Shadowrun, page 42
“Nice read,” Oscar said. “Are you going to attempt to convince me that you didn’t stack the deck?”
The clown smiled, and the corners of his mouth seemed quite close to touching his ears. “Why else would I use cards?”
He placed his right hand on the Bastard card, showing a man who looked very much like himself looking out a broken window. He spun it slowly. “Inverse. Upright. Inverse. Upright,” he said with each turn. “Positive or negative. Good or bad.”
Oscar remained hanging, but the nerves, the rapid heartbeat, the fog in his mind that had possessed him were gone. The clarity of the Ace of Swords was making its cuts.
“What will make this good?” he asked.
“You tell me,” the clown said. “I made a move. It’s what the people pulling your strings wanted. I’m sure they have a response planned. What is it?”
Oscar was on the verge of shaking his head and trying to put together a denial, when there was a rush of sound, a blinding headache that came and went almost instantly, and he knew. He knew the information, and he knew what he was supposed to say, and he felt like he maybe had a choice about that, but he probably didn’t.
“Here’s the rest of the message,” Oscar says. “Jane says you’re not the only one who can push buttons.”
He waited for a reaction—a sign of surprise, a few stammered words—then he remembered who he was dealing with. There was not so much as a tap of the clown’s fingers. He just shook his head, maybe in sadness, maybe in disappointment. “This was a roundabout way to deliver a message,” the clown said. “Overly elaborate.”
“Because you’re all about efficiency and directness, right?” Oscar said, then couldn’t believe that he said it.
The clown didn’t seem to mind. “Touché.” He might have even smiled. “It’s a character flaw, I suppose. I’m used to being one of the few unchanging things in the world. I forget that sometimes even I have to adapt. So. You are not the student, I am not the mentor. How would you like to define our relationship?”
Oscar paused, tilted his head, and tried to understand the message he was receiving. “I don’t think she believes it needs definition. That’s too—confining, I guess?”
Oscar didn’t even blink, but the clown was suddenly immediately in front of him, teeth bared, chin down. He had a serrated, sharp-looking blade in his hand.
“I could end you now,” he snarled. “I could have ended you when you walked in here.”
Then, just as abruptly, the clown was back in his chair, stroking his chin, looking contemplative.
“You’re not scared. Not at all. Why aren’t you scared?”
“I…” Oscar paused to consider. “I’m not sure.”
The clown stood and walked over toward Oscar. It was a smooth, unhurried walk. Some part of Oscar’s brain told him that maybe he should be worried. He tried to become worried about not being more worried, but that didn’t work either.
The clown lazily waved a hand over Oscar’s head. “There are strings I’m not even seeing. So much work to impress me. Confining someone else so you can demonstrate your freedom.” He took five steps away, then turned back to Oscar. “I’m going to talk to you as if Jane is listening. Jane, do you remember visiting Roggoth’Shoth? We saw that plain of rocks, with a faint aura on them? You asked me what it was, and I wouldn’t tell you. You were very put out, launched on one of those speeches where you said I didn’t treat you as an adult—as if an adult is the high-water mark of how a person should be treated. You found out what it was, though, didn’t you?”
Oscar was silent until the knowledge was given to him. “Bodies. It was bodies.”
“A remnant of the War of Sorrows, idiots playing with magic we don’t understand now, and if there is any mercy in the world, we will never learn it again. Though hope for mercy is not something I spend much effort having. If they were dead, though, how come they still had auras? After all this time?”
Oscar again waited for an answer. It was slow in coming.
“Because they weren’t entirely dead. There was some form of life sitting in that petrified skin. They sat there, for centuries, in motionless agony.”
“And your response to that knowledge? How did that affect your study of the field?”
Another longer pause. “I haven’t been back since I learned what it was. I can’t bear to walk among them.”
The clown waved his arms in dismissive disgust. “The sentimental weakness of humanity. We’re not supposed to have that. Your pity for the dead of the past keeps you from learning things that might keep people from dying in the future. Foolishness, but I knew you’d fall prey to it. If there are facts that might hinder your learning, my job was to keep them from you.”
