Currently Drinking: Scrumpy

Run Faster is a sourcebook for Shadowrun 5th Edition, in most respects an update or sequel to the very useful 4th Edition book Runner's Companion, only with a somewhat more clever title.
As mentioned, the various pieces of the book are written by different authors, but the book doesn't say who wrote what, except for the chapter fiction pieces.

The book starts with Who You Are and How You Got Here.  This is basically a set of articles on the types of people who get into shadowrunning and from what walks of life they come from, ostensibly to recognize who the character is dealing with but mainly to give the player some role-playing tips.  In some cases because they can't fit into the corporate world, in some because they are hunted (like some technomancers) and others who are just thrillseekers.  Of course, some are more reliable than others, and if they're NPCs, you can't be sure how reliable they are.  Of course, PCs may be even worse.  This section also brings back the 20 Questions character-creation tool that was used in earlier editions (and has also been used in Legends of the Five Rings).  

The next section is "Ethics, Codes and Other Jokes."  Quite a few runners, namely the Street Samurai, and a few other people like the old Mafia have certain codes of honor.  Of course as the text points out, "when the chips are down, they're willing to set (the code) aside in the name of need."  They actually quote Champions designer Steve Long here: "A disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth any points."  In terms of gamemastering, this means that one shouldn't allow a character who doesn't hurt women but allows other teammates to do so (for instance).  This philosophy ties into the explanations of certain Qualities presented later in the book.

The third section is The Spice of Runners' Lives.  This deals with certain "odd jobs" outside the stereotypical shadowrun, such as hunting for magical reagents in the wild, or going into exotic locations like arcologies or space colonies.  This concept also refers to a change in clientele from the usual corporate "Johnson" to local shopkeepers and academic organizations.  
One of the possibilities for the "hunt" ties into what seems to be the 5th Edition metaplot: In Stolen Souls and a couple of other books, the designers introduced the concept of Cognitive Fragmentation Disorder, where several fairly major people in the SR universe got "body-snatched" by Matrix intelligences.  In fact they mention here that one of the reasons the corps redesigned the Matrix was that even though CFD caught them by surprise, they did know enough to realize that they didn't want people to be as exposed to it as they were when you could use a commlink to hack the system.  Sometimes corps will hire runners to capture these "head cases" for experimentation and research, and other times other head cases will hire them in secret for their own purposes.  

The fourth section is More Than Skin Deep.  It deals with the factors of identity having to do with a character's "race" (metatype).  It is written from the perspective of cultural anthropologist Garrett Storm, and while it in large ways invokes stereotypes (Dwarfs and Humans are referred to as 'Beards' and 'Norms' respectively) the fictional author qualifies his opinions with a certain amount of academic gobbledegook about how even those who defy their stereotype are simply creating their own culture defined by its opposition to the stereotype.  After the five main races, the piece turns to Freaks (Changelings, see below), Furs (shapeshifters) and the augmented (whom Storm defines as the 'transhumanist path').  

The next section, Construction Kits, is much more rules-oriented than all the other stuff up to this point.  It includes several options for tweaking the SR5 character-creation system, which in the corebook is based on the A through E priority system.  One of these options is called "Sum to Ten" in which you get 10 points to spend on Priorities, with Priority A being 4 points, B being 3, on down to E which is 0.  This way you could choose A twice for two different columns and have two points left over, or whichever combination fits the points.  The other option is a point-buy system, similar to the (rather cumbersome) one in 4th Edition, in which you get 800 Karma to make a character, using the Karma rules for standard character advancement to buy up from the minimum attributes for the character's purchased metatype (which has a set cost; Human is 0 whereas Shapeshifter, Ursine is 160).  The third option is called Life Module, in which you have a similar point-buy process, with only 750 Karma, but getting a package deal of skills and backgrounds from the character's home nation/subregion, along with stuff like growing up in an arcology, growing up a fugitive, etc.  

