I totally agree that Nigel Findley was the greatest Shadowrun Author, but then he died damn it.

Michael Stackpole is the other.

Cheers

QM

This kind of fiction should be cleansed. With fire. The only game fiction I can stand is the examples of play in which, by the narrated development of the facts you find an in-´game explanation of the rolls and so on. Everything is garbage.

I've found very little fiction printed in sourcebooks that was of any import or significance at all. It's served its purpose - to elucidate tone, flesh out possibilities, show how it's done - but not been literature or or even necessarily literate! Exceptions abound, in my experience mostly in older FASA products, where some of the fiction, while not necessarily well-written from an editorial perspective, not only served its purpose of illuminating the game world, but also raised interesting psychological questions or philosophical issues. [And often, way back when, in the form of Shadowtalk and Earthdawn's marginalia, served also to make the world more real-seeming and varied and complex.] Hell, as far as literary inspiration goes, Shadowrun's in-sourcebook fiction has the distinction of being the only in-game fiction I'm aware of that spawned a major motion picture.

However, the in-sourcebook material is often unrelated or of vastly differing quality to published novels in the game's setting, some of which over the years have been, if not profound in a literary sense, at least enjoyable pulp. I'm an escapist in my reading-for-pleasure, so when I'm not choking down histories of the chimney or mathematical arguments for the length of birds' tails, I often [used to; I find I've little time lately to read] read Battletech novels or even Shadowrun novels, and especially Earthdawn novels. I've even choked down a TSR novel or two in my day [okay, 20 or so]. And no, I've never read any of it that transcended that invisible line into genius, but much of it did precisely what it was intended to: please me for three hours.

Quote from: JongWKMost of them are quite bad, yes. The exception seem to be Nigel Findley's books, as he was one of the best SR authors.

I preferred Nyx Smith.

I rep Tom Dowd and Caroline Spector.

The intro fiction in the Ars Magica 5E book is not only bad (like all game fiction), but it has little to do with actual Ars play. It isn't even a cheesy promo for Ars gameplay; it feels like it was just thrown in because a fictional intro is expected these days. So it's inaccurate in the sense that it isn't about a typical Ars session at all.