una operación relacionada con las conexiones informáticas virtuales. Durante su traslado a la sede de la compañía en Seattle es secuestrado, junto a otros empleados, por un grupo de delincuentes con un plan. Libro desarrollado en el trasfondo del juego de rol Shadowrun y primer libro de la trilogía Los secretos del poder.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia ficción (desde premisas de Fantasía, claro).
Lo que nos cuenta. En el futuro, lleno de tecnología y virtualidad, se ha producido un fenómeno conocido como El cambio que ha traído a la vida la magia y criaturas fantásticas como los elfos, los orcos, los dragones y muchas otras. Sam trabaja para la corporación Renraku, su hermana está mutando y él ha sufrido una operación relacionada con las conexiones informáticas virtuales. Durante su traslado a la sede de la compañía en Seattle es secuestrado, junto a otros empleados, por un grupo de delincuentes con un plan. Libro desarrollado en el trasfondo del juego de rol Shadowrun y primer libro de la trilogía Los secretos del poder.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
May 12, 2019
Plot was a bit confusing at times, and it could have used a little more action, but I was fully enthralled the entire time! 4.5 stars
January 10, 2015
Despite my nostalgia - this was one of my earliest adventures in reading - I really can't recommend this book very highly. It's just... not very good. In fact, it's arguably the worst book I've read in the last couple of years.
One big problem is that this is a story in its own right, AND the first part of a trilogy, AND the first of a franchise of novels, AND the first novel to introduce the pre-existing Shadowrun RPG world. As a result, sometimes it feels weighed down by exposition and sightseeing, and at other times too much is left unexplained. Worst example: the main character spends a chapter or two in a vehicle that I suspect was flying but it's never made entirely clear (or if it was, I didn't get it). I'm guessing that in Shadowrun it's made clear that 'panzers' can fly, but not having played in the setting, this confused me. [Or maybe it's just bad writing and it wasn't flying at all?]
The plot is rambling, and the pacing and structure ill-judged. Never really seems to come together, although some parts of the ending are good. The prose is not dire, but is generally uninspired, and there are some really bad moments. Character development is miniscule, character motivation almost non-existant, and the central characters are very boring.
That said, I still sort of like it. Some of the supporting cast, while shallow and static, are surprisingly vivid and engaging, and the fanstasy-cyberpunk setting - while frustratingly unexplored and never stunningly original - is appealing and sometimes intriguing.
I really wanted to like this book, and despite myself I didn't hate it. And hey, I still remembered a lot of it from my childhood, which is more than I can say for some things I read back then It's more original than a lot of pulp fantasy. It is, however, still pulp fantasy. The best I can say about it is that if you want an easy pulpy read to fill some empty time, and particularly if you want a bit of a twist from your usual D&D settings, you could do worse than this. But you'd have to WANT to enjoy it, I think - nobody's going to end up liking this book on literary grounds despite not normally liking pulp science fantasy.
Fuller thoughts HERE.
One big problem is that this is a story in its own right, AND the first part of a trilogy, AND the first of a franchise of novels, AND the first novel to introduce the pre-existing Shadowrun RPG world. As a result, sometimes it feels weighed down by exposition and sightseeing, and at other times too much is left unexplained. Worst example: the main character spends a chapter or two in a vehicle that I suspect was flying but it's never made entirely clear (or if it was, I didn't get it). I'm guessing that in Shadowrun it's made clear that 'panzers' can fly, but not having played in the setting, this confused me. [Or maybe it's just bad writing and it wasn't flying at all?]
The plot is rambling, and the pacing and structure ill-judged. Never really seems to come together, although some parts of the ending are good. The prose is not dire, but is generally uninspired, and there are some really bad moments. Character development is miniscule, character motivation almost non-existant, and the central characters are very boring.
That said, I still sort of like it. Some of the supporting cast, while shallow and static, are surprisingly vivid and engaging, and the fanstasy-cyberpunk setting - while frustratingly unexplored and never stunningly original - is appealing and sometimes intriguing.
I really wanted to like this book, and despite myself I didn't hate it. And hey, I still remembered a lot of it from my childhood, which is more than I can say for some things I read back then It's more original than a lot of pulp fantasy. It is, however, still pulp fantasy. The best I can say about it is that if you want an easy pulpy read to fill some empty time, and particularly if you want a bit of a twist from your usual D&D settings, you could do worse than this. But you'd have to WANT to enjoy it, I think - nobody's going to end up liking this book on literary grounds despite not normally liking pulp science fantasy.
