I’m a little obsessed about power.
Power dynamics are really interesting to me, along with the different kinds of power and when you can and can’t use them. Power is a huge part of Shadowrun—shadowrunners are people without access to conventional power (money, high-ranking jobs, political influence, for example) who try to survive by building other kinds of power (physical strength, spellcasting, hacking, persuasion, rigging, and so on). A lot of the stories of the Sixth World are about how they build up their personal power, or what happens when the power they’ve gathered comes up against the more conventional power of the world and how they can survive if it decides it wants to crush them.
This obsession led me to thinking about a character who gets the chance to shift his power, moving from shadow power to more conventional power. Or, to put it more directly and specifically, what happens when a shadowrunner becomes a high-priced lawyer?
That’s where Booker Coleman, the main character of Bad Faith, comes from. He got off the streets and into the courtroom—but not in the way that leads to him having to exit the courtroom in shackles, which is novel for people with his past. He has a kind of power and steady income he couldn’t dream of as a runner, but that also comes with restraints. There are rules, written and unwritten, that he’s supposed to follow, and that doesn’t always help him learn as what he wants to learn. Sometimes, even though the shadows seem less powerful than a multi-million-nuyen law firm, they’re the best ways to get things done.
The other fun thing, of course, is that Booker and his law firm are not alone or isolated in the Sixth World. There are plenty of other power players cooking up nefarious schemes. So Bad Faith gets to look at all sorts of dynamics, like law firms with unethical clients (and law firms that aren’t ethically strong themselves), magic power brokers exploring forbidden areas, and of course the megacorps willing to do just about anything to build their power.
But before we worry that this is starting to sound like an academic text, it does all that through a story with undead hanging out in junkyards, car chases through the suburbs, a dive bar built into an old bus, a stubborn vehicle spirit, and a horrible secret buried just outside of DeeCee. It’s a ton of stuff I love about the Sixth World, walking around in the skin of a legal thriller! With zombies! I hope you enjoy it!
Get ready for Bad Faith and pre-order your copy here!