The next rules section is called The Mess of Metahumanity.  This includes not only variants of the other metahuman races such as Minotaurs (Trolls) and the Nartaki (Humans of Indian origins who resemble four-armed Hindu divinities due to the recent mana pulse) but metasapients such as centaurs and sasquatch.  And then you have the changelings.   The 2061 passing of Halley's Comet brought a third wave of magical mutation (after UGE and Goblinization) called SURGE (Sudden Unexplained Recessive Genetic Expression).  This chapter deals with creating "metavariant" characters based on the main metatypes, along with the metasapients and changelings.  The cheesy thing about changelings is that in game terms the SURGE operates in three Classes (I, II and III) each worth a certain amount of Karma to buy Qualities, but only the Class III character buys Positive Qualities, which must be balanced out by Negative Qualities, usually according to a certain theme (such as cat-person).  Stage II changelings select their Positive Qualities but must determine their balancing Negative Qualities randomly, while a Stage I changeling determines all changeling qualities randomly.  The following pages give tables of these randomized qualities along with how much Karma one pays on a modified Priority Table for being one of the new metavariants or metasapients.  This matters because some of these Qualities are also used to buy the new racial abilities (such as 'Shiva Arms' which are the main feature of the Nartaki and also possible for changelings).

After this there's a section with various in-forum comments from characters who are "infected" - since in Shadowrun conditions like being a vampire or ghoul are actually based on a virus.  This means that while these conditions remain largely mysterious, they have physical effects.  For one thing, while vampires have a mist form, most companies have learned to put UV filters in their ventilation systems and wood-particle sprayers in their security systems.  After the in-character stuff, there are also rules for using Infected as player characters.  This requires some fudging of Rules As Written since not only are Infected not allowed as PCs in the corebook, but making them as characters means that they exceed the 25 point limit of Positive Qualities in standard character creation.  (In order to do this, this book says that this limit does not apply to Infected qualities, although the 25 point limit on Negative Qualities remains in place.)  If a character becomes Infected in play, then he has to spend any spare Karma on buying the proper Infected Qualities, with any Karma deficit requiring the character to use any future Karma earned until the quantity is paid off.  Interestingly, because the virus is magical, an Infected is an Awakened character by definition, but since this state is incompatible with being a technomancer, any technomancer who becomes Infected loses his Resonance abilities.  Also, this section gives rules on using HMHVV (Human Metahuman Vampiric Virus) under the disease rules, since Infected characters are, well, infectious.  

Next they have "As You As You Can Be," which is the section of expanded Qualities.  But as they keep saying in SR5, "everything has a price," and it isn't always measured in Karma.  Qualities (positive and negative) are priced largely in regard to the effects they would have on a character in game.  Some of these Qualities, for instance, give certain tradeoffs (e.g. City Slicker is a Positive Quality giving bonuses in urban environments but a penalty in non-urban environments) and are thus more like package deals.  By the same token, removing Negative Qualities isn't (or shouldn't be) as simple as just saving up the Karma to buy them off, but will usually involve in-game events to (for example) pay off your debt to the Mob.  

Pages 160-167 show some sample characters built with the rules in this book.

"Who You Know" is a section of expanded Contact rules.  In this system, contacts provide at least one of six kinds of support to player characters: Legwork, Networking (getting other people  together), Swag, Shadow Services, Personal Favors or (general) Support.  But again: Everything has a price.  The price a Contact charges may be simple Cash, Services, Barter or "Other."  This latter element involves measuring the results of paying the price against consequences- for example, if your Contact demands an addictive drug, would paying the price be worth strengthening his habit and making him a less effective Contact in the future?  It's also possible that the character can be in need of help but not be in position to pay, which leads to the situation of "I Owe You One."  Using the existing Favor system in the corebook, this process works by the PC owing a favor equal to twice the value of the favor received, such that a Favor of Rating 2 would require a Favor of Rating 4 to pay off.  Other rules in this section include organization contacts (including one's family) and the need to maintain Contact Ratings through character interactions.  There are also some tables for quick Contact generation, including rolling the NPC's favorite vices.  Finally, this section includes character blocks for various Contact types, including rewrites of ones from the corebook.   Examples include Bartender, Media Mogul and even Church Pastor ('Maybe you question why you are shooting people in the face for money and need some sort of sign or guidance').

