FOUND IT! ... Changeling
Five years ago I wrote the following commentary at Shadowrun Writer’s forum under the Internet nick Mosi_M on the Sci-Fi novel Changeling in the Shadowrun universe. I have edited the text abit but the original can be found here.
In defence of CHANGELING by Christopher Kubasik:
Changeling was the first novel I read in English, (that I can remember), and it was absolutely an eyeopener for me. Changeling is the book that made the Shadowrun world believable.
The structure (bones) of Shadowrun is the rule system. Changeling revealed the meat, ... that in Shadowrun there is a socio-, racist, and economical twists that made you sense the universe, as a believable setting. For instance generalizations in Shadowrun do not apply. Example; there is an omnipresent basis in SR that people are not absolutely good or evil, but a little bit of a blend. Just this factor alone gives automatic depth to SR material written by authors who have this sense, authors like Christopher Kubasik.
Changeling was the fifth novel in the Shadowrun series and it came out at the right time where some gamers regarded Shadowrun like a Megalomanic Cyberpunk with a magical twist, ... and therefor not that much different!
WARNING SPOILERS:
What was appealing about Changeling was that the protogonist has next to nil world importance and therefore is an utter and complete “low life”, with no real impact on the evolution on the general SR-World. A human teenager that goblinized into a “troll” and does his best to get his intellect mind back after the horrendous transformation. Fast Eddie, the dude with malfunctioning experimental cyberwere. Ghouls longing for legal recognition as human beings, remember the picket line “Ghouls are people too!”
Okay, in retrospect Changeling was on the verge of being mushy and the tech-babble was a bit overdone, (one of my friends lost interest in novels based on roleplaying games after reading that scientific word bombast!) But still Changeling is a novel that has the ability to sell Shadowrun. For it tells a story of an unwanted nobody stuck in the grinding machine of the system that dosn’t accommodate the likes of his, in a post apocalyptic future where technology and mystic have merged as a real presence, mirroring a real socio- economic chaos that should have gotten the attention of every anthropologically thinking Sci-Fi addict.
Evidently as more Shadowrun novels were published it became less of telling stories and more of publishers hinting how the Shadowrun universe would evolve. In short the novels had a central theme of “it affects millions”. Therefore they came to be foreseeable and monolithic. The Dirk Montgomery character was the only believable character in such novels and 2XS was brilliant, (but then again 2XS was published before Changeling). Later when Universal Brotherhood popped up from time to time during roleplaying sessions players and their characters became extremely paranoid about the world.
Also I must say that Christopher Kubasik’s Ærthdawn books were way to mushy, ...so he should have written more books for Shadowrun.
After Nigel Findley, the author of 2XS, passed on, the novels became in general not such an interesting reading on it’s own regard. In fact most of the following novels seemed to degrade the authenticity of the SR-Universe! It was only relevant to read them to have a sense of how the Shadowrun universe was evolving, ...that’s it.
2XS was the most thrilling; Changeling gave the Shadowrun essence!
SR Novel nr: 5: Changeling; Chris(topher) Kubasik. ISBN: 0-451-45163-5. FP: June, 1992.
Five years ago I wrote the following commentary at Shadowrun Writer’s forum under the Internet nick Mosi_M on the Sci-Fi novel Changeling in the Shadowrun universe. I have edited the text abit but the original can be found here.
In defence of CHANGELING by Christopher Kubasik:
Changeling was the first novel I read in English, (that I can remember), and it was absolutely an eyeopener for me. Changeling is the book that made the Shadowrun world believable.
The structure (bones) of Shadowrun is the rule system. Changeling revealed the meat, ... that in Shadowrun there is a socio-, racist, and economical twists that made you sense the universe, as a believable setting. For instance generalizations in Shadowrun do not apply. Example; there is an omnipresent basis in SR that people are not absolutely good or evil, but a little bit of a blend. Just this factor alone gives automatic depth to SR material written by authors who have this sense, authors like Christopher Kubasik.
Changeling was the fifth novel in the Shadowrun series and it came out at the right time where some gamers regarded Shadowrun like a Megalomanic Cyberpunk with a magical twist, ... and therefor not that much different!
WARNING SPOILERS:
What was appealing about Changeling was that the protogonist has next to nil world importance and therefore is an utter and complete “low life”, with no real impact on the evolution on the general SR-World. A human teenager that goblinized into a “troll” and does his best to get his intellect mind back after the horrendous transformation. Fast Eddie, the dude with malfunctioning experimental cyberwere. Ghouls longing for legal recognition as human beings, remember the picket line “Ghouls are people too!”
Okay, in retrospect Changeling was on the verge of being mushy and the tech-babble was a bit overdone, (one of my friends lost interest in novels based on roleplaying games after reading that scientific word bombast!) But still Changeling is a novel that has the ability to sell Shadowrun. For it tells a story of an unwanted nobody stuck in the grinding machine of the system that dosn’t accommodate the likes of his, in a post apocalyptic future where technology and mystic have merged as a real presence, mirroring a real socio- economic chaos that should have gotten the attention of every anthropologically thinking Sci-Fi addict.
Evidently as more Shadowrun novels were published it became less of telling stories and more of publishers hinting how the Shadowrun universe would evolve. In short the novels had a central theme of “it affects millions”. Therefore they came to be foreseeable and monolithic. The Dirk Montgomery character was the only believable character in such novels and 2XS was brilliant, (but then again 2XS was published before Changeling). Later when Universal Brotherhood popped up from time to time during roleplaying sessions players and their characters became extremely paranoid about the world.
Also I must say that Christopher Kubasik’s Ærthdawn books were way to mushy, ...so he should have written more books for Shadowrun.
After Nigel Findley, the author of 2XS, passed on, the novels became in general not such an interesting reading on it’s own regard. In fact most of the following novels seemed to degrade the authenticity of the SR-Universe! It was only relevant to read them to have a sense of how the Shadowrun universe was evolving, ...that’s it.
2XS was the most thrilling; Changeling gave the Shadowrun essence!
SR Novel nr: 5: Changeling; Chris(topher) Kubasik. ISBN: 0-451-45163-5. FP: June, 1992.
posted by Sóli @ 08:51
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