Fuller thoughts HERE.
April 3, 2008
This was a very interesting story set in a creative and intuitive world. I found the play upon the classic Oliver Twist to be clever, but it was really the author's vision of this future/fantasy world that sold me. He detailed the rise of mega-corporations to parity with nations, the creation of massive archologies to house and control corporation's employees, the resurgence of the Native Americans with the return of magic, and others. Only those familiar with the Shadowrun universe are aware of this, but the Matrix movies were modeled after the Shadowrun internet, called the Matrix. The Shadowrun Matrix was entered by connecting a computer cable directly to a jack on a person's head, and then the software allowed people to do all the cool things that you saw in the movie. Anyway, really an incredible book and universe.
July 22, 2017
I got through this so quickly, and I loved every moment of it.
I have a fondness for in media res anyway, but this just grabs you by the collar, drags you into the world kicking and screaming, and refuses to let go. I love it. This might be my favourite book of the year so far.
I have a fondness for in media res anyway, but this just grabs you by the collar, drags you into the world kicking and screaming, and refuses to let go. I love it. This might be my favourite book of the year so far.
January 12, 2025
A whistle-stop tour of a sci-fi/fantasy setting just finding it's feet! I was concerned this book's need to be a sort of primer for the RPG world would hold it back, but honestly the varying and fantastical twists and turns felt super natural, and Sam Verner provided the perfect lens through which to discover the state of play! The ending felt, perhaps, a little abrupt, but the more I reflect upon it the more I felt the story delivered on its strongest facet: Everyone has a reason for what they do, everyone is complicated, especially dragons: NEVER deal with them!
April 19, 2020
an interesting story, At first I was disappointed not to be following professional shadow runners through out the whole story, but I was kept engaged the whole time and will eventually read more of these books.
October 18, 2018
Gut zu lesender Rollenspielroman, der einen spannenden Einstieg in die Welt von Shadowrun bietet. Manchmal allerdings etwas zäh und manchmal etwas unübersichtlich
September 8, 2022
I just really like the Shadowrun world and therefore all the books.
September 9, 2019
Objectively this is not a good book, but I have always loved it. I love the setting and let's be honest I've always wanted to be a dog shaman so if you are into cyberpunk this isn't horrible but it's not great. It is fun however if you are in the right frame of mind.
August 3, 2018
The absolute apex of cyberpunk elfs n dragons fiction
May 3, 2022
Pretty fun but dated and some of the Amerindian stereotypes are rough to read.
October 28, 2024
NEVER DEAL WITH A DRAGON by Robert N. Charrette is the first Shadowrun novel and the first volume of the Secrets of Power trilogy. It is our first introduction to Shadowrun from the literary side of things and if you've never played the game, Shadowrun is a cyberpunk fantasy where magic returned to the Earth in 2012. Huge chunks of humanity were mutated into races like elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls. If that sounds silly, it is. If that sounds awesome, it is. If you're a person who loves "pure" cyberpunk and hate the sound of that, well, this isn't the book for you.
The premise is that Sam Verner is a white male human heterosexual Christian protagonist, which is not a criticism but just a note that it's somewhat noticeable in Shadowrun (as well as cyberpunk in general), that works as a programmer for the Japanese Renraku megacorp. His life is reasonably okay until his sister is transformed into an Ork and he immediately finds himself shunned by polite society. His wee gets worse as he's sent to Seattle and the plane is hijacked by a group of Shadowrunners that he ends up accidentally befriending.
I like the book's mixture of magic and cyberpunk elements by never winking at the reader or commenting on how strange it is. By playing it straight, the book's weirder elements have a chance to shine. Sam Verner is a guy who was raised by a fundamentalist who refused to acknowledge magic and tried to shield his children as much as possible from it. However, magic (and chaos) proceeds to find Sam even when he's trying to live as lawful and orderly a world as possible.
The depiction of Shadowrunners in the book is also interesting as we get to see them do some pretty awful things at the start but show each other loyalty that you wouldn't expect from hardened criminals. It felt very much like a tabletop RPG in that once you were accepted as a member of the "player characters" that they would go to elaborate lengths for one another.