“I’m not here to argue,” Oscar said, using words that came quickly. “Well, I’m not here at all, but that’s beside the point. You don’t see as much as you think you do. You made a nice trap here, but you didn’t catch me. You didn’t even know I was behind it, wouldn’t have known if I didn’t tell you. You don’t get to decide what I know anymore. I am not your puppet, and these are not your strings.”
The clown stood stiffly, then nodded once. “No, this puppet is all your own. So what happens to him?”
Again Oscar waited for an answer. None came. He kept waiting, then began to feel awkward. He didn’t like it, but at least he was finally allowed to feel something. If he was going to have an answer, it would have to be his own.
“Maybe we could let me grow up to become a real boy,” he said.
The clown might have hinted at a smile, or it might have just been his make-up.
“You’ve been fearsomely manipulated,” the clown said. “What could be more grown up than that?”
Oscar had no good response.
“You had to know you were inviting trouble when you did all this,” the clown said. “But you did it anyway. Which means either your emotions were out of your control, or you have some brass balls. I can’t punish you much for either offense.”
He snapped his fingers. “But I can punish you a little. The most fitting punishment I can think of. Be me.”
The bar changed. It was empty, closed, abandoned. Oscar looked around, startled. There was no trace of food or drink anywhere. Only one set of footprints in the dust, and they looked his size, made by his shoes. He stood, but his legs were weak. He didn’t move for a moment until he felt stronger, then he strolled slowly toward the door, which sat halfway ajar.
He caught a glimpse of himself in a cracked mirror behind the bar. His face was white, with red diamonds around the eyes. He ran forward, almost tripping over what used to be a chair, to get a closer look. He rubbed his face, but nothing so much as smudged. He tried some counterspelling, but nothing had an effect.
He glanced toward the door. It looked dark outside. There were people out there who knew the clown, or at least knew what he was supposed to be. He’d have to be careful, but if someone caught him, hiding in the shadows, looking like that while trying to hide—it wouldn’t be good. But being out in the open didn’t seem like a good idea either.
Outside the door, an intersection was empty of cars while lights slowly shifted to green, yellow, and red and back. He stared, thinking about where to go.
He had played the clown once; now he had to be it.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Bill Aguiar is happy to have his first Shadowrun short story published in this anthology, along with the opportunity to continue a plot he started a decade ago in the adventure “Baser Instincts” in Predator and Prey. He currently lives inside the DC Beltway, and has a job that has absolutely nothing to do with his Political Science degree or Big Brother style surveillance. Really.
Dylan Birtolo resides in the Pacific Northwest where he spends his time as a writer, a gamer, and a professional sword-swinger. His thoughts are filled with shape shifters, mythological demons, and epic battles. He’s published a few fantasy novels and several short stories. He trains in Systema and with the Seattle Knights: an acting troop that focuses on stage combat. He jousts, and yes, the armor is real—it weighs over 100 pounds. You can read more about him and his works at www.dylanbirtolo.com or follow his twitter at DylanBirtolo.
Jennifer Brozek is a Hugo Award-nominated editor and a Bram Stoker-nominated author. Winner of the Scribe, Origins, and the ENnie awards, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS. Jennifer is the author of the award-winning YA Battletech novel The Nellus Academy Incident, and the Shadowrun novella Doc Wagon 19. She has also written for the AAA MMO Aion and the award-winning videogame Shadowrun Returns. When she is not writing her heart out, she gallivants around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Read more about her at www.jenniferbrozek.com or follow her on Twitter at @JenniferBrozek.
David Ellenberger has been playing Shadowrun since first edition and done freelance writing in SR Missions adventures and supplements for almost ten years. He enjoys running a monthly Shadowrun game that has been going for the last four years, as well as running games at Gen Con every year.
Jaym Gates is an author, editor, and public relations manager. She’s edited the anthologies War Stories, Genius Loci, and Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows, among others. Her short fiction appears in anthologies Kaiju Rising, By Faerie Light, Robots!, and Aether Age. She can be found on Twitter as @JaymGates, or at her sadly-neglected website, jaymgates.com.
