Customer Reviews

Preying for Keeps (Shadowrun 21)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed this book quite a bit compared to most of the books that have come from FASA. I appreciated that level of ingenuity and realism (for the genre) in the novel, especially compared to The Dragonheart Saga (which was good, but...). Definitely worth five stars. I just wish I could say the same for Odom's latest Shadowrun book.

From the opening pages of 'Preying For Keeps' by Mel Odom, I could tell this was going to be a non-stop, slam-bang page-turner of a novel. And it was. The intensity doesn't let up at all for the first 150 pages or so, then, after a short breather that lasts all of maybe 10 pages, it's in full-throttle mode again all the way up to the last page.

Here's the basic plot: In Seattle, Jack Skater and his team of shadowrunners are set-up big time during a run, in which they barely escape intact, and the list of potential suspects grows increasingly large as the story moves along; with the mob, the yakuza, some small-time hoods, and a huge biotech corporation out of the Tir all making that list. Meanwhile, a strange virus is spreading through Seattle that turns it's victims into raving killers.

Odom can definitely write a captivating story, and this one looked like it was shaping up to be a great sci-fi/fantasy novel period, not just a great Shadowrun novel. Unfortunately, it felt a little rushed in places. And considering Odom seems to write 4-5 novels a year (in every genre imaginable), this is almost inevitable. Too bad he didn't devote a little more time in ironing out everything, especially near the end. Still, this is definitely one of the best novels in the series, and features some of the most memorable characters to ever grace the pages of Shadowrun. But the words "what could have been" seem to pop in my mind when I read this novel, and is the main reason I don't consider it one of the elite, 5-star Shadowrun novels, of which there are only a handful.

4.0 stars as far as gaming-related fiction goes.

Ranking among Shadowrun novels, imo- 8th

(BTW, Odom's follow-up Shadowrun novel, 'Headhunters,' features these same characters and is one of the better Shadowrun novels, imho. His last, 'Run Hard Die Fast,' while mainly about Argent, also features some cameos, and is worth checking out as well, even if Odom's Argent didn't quite match Findley's)

Ignore naysayers. This was one of the best shadowrun books I've ever read.

This story is a bad a** story. A story that would rival the "Dragon Heart" saga.

This book is the closest thing I've read to a perfect Shadowrun novel. It has nearly everything that a shadowrun adventure should have ( a chase sequence, magic, kidnapping, mystery, data theft, gunfights, etc...) and it's written very well. There is even a surprise 'celebrity appearence' later on the story.

I must say I enjoyed this book more than any other novel of series. It's well written, intelligent, serious, and to a certain degre, more realistic (M. Odom has done quiet a good job creating a complex plot, while transposing the Shadowrun's world on top in a credible and detailed way) than what I have seen from others. Sure for some this may be lacking in the emotional departement and his characters may seem too cold, but that's what we are suppose to like in the universe of Shadowrun. Personally, I think emotions should be a bit restraint in a Shadowrun novel. Face it, if every time skater kills someone, he's suppose to weep...

Awww ... wasn't that cute! I think if Odom had written one more paragraph about how Skater was so good at running the shadows because he never got personally involved I would have puked! The only good part of this novel was that it contained an actual Shadowrunning team. The characters keep telling us how they are professional because they never show emotion, I say that Odom can't write characters with emotions and uses their "professionalism" as a crutch! Professional? If they were professional they wouldn't be running the shadows they would be working for a megacorp! The characters were flat, the writing was poor, and the plot was so convoluted that it made reading Dante's Inferno seem pleasent! The last scene with the train made Volcano seem plausible. But, hey what do I know, I've only been reading Shadowrun for the last eight years!