I like how the various plots and counter-plots in the book build up like a game of Vampire: The Masquerade. There's several separate corporate conspiracies going on simultaneously with Sam Verner suspected to be at the bottom of them, ironically, because everyone believes no one can be as squeaky clean as him. This includes a plot by Mr. Drake who, shock of shocks, is actually a dragon. If I had any complaints, I would say that I didn't like the handling of Sam Verner's girlfriend who seems to exist solely to give himself someone to avenge.
This is a pretty entertaining book from beginning to end as I came to like all of the characters with Sally Tsung, Dodger, Ghost, and Ms. Crenshaw that are a great deal more interesting than the somewhat naive Sam Verner. There's a lot of use of the signature characters from the 1st Edition Shadowrun sourcebook and I like when tabletop games take that attitude. The cross-pollination of tabletop games with the fiction is well done throughout the book.
The premise is that Sam Verner is a white male human heterosexual Christian protagonist, which is not a criticism but just a note that it's somewhat noticeable in Shadowrun (as well as cyberpunk in general), that works as a programmer for the Japanese Renraku megacorp. His life is reasonably okay until his sister is transformed into an Ork and he immediately finds himself shunned by polite society. His wee gets worse as he's sent to Seattle and the plane is hijacked by a group of Shadowrunners that he ends up accidentally befriending.
I like the book's mixture of magic and cyberpunk elements by never winking at the reader or commenting on how strange it is. By playing it straight, the book's weirder elements have a chance to shine. Sam Verner is a guy who was raised by a fundamentalist who refused to acknowledge magic and tried to shield his children as much as possible from it. However, magic (and chaos) proceeds to find Sam even when he's trying to live as lawful and orderly a world as possible.
The depiction of Shadowrunners in the book is also interesting as we get to see them do some pretty awful things at the start but show each other loyalty that you wouldn't expect from hardened criminals. It felt very much like a tabletop RPG in that once you were accepted as a member of the "player characters" that they would go to elaborate lengths for one another.
I like how the various plots and counter-plots in the book build up like a game of Vampire: The Masquerade. There's several separate corporate conspiracies going on simultaneously with Sam Verner suspected to be at the bottom of them, ironically, because everyone believes no one can be as squeaky clean as him. This includes a plot by Mr. Drake who, shock of shocks, is actually a dragon. If I had any complaints, I would say that I didn't like the handling of Sam Verner's girlfriend who seems to exist solely to give himself someone to avenge.
This is a pretty entertaining book from beginning to end as I came to like all of the characters with Sally Tsung, Dodger, Ghost, and Ms. Crenshaw that are a great deal more interesting than the somewhat naive Sam Verner. There's a lot of use of the signature characters from the 1st Edition Shadowrun sourcebook and I like when tabletop games take that attitude. The cross-pollination of tabletop games with the fiction is well done throughout the book.
July 7, 2025
Interesting to see how my opinion of this book is so far apart from the last couple of reviews here.
Although I have to admit I was tempted to give four stars for a bit.
Here's the tea:
I'm going to assume you've done at least minimal research into the setting, but if you haven't, no worries. Because...
Great standalone book. The world building is very well done, no annoying infodumps (there's dumps, but they're handled well). And even though it's tempting to focus on the oddities of the setting (and if you know Shadowrun: there's plenty of really strange stuff here), it manages to be a nice, well paced story.
Spy story...thriller... if you like those, and you don't mind a world where magic and high tech intermix (heck, the main character minds without breaking the fourth wall).
I struggled a bit at about 2/3rds of the book, but that's probably on me. The way I read books, and live life, I tend to forget names and remember people and plots through associations. But in this case that became problematic, as there are a few strong, slightly sociopathic women who drive the plot from different sides. So, and here comes the thing that almost deducted a star, I needed the plot-explanation parts near the end to make sense of it all.
So I was annoyed with the life vest, but can't really deduct points for it, as I needed it to survive this book.
And even though this book is set in a setting originally designed for table top roleplaying in the 90s, there is remarkably few instances of turn based combat. Which is nice.
So I do recommend it to anyone who likes cyberpunk, fantasy, sociopathic strong women, and cliff hangers.