Jeffrey Halket has been a Shadowrun freelancer for several years, and has contributed to such books as Rigger 5. He lives in Colorado, where he works on the help desk for support of Department of Defense personnel working on the U.S. Air Force’s Satellite Control Network.
Jason M. Hardy is so smug. I mean, come on, have you ever talked to him? I swear, he’s all “I wrote the Shadowrun novels Undershadows and Hell on Water,” and “I’m the Shadowrun line developer, so why don’t you comp my tab, you scouse git?” and he’s not even British, so what’s up with that? And then he’ll say that he’s published nine novels and some weird book about aliens called Stranded on Earth or something, and you’ll ask, “Have you published any short stories,” and he’ll be all, “Yeah, totally, but I’ve kind of lost track of how many,” and then you’ll want to punch him in his stupid arrogant face. He lives in Chicago with his wife, son, and daughter, who are all perfectly pleasant.
Chris A. Jackson has been sailing and writing full time since 2009. As a sailor, writer, and gamer, nautical fantasy came naturally. His Scimitar Seas novels won multiple gold medals from Foreword Reviews Magazine for best fantasy novel of the year, and his Pathfinder Tales novels Pirate’s Honor and Pirate’s Promise, have received high praise. The non-nautical Weapon of Flesh Trilogy has become a Kindle bestseller, spurring international interest. His first Iron Kingdoms story, “Blood and Iron,” debuted in 2014. More Pathfinder Tales stories, the Weapon of Fear Trilogy, and other works are coming in 2015. Drop by jaxbooks.com for updates.
R. L. King is the author of the Amazon-bestselling urban fantasy series The Alastair Stone Chronicles, as well as writing for Shadowrun (officially and unofficially) since before many of its fans were alive. Her first SR novel, Borrowed Time, was nominated for a Scribe Award by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and her next one, Veiled Extraction, will be published in 2017. She lives in San Jose, CA, with her ever-patient spouse, a herd of assorted cats, and a gecko named Lofwyr who’s expecting to come into his powers any day now.
Philip A. Lee is a freelance writer and editor whose many contributions to the gaming industry include more than a dozen short stories for BattleCorps.com and sourcebook/fiction writing for the BattleTech, Shadowrun, Cosmic Patrol, and Valiant Universe Roleplaying Game universes. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife and their three cats. To learn more about his work, look for @joechummer on Twitter and visit philipleewriting.com.
Steven S. Long is a writer and game designer who’s worked primarily in the tabletop roleplaying game field for the past twenty-some years, during which he’s written or co-written approximately 200 books. He’s best known for his work with Champions and the HERO System, but has worked for many other RPG companies. In recent years he’s focused more on writing fiction, and has had numerous short stories published. His Master Plan for World Domination has reached Stage 65-Epsilon.
Kai O’Connal is the author of the Shadowrun novels Fire & Frost and the forthcoming The Johnson Run. Kai is rumored to live somewhere near the Arctic Circle, where the Northern Lights are always bright, and illuminate whatever story is being created at that time. To say any more would be invite undue speculation, which is why this paragraph stops exactly where it does.
Devon Oratz received his BA in Creative Writing in 2008 from the Charles & Lily Lieb Port Creative Writing program at SUNY Purchase, and was thence imbued with such delightful skills as talking about himself in the third person with a straight face. In 2011, he got his dream job (since the age of 10) working for Catalyst Game Labs as a freelance writer for Shadowrun, the greatest tabletop RPG ever created, and which inspired his own game Systems Malfunction. Since then, Devon has written for numerous Shadowrun products, including Street Legends, Corporate Intrigue, Artifacts Unbound, Street Legends Supplemental, Jet Set, and Clutch of Dragons, as well as being chosen for the design team of Shadowrun 5th Edition.
O. C. Presley is better known in the Shadows as Opti, host of the Neo-Anarchist Podcast, giving shadowrunners the chip truth on Shadowrun history. When he isn’t doing that, he waters the garden of marriage and learns from his two amazing kids. His true passion is inciting everyday folks to rebellion against the global domination system of therapeutic, technological, consumeristic militarism. He likes Thai food best.