"Bosses & Betrayers" is about "Mr. Johnson," aka the guy who hires you for a shadowrun, and also the fixer who arranges the job, who in some cases might be the same person.  It's pointed out in an in-character essay that by arranging for an illegal action through the runners, a Mr. Johnson is by accessory guilty of that action.  This means, among other things, that he must do whatever he can to protect himself, which may mean betraying the runners to cover his tracks.  In negotiations, one has to protect oneself and one's team from that possibility via what the author calls rapport de force.  "That's French for 'who has the biggest dick.'"   The team has to prove they're not pushovers, and so does the Johnson.  This section also goes over the cultures of the various "Big Ten" corps that may influence the NPC's background (it's mentioned that corps actually have whole staffs of people who do nothing but arrange shadowruns, which should probably be obvious but isn't always made explicit).  There are other types of Johnson, such as representatives of criminal syndicates ('Almost all criminal syndicates are racist and prejudiced in some way') or "extremists" such as insurgents or magical secret societies.  The author mentions that these are the most likely to have the Johnson be the guy who's actually calling the shots for his organization (because of its cell structure) and also the most likely to try to kill you after a job in order to eliminate the trail.  And then you have amateurs.  As in, anyone else who would want to hire you for a run.  Early on, the author says that technically if someone hires you to go across the street and buy him a soykaf, that makes him a Johnson.  The downside to the fact that these people are least likely to betray you is that they are least likely to be able to give you anything for services.

"A Dump of One's Own" deals with the factor of character lifestyle.  This is an in-game resource in Shadowrun, but the text also discusses what that actually means in setting terms, like, are there times when it's actually more practical to lay low and live in a "coffin hotel" for a while?  In game terms, this book defines seven elements to a lifestyle (in addition to the levels Street, Low, Medium, High and Luxury): Comforts, Necessities, Security, Neighborhood, Entertainment, Services and Assets.  Most of this is self-explanatory.  But they mention stuff like "an apple is out of the price range of most shadowrunners"  and: "Another must is a nearby laundromat.  Wearing dried blood to a meet-up can easily send the wrong kind of message."  
This chapter basically allows greater customization of a character lifestyle.  Each of the five income levels (in addition to the new Bolt Hole option, which is just what it sounds like) has a range of options for each of the seven listed categories, and exceeding (or going below) these ranges means you still have to invest in a different lifestyle.  This means a lot more fiddling but also means that the GM and player can think of more ideas about what the character's neighborhood is like, what kind of people he encounters there and how likely he is to get robbed while he's away from home.  One important factor here is the table on page 220 for the response time of law enforcement or other official services to each class of neighborhood, in case of an emergency suffered (or caused) by the PCs.  

"Pack Your Kit" introduces the concept of character PACKs – as in, pre-assembled character kits for beginning PCs to pick up and use, since the authors acknowledge that even "seasoned players find themselves groaning over a calculator, trying to squeeze every last available nuyen."  These are costed in terms of both nuyen and Karma, with the Karma cost in Resources being a ratio of 2000 nuyen to 1 Karma point.  Of course there's enough of these little various options, some of which duplicate each other, that you might find yourself still spending a lot of extra time equipping a PC.  
In this section they also say that if you're trying to price some item that's not on the list, you can extrapolate by taking a similar real-world item and acting on the principle that 1 Nuyen = 1 hamburger.  (Some economics texts called this the 'Big Mac Rule' until McDonald's got more expensive.)  In this regard they give a list of various items.  On this the aforementioned apple is 5 nuyen.  "Soy chicken" is 5 nuyen and real chicken is 20.

SUMMARY

Run Faster is just what it seems like: a grab bag.  Some people will find some parts a lot more usable than others.  In game terms, this is again the SR5 equivalent of Runner's Companion, with similar options for expanding PC metatypes, Qualities, Contacts and Lifestyle options.  The game material seems better constructed than the equivalent material of prior editions, although like most post-FASA material, it tends to lack that old Shadowrun style.