Although I have to admit I was tempted to give four stars for a bit.
Here's the tea:
I'm going to assume you've done at least minimal research into the setting, but if you haven't, no worries. Because...
Great standalone book. The world building is very well done, no annoying infodumps (there's dumps, but they're handled well). And even though it's tempting to focus on the oddities of the setting (and if you know Shadowrun: there's plenty of really strange stuff here), it manages to be a nice, well paced story.
Spy story...thriller... if you like those, and you don't mind a world where magic and high tech intermix (heck, the main character minds without breaking the fourth wall).
I struggled a bit at about 2/3rds of the book, but that's probably on me. The way I read books, and live life, I tend to forget names and remember people and plots through associations. But in this case that became problematic, as there are a few strong, slightly sociopathic women who drive the plot from different sides. So, and here comes the thing that almost deducted a star, I needed the plot-explanation parts near the end to make sense of it all.
So I was annoyed with the life vest, but can't really deduct points for it, as I needed it to survive this book.
And even though this book is set in a setting originally designed for table top roleplaying in the 90s, there is remarkably few instances of turn based combat. Which is nice.
So I do recommend it to anyone who likes cyberpunk, fantasy, sociopathic strong women, and cliff hangers.
July 6, 2017
It was a fun read but was bogged down by too many things going on. Needed better editing.
December 31, 2018
Přičetl jsem k hodnocení jednu hvězdičku navíc, že jsem fanda starého Shadowrunu. Ti co nejsou by nemuseli knížku tolik ocenit :-)
October 5, 2014
Welcome to the world of 2050
7 February 2012
Well this is the first of the Shadowrun novels, and not surprisingly, the first one that I will review. There were a few of them written, and I did read some of them, however, as I have said previously, in these later stages of my life the role-playing game spinoffs novels have ceased to impress me, and the Shadowrun books are no exception. They tend to be poorly written and rushed and their only real purpose is not only to continue to make money from successful product, but to also give some atmosphere to the role playing world in which the novel is set. The major catch with that is that a lot of GMs may like the world, but will change aspects to suit their own style, which means that when one reads the novel, the aspects that that particular GM dislikes and cause it to be a little jarring at times.
I will not go into details of these particular novels, but will rather explore aspects of the Shadowrun world as I visit each of the novels that I have read. For this one I will give an overview of the roleplaying world. Shadowrun is set on Earth beginning in the year 2050 (aligning with 1990, the year that the system was first released - Shadowrun is always 60 years ahead of the year in which a supplement is published). This world is a vastly different place to the world that we known, and a simple definition would be 'Cyberpunk meets Dungeons and Dragons'. The world is a world of the dark future (see Blade Runner, or Neuromancer for an idea of what the world of the Dark Future would look like, though there are a lot of other books and films that could do the same job) where governments have become impotent and the corporations have risen to positions of great power.
Much has changed since our world though, and there is a reasonable time line outlining the events that brought about these changes. The most important change is that magic has re-entered the world, and along with magicians we also have magical beasts, diseases, and new races into which a minority of humans have metamorphed (or goblinised as Shadowrun calls it). Discrimination has moved away from skin colour to simply looking different, and it turns out that orks and trolls, the more uglier of the goblinoids, tend to find themselves at the bottom of the social pile. Along with all of this, dragons have also made another appearance (as the title of the book suggests), which is not surprising because one cannot have a science-fantasy would without dragons.
The idea of the game is that magic is not a new thing, but rather a reawakened reality. For some reason magic left the world centuries ago (most likely because all of the practitioners were killed off) and the magical forces went into remission (and creatures such as dragons went into hibernation). However, in the early 21st Century the Native Americans rose up against their oppression, and in a desperate battle, one Native American released a reign of destruction on the American forces. This pretty much turned the tables and the United States was forced to break up, and much of the West was handed back to the Indians, while the east was split into UCAS (the United Canadian and American States) and the CAS (the Confederated American States).
Most of the action is set in Seattle (I wondered why it was not set in Los Angeles, but I guess the developers may have been more familiar with Seattle), which is an independent city state (governed by the UCAS) that is surrounded by Native American Nations. I suspect that they develop Seattle this way as a means to create a frontier city, sort of like the Wild West meets Cyberpunk.