Aaron Rosenberg is the author of the bestselling DuckBob series and the Dread Remora space-opera series. His tie-in work contains novels for Star Trek, Warhammer, WarCraft, and Eureka, and the upcoming Shadowrun novel Shadow Dance. He has written children’s books (such as the award-winning Bandslam: The Junior Novel and the #1 bestselling 42: The Jackie Robinson Story), educational books, and over seventy roleplaying games (including the original games Asylum, Spookshow, and Chosen, work for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, and Pinnacle, the Origins Award-winning Gamemastering Secrets, and the Gold ENnie-winning Lure of the Lich Lord). He is the co-creator of the ReDeus series and the O.C.L.T. series, and a co-founder of Crazy 8 Press. Aaron lives in New York with his family. You can follow him online at gryphonrose.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/gryphonrose, and on Twitter @gryphonrose.
Scott Schletz has been lending his quirky creativity (in an official capacity) to the Shadowrun universe for the past five years, though if you ask his friends it’s more like 25. He’s contributed to over thirty projects in his short run, including adventures, sourcebooks, short stories, and even a video game. A few of those projects have even won awards. When not freelancing he teaches high school science in Bug City and takes his friends on occasional adventures into the madness of his mind. His greatest accomplishment to date involves a massive expenditure of Karma in order to manipulate fate to grant him his amazing wife Nikki and son Avi.
Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author. She wrote the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, and Switchblade Goddess, the nonfiction book Shooting Yourself in the Head for Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide, and the collections While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. You can learn more at www.lucysnyder.com or follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.
Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning writer, game designer, computer game designer, podcaster, screenwriter and graphic novelists who is best-known for his New York Times-bestselling novels I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer in Residence at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. When not writing or teaching, he spends too much time playing games and figuring out how to cook things that taste good.
R. J. Thomas is a Northwest Ohio native, certified deputy sheriff/peace officer, and Shadowrun freelancer who got his job by joining the Catalyst Demo Team just to stalk the line developer at a gaming convention (ironic). No charges were filed, and five years later, he’s contributed to multiple Fourth and Fifth Edition products such as Hazard Pay, Ten Mercs, Run and Gun, Street Grimoire, Rigger 5, and Battle of Manhattan. When not causing chaos in the Sixth World, he runs games at home and at conventions as a CDT Agent where he uses his professional knowledge against his players whenever possible.
Malik Toms has been writing and playing Shadowrun since before the age of Xbox. When not pondering the fate of the SINless, he teaches English and Creative Writing at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Malik currently resides in the sweltering pits of Arizona with his three kids and Pokemon-themed cat.
Monica Valentinelli writes stories, games, essays, and comics for media/tie-in properties and her original works from her studio in the Midwest. She co-designed the setting for Shadowrun: Court of Shadows, is the developer for Hunter: the Vigil Second Edition, and was the lead developer/writer for the Firefly RPG books based on the Firefly television show by Joss Whedon. Her new book, The Gorramn Shiniest Dictionary and Language Guide in the ’Verse, recently debuted from Titan Books. When she’s not obsessing about deadlines, she designs jewelry and dabbles in other artistic endeavors. For more about Monica, visit www.mlvwrites.com.
The clown smiled, and the corners of his mouth seemed quite close to touching his ears. “Why else would I use cards?”
He placed his right hand on the Bastard card, showing a man who looked very much like himself looking out a broken window. He spun it slowly. “Inverse. Upright. Inverse. Upright,” he said with each turn. “Positive or negative. Good or bad.”
Oscar remained hanging, but the nerves, the rapid heartbeat, the fog in his mind that had possessed him were gone. The clarity of the Ace of Swords was making its cuts.
“What will make this good?” he asked.
“You tell me,” the clown said. “I made a move. It’s what the people pulling your strings wanted. I’m sure they have a response planned. What is it?”
