Technobabel (Shadowrun)

Rating:
Summary: Awesome story, but requires previous Shadowrun exposure.
Review: Technobabel may not make a lot of sense to readers that are new or completely unfamiliar to the Shadowrun novels or the RPG.
It's a shame too, because this is an exciting novel full of the usual corporate double-crosses, "Who's really pulling the strings?" paranoia, with some inner struggles between free-will and fate/destiny thrown in for good measure. It's sort of like "The Usual Suspects" meets "The Lawnmower Man" and "The Matrix".
To properly appreciate Technobabel, I suggest first reading some other Shadowrun novels about elite runners like: Fade To Black, Wolf and Raven, or Preying For Keeps. Reading the Dragon Heart Saga is probably a good idea also before picking up Technobabel.

In addition to being one of the best of the SR novels, Technobabel is a good resource for experienced Shadowrunners in running one of the RPG's highest level of threat-rating adventures. This next section reviews that aspect of the book for gamemasters/players of Shadowrun RPG:

Technobabel gives some insight about the otaku tribes culture, reveals the origins of the enigmatic and powerful NPC, Ronin, and gives some details about the motivations of the Matrix group Overwatch. All of this is accomplished while giving a detailed account the events during the Renraku Arcology Shutdown, and the subsequent aftermath. This book changes the Shadowrun RPG landscape on as many levels as did Dunkelzahn's Assassination, the collapse of Fuichi Corp., and the Year of the Comet sourcebook.
It is required reading for any gamemaster planning on running the highly-lethal 3rd Edition adventure "Brainscan". You'll want to keep it off-limits to your players until after you run the adventure, as it spoils many of the arc's plot twists. FASA designed "Brainscan" so you pretty much need to also purchase the 2nd edition adventure "Renraku Arcology: Shutdown", and Technobabel to properly use it. Be aware that the Nanotechnology section of the "Man & Machine" sourcebook is set after the events in "Brainscan", so you might wish to suppress that chapter prior to running the adventure.