One of the things that I did not like about this book is that the Shadowrunning team that the protagonist encounters turns out to be the team that was used in the rule books as an example of how to create various types of characters. This I found to be very corny - it just did not sit all that well with me. To an extent it made it appear that they were trying to push the marketing aspect of the game a bit too much.
7 February 2012
Well this is the first of the Shadowrun novels, and not surprisingly, the first one that I will review. There were a few of them written, and I did read some of them, however, as I have said previously, in these later stages of my life the role-playing game spinoffs novels have ceased to impress me, and the Shadowrun books are no exception. They tend to be poorly written and rushed and their only real purpose is not only to continue to make money from successful product, but to also give some atmosphere to the role playing world in which the novel is set. The major catch with that is that a lot of GMs may like the world, but will change aspects to suit their own style, which means that when one reads the novel, the aspects that that particular GM dislikes and cause it to be a little jarring at times.
I will not go into details of these particular novels, but will rather explore aspects of the Shadowrun world as I visit each of the novels that I have read. For this one I will give an overview of the roleplaying world. Shadowrun is set on Earth beginning in the year 2050 (aligning with 1990, the year that the system was first released - Shadowrun is always 60 years ahead of the year in which a supplement is published). This world is a vastly different place to the world that we known, and a simple definition would be 'Cyberpunk meets Dungeons and Dragons'. The world is a world of the dark future (see Blade Runner, or Neuromancer for an idea of what the world of the Dark Future would look like, though there are a lot of other books and films that could do the same job) where governments have become impotent and the corporations have risen to positions of great power.
Much has changed since our world though, and there is a reasonable time line outlining the events that brought about these changes. The most important change is that magic has re-entered the world, and along with magicians we also have magical beasts, diseases, and new races into which a minority of humans have metamorphed (or goblinised as Shadowrun calls it). Discrimination has moved away from skin colour to simply looking different, and it turns out that orks and trolls, the more uglier of the goblinoids, tend to find themselves at the bottom of the social pile. Along with all of this, dragons have also made another appearance (as the title of the book suggests), which is not surprising because one cannot have a science-fantasy would without dragons.
The idea of the game is that magic is not a new thing, but rather a reawakened reality. For some reason magic left the world centuries ago (most likely because all of the practitioners were killed off) and the magical forces went into remission (and creatures such as dragons went into hibernation). However, in the early 21st Century the Native Americans rose up against their oppression, and in a desperate battle, one Native American released a reign of destruction on the American forces. This pretty much turned the tables and the United States was forced to break up, and much of the West was handed back to the Indians, while the east was split into UCAS (the United Canadian and American States) and the CAS (the Confederated American States).
Most of the action is set in Seattle (I wondered why it was not set in Los Angeles, but I guess the developers may have been more familiar with Seattle), which is an independent city state (governed by the UCAS) that is surrounded by Native American Nations. I suspect that they develop Seattle this way as a means to create a frontier city, sort of like the Wild West meets Cyberpunk.
One of the things that I did not like about this book is that the Shadowrunning team that the protagonist encounters turns out to be the team that was used in the rule books as an example of how to create various types of characters. This I found to be very corny - it just did not sit all that well with me. To an extent it made it appear that they were trying to push the marketing aspect of the game a bit too much.
March 14, 2020
Some initial background: I played 2nd-edition Shadowrun, the cyberpunk-themed tabletop RPG, with friends in the 90s. I also enjoyed the video game adaptations on the SNES and the Genesis. Also, I had read another Shadowrun novel, *Changeling,* about a person who undergoes a transformation from a human to a troll. This "troll" novel was pretty good. So, I came to this novel with some previously established taste for this strange Shadowrun world. Enough background. This was an entertaining read. The best part of this novel is the secondary world. The idea of a cyberpunk world permeated with magic and magical beings--elves, dragons, orcs, wizards, and Sasquatches--sounds crazy. But it works! And I'm not sure why. The characters are interesting. The main character, Sam Verner, is something of a Mary Stu. The "Shadowrunner" world is very mercenary, amoral, and cruel; however, Sam Verner is motivated by honor, vengeance, and Christian morality (the narrator, weirdly, lets the reader know Sam reads the Bible). The complicated story was a something of a maze and at times it got away from me. Indeed, there are conspiracies within conspiracies, several power players operating behind the scenes manipulating things. Although I lost the thread, it was enthralling nonetheless. Also, there is a villain, Crenshaw, and it wasn't sufficiently established why she hated the main character so much.