Oscar was on the verge of shaking his head and trying to put together a denial, when there was a rush of sound, a blinding headache that came and went almost instantly, and he knew. He knew the information, and he knew what he was supposed to say, and he felt like he maybe had a choice about that, but he probably didn’t.
“Here’s the rest of the message,” Oscar says. “Jane says you’re not the only one who can push buttons.”
He waited for a reaction—a sign of surprise, a few stammered words—then he remembered who he was dealing with. There was not so much as a tap of the clown’s fingers. He just shook his head, maybe in sadness, maybe in disappointment. “This was a roundabout way to deliver a message,” the clown said. “Overly elaborate.”
“Because you’re all about efficiency and directness, right?” Oscar said, then couldn’t believe that he said it.
The clown didn’t seem to mind. “Touché.” He might have even smiled. “It’s a character flaw, I suppose. I’m used to being one of the few unchanging things in the world. I forget that sometimes even I have to adapt. So. You are not the student, I am not the mentor. How would you like to define our relationship?”
Oscar paused, tilted his head, and tried to understand the message he was receiving. “I don’t think she believes it needs definition. That’s too—confining, I guess?”
Oscar didn’t even blink, but the clown was suddenly immediately in front of him, teeth bared, chin down. He had a serrated, sharp-looking blade in his hand.
“I could end you now,” he snarled. “I could have ended you when you walked in here.”
Then, just as abruptly, the clown was back in his chair, stroking his chin, looking contemplative.
“You’re not scared. Not at all. Why aren’t you scared?”
“I…” Oscar paused to consider. “I’m not sure.”
The clown stood and walked over toward Oscar. It was a smooth, unhurried walk. Some part of Oscar’s brain told him that maybe he should be worried. He tried to become worried about not being more worried, but that didn’t work either.
The clown lazily waved a hand over Oscar’s head. “There are strings I’m not even seeing. So much work to impress me. Confining someone else so you can demonstrate your freedom.” He took five steps away, then turned back to Oscar. “I’m going to talk to you as if Jane is listening. Jane, do you remember visiting Roggoth’Shoth? We saw that plain of rocks, with a faint aura on them? You asked me what it was, and I wouldn’t tell you. You were very put out, launched on one of those speeches where you said I didn’t treat you as an adult—as if an adult is the high-water mark of how a person should be treated. You found out what it was, though, didn’t you?”
Oscar was silent until the knowledge was given to him. “Bodies. It was bodies.”
“A remnant of the War of Sorrows, idiots playing with magic we don’t understand now, and if there is any mercy in the world, we will never learn it again. Though hope for mercy is not something I spend much effort having. If they were dead, though, how come they still had auras? After all this time?”
Oscar again waited for an answer. It was slow in coming.
“Because they weren’t entirely dead. There was some form of life sitting in that petrified skin. They sat there, for centuries, in motionless agony.”
“And your response to that knowledge? How did that affect your study of the field?”
Another longer pause. “I haven’t been back since I learned what it was. I can’t bear to walk among them.”
The clown waved his arms in dismissive disgust. “The sentimental weakness of humanity. We’re not supposed to have that. Your pity for the dead of the past keeps you from learning things that might keep people from dying in the future. Foolishness, but I knew you’d fall prey to it. If there are facts that might hinder your learning, my job was to keep them from you.”
“I’m not here to argue,” Oscar said, using words that came quickly. “Well, I’m not here at all, but that’s beside the point. You don’t see as much as you think you do. You made a nice trap here, but you didn’t catch me. You didn’t even know I was behind it, wouldn’t have known if I didn’t tell you. You don’t get to decide what I know anymore. I am not your puppet, and these are not your strings.”
The clown stood stiffly, then nodded once. “No, this puppet is all your own. So what happens to him?”
Again Oscar waited for an answer. None came. He kept waiting, then began to feel awkward. He didn’t like it, but at least he was finally allowed to feel something. If he was going to have an answer, it would have to be his own.
“Maybe we could let me grow up to become a real boy,” he said.
The clown might have hinted at a smile, or it might have just been his make-up.
