Word from my Fixer is that my new Shadowrun novel, Dark Synergy, hits shelves September 6th, and it’s always more fun to come into a new story feeling up to speed with the setting. This puppy takes place in the mid 2070s, so not quite the cutting edge of now in the Sixth World, but still with decades of prior lore that I pulled from in preparation.
For the first time, boys and ghouls, one of my novels is focusing on a corporate character – that’s right, an actual suit! – and that means you need a little different mindset than for Jimmy Kincaid’s noir-PI hijinks or Dash Red Clay’s paramilitary adventures. You might want to do a little homework if you plan to catch all the references in Dark Synergy (and good luck with catching all of them!).
So it’s time for the professor in me to come out, and for you to check your syllabus for a suggested reading list for the fall semester.
- Magic, Machines, and Mayhem (currently exclusively available to Shadowrun: Edge Zone backers) anthology. I’ve got to kick off with this one, not only because it’s hot off the presses, but because I snuck in a sort of pre-game warmup featuring Kenji. In addition to lots of other great stories, this offers you a sneak preview of Kenji and how he operates.
- Down These Dark Streets by Russell Zimmerman. First off, you could do a lot worse than reading this just to get a look at me and how I operate, but second, hidden within the pages of this puppy are a whole lot of familiar shadow-faces, some of them in a story that (whether it knows it or not) leads directly into, and directly affects, Dark Synergy. I’m not telling you which one, though, chummers. Not for free!
- Power Plays sourcebook. Guiding us away from pure fiction and into setting sourcebooks, this is the game’s most recent, cutting edge, up-to-date (as of the time I write this!) in-depth look at the corporations that rule the Sixth World. Reading up on Evo in this book shows us where the company’s going to be… a few years after my novel. I had to keep the future in mind while writing it, so I didn’t disrupt the canon. It’s always a fun little tightrope to walk…
- Corporate Shadowfiles sourcebook, by Nigel Findley. On the other end of the spectrum? Going from our most recent snapshot look at corporations in Shadowrun, let’s turn back the clock and look at one of the very first corpo-centric books in our storied history. Evo’s a company that rose from the ashes, but how did it start? Plus you know me, any time I get to plug Nigel’s work, I’m going to go for it.
- Blood in the Boardroom sourcebook. Coming in about five years after Shadowfiles, this one’s another in-depth look at the megacorporate status quo of the late 2050s. It also includes a lot of NPCs and plot hooks. Hmm. Might be handy data.
- Corporate Guide sourcebook. Set in the early 2070s, this book was the megacorporate field guide for quite a few years and it established the vibe I needed for Evo itself as a character. Corporate culture’s a thing, just like in real life, and this is a great jumping-off point to get a feel for how the company thinks… and says it thinks.
- Seattle 2072 sourcebook. And lastly? As always, our beloved Emerald City. You can never go wrong with a setting guide when you’re diving in on one of my Shadowrun pieces, and Seattle never has as shortage of published material exploring it. Again set just a few years before our story, this 2072 snapshot has been my trusty companion for novel after novel after novel, for years. Once again, you might find a great many of this story’s locations might feel just a little familiar to you, like revisiting a friendly local game store after being away for a few years.
Last but not least, let me leave you with a trusty little trick for handy e-book storage, Shadowrun fans! I started doing this after researching the Blackbird Trilogy, since Dash’s story takes us from the 2020s to the 2080s, making organization (and Easter Eggs) important to me. I started changing the file names of all my pdfs to include the in-universe year! I like to still leave the title as the start, for alphabetization, but then I just add the in-game date (which is especially handy with the real-time advancement of the metaplot)!
Like, say… *checks a random documents folder*…BostonLockdown_76,CorporateDownload_61, CorporateEnclaves_71, CorporateGuide_72,CorporateSecurityHandbook_55, CorporateShadowfiles_54,HardTargets_77, MarketPanic_77, RunnerHavens_70, StolenSouls_76. The list goes on and on! For no reason! Maybe!
But, hey, I’m not your dad! You can always just jump in blind and experience the story the same chaotic, messy, gut-punchy way our poor boy Kenji has to. The novel stands on its own two feet just fine, but if you like catching all the little links and connecting the dots a little faster than our protagonist does, consider checking out the rest of the syllabus reading list.
If not? Still be sure to grab Dark Synergy when it hits shelves on September 6th!
Until then, chummers. Count your ammunition, keep an eye on the astral, trust in your contacts, and stay frosty.
Interested in Dark Synergy? Get your pre-order here! www.books2read.com/ShadowrunDarkSynergy