June 22, 2023
Update: I finished the book & updated my rating. Not sure what my issue was there. It is a bit plodding for the first few chapters, but I still got through it pretty easily. I'm not sure I have a lot to say about it, except that it really does act as a "primer" for the Shadowrun universe quite well, while still having a decent plot that holds together, for the most part. One part baffled me, where I swear it says that X was an AKA of Y, then Y dies, then X shows up a couple of chapters later. But beyond that, everything worked well. Anyway, I'm curious to see if the whole trilogy makes me feel anything more than 'eh, all right, cool.'
Old Review: This started out weird & just kind of stayed there. It begins with a prologue that's over 15% of the book (and it's not Robert Jordan!), and the prologue isn't BAD, and it sets up the world fairly well. Then ... wow, does it slow down. There doesn't seem to be much focus. I got through part one, which really felt like it could've been summed up with a couple of sentences at some later point in the story. I didn't hate the book, but it just felt ponderously slow. Like, I'm assuming this entire trilogy could've been a single decent-sized book. I'm assuming the reason for padding it so much was to show people the Shadowrun world, and I guess I get that as a reason, but damn, did it go from zero to dull VERY quickly.
Old Review: This started out weird & just kind of stayed there. It begins with a prologue that's over 15% of the book (and it's not Robert Jordan!), and the prologue isn't BAD, and it sets up the world fairly well. Then ... wow, does it slow down. There doesn't seem to be much focus. I got through part one, which really felt like it could've been summed up with a couple of sentences at some later point in the story. I didn't hate the book, but it just felt ponderously slow. Like, I'm assuming this entire trilogy could've been a single decent-sized book. I'm assuming the reason for padding it so much was to show people the Shadowrun world, and I guess I get that as a reason, but damn, did it go from zero to dull VERY quickly.
March 5, 2010
This was an interesting book, set in a world I've never read about or even played in (it is a role playing game setting- I have the main book of rules for it, but have never even explored it more than just leafing through it)
Shadowrun seems to refer to being a mercenary that runs outside of the usual law and in a world corrupted by megacorporations, torn by corporate wars, and now two worlds exist- the corporate world and the underground (shadow) world. In addition to this, Magic, along with Elves, Orcs, and Dragons, has returned to the world.
This book was exciting enough and full of plenty of action and double-dealing. It obviously began as a particular role-playing campaign as it really is more like a series of adventures. While the adventure was fun and could provide a really cool idea for a Game Master to run a Role playing game, as literature it was just standard pulp fun.
A better knowledge of the setting might also have added some enjoyment, as some of the curse words used would be germane to that world and lack a very good corrallary.
I enjoyed the book, but had to work hard to stay with it. Not one of my favorites, but I did not hate it either.
Shadowrun seems to refer to being a mercenary that runs outside of the usual law and in a world corrupted by megacorporations, torn by corporate wars, and now two worlds exist- the corporate world and the underground (shadow) world. In addition to this, Magic, along with Elves, Orcs, and Dragons, has returned to the world.
This book was exciting enough and full of plenty of action and double-dealing. It obviously began as a particular role-playing campaign as it really is more like a series of adventures. While the adventure was fun and could provide a really cool idea for a Game Master to run a Role playing game, as literature it was just standard pulp fun.
A better knowledge of the setting might also have added some enjoyment, as some of the curse words used would be germane to that world and lack a very good corrallary.
I enjoyed the book, but had to work hard to stay with it. Not one of my favorites, but I did not hate it either.
August 3, 2017
I read this book before as a teenager and remember really liking it, so I thought I would try it again since I could only remember about 1 detail from the entire book. So, while I still thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, this time I noticed quite a few problems in the storytelling. I felt like the motives the main character has for doing many actions are weak. Instead upon building upon this tremendous love for his sister that is introduced at the beginning of the book, the author pushes that to the side and the main character uses the reasoning of vengeance for a girl who is barely given a few lines in the whole book as the reason the main character changes his entire life. It just seemed flimsy. There were also parts where I felt the book just needed a second go through by an editor. These mistakes didn't destroy the enjoyment of the premise of the story, but were definitely noticeable.
December 19, 2012
Wow, it has been a LONG time since I read this. I have fond memories of the *experience* of reading the book: getting it for Christmas (back when I was young enough that getting a new paperback was a BIG deal for me), reading it over the holidays, picking out favorite sections to read again (I especially liked the parts featuring the blond mercenary woman and her feathered-serpent henchman). The actual story? Not so much. I've never been able to get into Shadowrun. The behind-the-scenes machinations were way over my head, and I had a hard time really sympathizing with most of the characters. I've slightly regretted over the years not picking up any of the sequels, but after seeing that the author has written forty or more books in the same series? Yeah, no thanks. Xanth was the last series where I gave the author the leeway to wear out a concept THAT much. Never again.
March 10, 2013
I read this in the 90s and loved it. I was just a kid, though. Evidently my tastes have changed.
It starts off with a bang, but nearly 20 years of out-of-printishness can't fix what is, at the core, a muddled, convoluted, and confusing plot.
Gotta give it props for being so in-your-face with all of the callbacks to the source material, though. I used to play Shadowrun back in the day so I knew what level of nuttiness I was in for.
At one point I started to question whether every group of runners really needed to include a decker, a mage, a rigger, a street samurai, yadda yadda...or whether the author was just throwing in the kitchen sink because this first Shadowrun novel could have ended up being the only one.
Anyway. Not horrible. My 14 year old self was a huge fan.
It starts off with a bang, but nearly 20 years of out-of-printishness can't fix what is, at the core, a muddled, convoluted, and confusing plot.
Gotta give it props for being so in-your-face with all of the callbacks to the source material, though. I used to play Shadowrun back in the day so I knew what level of nuttiness I was in for.
At one point I started to question whether every group of runners really needed to include a decker, a mage, a rigger, a street samurai, yadda yadda...or whether the author was just throwing in the kitchen sink because this first Shadowrun novel could have ended up being the only one.
Anyway. Not horrible. My 14 year old self was a huge fan.
January 26, 2016
I just love it. It's not the best book in the world but if you like the world of Shadowrun even a bit it's a must read. I
t's a good introduction to this world of magic, technology and... dragons among other mythical creatures. Good fun, fast paced and well written.
t's a good introduction to this world of magic, technology and... dragons among other mythical creatures. Good fun, fast paced and well written.
September 6, 2023
Two years ago I was revisiting the Super Nintendo's library of games, going back and attempting to play all the titles that I skipped as a kid that were regarded as worth playing. Upon completing 1993's "Shadowrun" I was very pleased --an exceptional RPG style game set in an urban cyberpunk setting with some fantasy elements interwoven into the story....and all executed on a 16-bit home console. I liked it. In doing some more research, I learned that the Super Nintendo version of that game (there was also one for the Sega Genesis, but it had a completely different story) was supposedly based off of this book "Never Deal with a Dragon."
I can say, after both reading the book and playing the video game, I do see where some characters and situations were probably borrowed from the book to flesh out the game. It is only very loosely based. Even the main character has a different name between the two mediums.
Regarding the book, the story is nothing to write home about. In fact, there were some parts of the story that I do not believe were explained well enough. The main character's motivation makes sense for the first 3/4ths of the book, but in the final act it was hard for me to understand why he insisted on going after "the bad guy." It's entirely possible this was explained I was just under-invested in the story and not paying close enough attention.
I've never played the Shadowrun tabletop RPG and I was not familiar with the world at all (prior to playing the SNES game). I can say that, knowing that this book was the first in the series, it most likely had the primary goal of building up the Shadowrun universe as much and as quickly as possible, so as to add more information and details to the universe to support the RPG material. The book does do this successfully --both the corporate/hi-tech and the fantasy/medieval wizard-ish worlds are expanded upon in great detail. There are many places, monsters, and characters who appear, are described, are not really important to the overall story, but do one little thing and then are written away. This happens a lot. It isn't a problem if you are trying to flesh out a "new world" as quickly as possible and get the reader to understand this all in under 400 pages, but from the perspective of a told story, it is too simplistic to keep my attention. On the subject of "under 400 pages," I thought the overall pace of the book was fine up until the final 40 pages --everything seem rushed. Big battles take place over the course of only two pages. Big characters die off unceremoniously and without any narrative reason. The ending seemed rushed --maybe there was some limitation (fast approaching deadline) that the author was working with, or maybe he was just tired of writing at that point.
Either way, not a horrible book, but nothing to remember either. A typical paperback fantasy-genre novel.
I can say, after both reading the book and playing the video game, I do see where some characters and situations were probably borrowed from the book to flesh out the game. It is only very loosely based. Even the main character has a different name between the two mediums.
Regarding the book, the story is nothing to write home about. In fact, there were some parts of the story that I do not believe were explained well enough. The main character's motivation makes sense for the first 3/4ths of the book, but in the final act it was hard for me to understand why he insisted on going after "the bad guy." It's entirely possible this was explained I was just under-invested in the story and not paying close enough attention.
I've never played the Shadowrun tabletop RPG and I was not familiar with the world at all (prior to playing the SNES game). I can say that, knowing that this book was the first in the series, it most likely had the primary goal of building up the Shadowrun universe as much and as quickly as possible, so as to add more information and details to the universe to support the RPG material. The book does do this successfully --both the corporate/hi-tech and the fantasy/medieval wizard-ish worlds are expanded upon in great detail. There are many places, monsters, and characters who appear, are described, are not really important to the overall story, but do one little thing and then are written away. This happens a lot. It isn't a problem if you are trying to flesh out a "new world" as quickly as possible and get the reader to understand this all in under 400 pages, but from the perspective of a told story, it is too simplistic to keep my attention. On the subject of "under 400 pages," I thought the overall pace of the book was fine up until the final 40 pages --everything seem rushed. Big battles take place over the course of only two pages. Big characters die off unceremoniously and without any narrative reason. The ending seemed rushed --maybe there was some limitation (fast approaching deadline) that the author was working with, or maybe he was just tired of writing at that point.
Either way, not a horrible book, but nothing to remember either. A typical paperback fantasy-genre novel.
December 11, 2024
”Foolish norm. Always keep your eyes on a dragon.”
Despite knowing next to nothing about the Shadowrun RPG, who can resist a really GREAT HumbleBundle bargain (?) … ’cause I can’t (!) … and so I snapped up their offer on an instant eighty-plus book library of the game’s inspired novels (which in hindsight seems like about seventy-nine books more than I’ll ever have a chance to read). Of course, I had to start with the very first book in the original series … I have a lot of ‘completist’ issues, okay (?) … Robert N. Charette’s Never Deal With A Dragon. And yeah, this was quite good; I can definitely see how this powered a whole bookshelf of content.
Like most RPG settings, the Shadowrun world is incredibly complex and layered, but Charette pushes us under its surface with a minimal amount of struggle, immersing us in a classic cyber-punk environment mixed with high fantasy magics, elves with Internet access, sorcerers slumming in burned-out tenements, and dragons lusting less for piles of gold coin and more for the C-suites of some major international corporations. There’s a lot of world-building here, and Charette is really good at it. At the same time, he’s also spinning a maze-like tale of corporate espionage as protagonist Sam Verner slips from salaryman to budding sorcerer.
If you’ve read other game-inspired novelizations, you know exactly what you’re getting here: heroes, villains, monsters, episodic encounters as steps on an epic quest, and … here’s where it’s different … an above average amount of mistrust, betrayal and subterfuge (maybe even a bit too much subterfuge … I admit … there were times when I began to lose track of who was tricking whom). Never Deal With A Dragon is a hefty 500 plus pages (on my Kindle anyway) … way longer than most novels of this ilk … and it’s likely the volume made me miss a few nuances. Antagonist Alice Crenshaw’s motivation, for example, kind of stuck in my craw for most of the book; I couldn’t quite figure the chip on her shoulder. But with a sentence, Charette makes sense … wait for it until you hit page 451. And when things get bloody … well, he is kind of merciless.
With some years on me, my hunger (and appreciation) for these old RPG inspired works is really slipping toward an obsession and this … this was just good, old-fashioned RPG fiction in top form, something I would have thrilled to years ago (had I played this game) in between roleplaying sessions. Do I have time for more Shadowrun in my life? Uh, no! But does Charette’s opening book make me want more? Uh, yes!
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