“You’ve been fearsomely manipulated,” the clown said. “What could be more grown up than that?”
Oscar had no good response.
“You had to know you were inviting trouble when you did all this,” the clown said. “But you did it anyway. Which means either your emotions were out of your control, or you have some brass balls. I can’t punish you much for either offense.”
He snapped his fingers. “But I can punish you a little. The most fitting punishment I can think of. Be me.”
The bar changed. It was empty, closed, abandoned. Oscar looked around, startled. There was no trace of food or drink anywhere. Only one set of footprints in the dust, and they looked his size, made by his shoes. He stood, but his legs were weak. He didn’t move for a moment until he felt stronger, then he strolled slowly toward the door, which sat halfway ajar.
He caught a glimpse of himself in a cracked mirror behind the bar. His face was white, with red diamonds around the eyes. He ran forward, almost tripping over what used to be a chair, to get a closer look. He rubbed his face, but nothing so much as smudged. He tried some counterspelling, but nothing had an effect.
He glanced toward the door. It looked dark outside. There were people out there who knew the clown, or at least knew what he was supposed to be. He’d have to be careful, but if someone caught him, hiding in the shadows, looking like that while trying to hide—it wouldn’t be good. But being out in the open didn’t seem like a good idea either.
Outside the door, an intersection was empty of cars while lights slowly shifted to green, yellow, and red and back. He stared, thinking about where to go.
He had played the clown once; now he had to be it.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Bill Aguiar is happy to have his first Shadowrun short story published in this anthology, along with the opportunity to continue a plot he started a decade ago in the adventure “Baser Instincts” in Predator and Prey. He currently lives inside the DC Beltway, and has a job that has absolutely nothing to do with his Political Science degree or Big Brother style surveillance. Really.
Dylan Birtolo resides in the Pacific Northwest where he spends his time as a writer, a gamer, and a professional sword-swinger. His thoughts are filled with shape shifters, mythological demons, and epic battles. He’s published a few fantasy novels and several short stories. He trains in Systema and with the Seattle Knights: an acting troop that focuses on stage combat. He jousts, and yes, the armor is real—it weighs over 100 pounds. You can read more about him and his works at www.dylanbirtolo.com or follow his twitter at DylanBirtolo.
Jennifer Brozek is a Hugo Award-nominated editor and a Bram Stoker-nominated author. Winner of the Scribe, Origins, and the ENnie awards, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS. Jennifer is the author of the award-winning YA Battletech novel The Nellus Academy Incident, and the Shadowrun novella Doc Wagon 19. She has also written for the AAA MMO Aion and the award-winning videogame Shadowrun Returns. When she is not writing her heart out, she gallivants around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Read more about her at www.jenniferbrozek.com or follow her on Twitter at @JenniferBrozek.
David Ellenberger has been playing Shadowrun since first edition and done freelance writing in SR Missions adventures and supplements for almost ten years. He enjoys running a monthly Shadowrun game that has been going for the last four years, as well as running games at Gen Con every year.
Jaym Gates is an author, editor, and public relations manager. She’s edited the anthologies War Stories, Genius Loci, and Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows, among others. Her short fiction appears in anthologies Kaiju Rising, By Faerie Light, Robots!, and Aether Age. She can be found on Twitter as @JaymGates, or at her sadly-neglected website, jaymgates.com.
Jeffrey Halket has been a Shadowrun freelancer for several years, and has contributed to such books as Rigger 5. He lives in Colorado, where he works on the help desk for support of Department of Defense personnel working on the U.S. Air Force’s Satellite Control Network.
Jason M. Hardy is so smug. I mean, come on, have you ever talked to him? I swear, he’s all “I wrote the Shadowrun novels Undershadows and Hell on Water,” and “I’m the Shadowrun line developer, so why don’t you comp my tab, you scouse git?” and he’s not even British, so what’s up with that? And then he’ll say that he’s published nine novels and some weird book about aliens called Stranded on Earth or something, and you’ll ask, “Have you published any short stories,” and he’ll be all, “Yeah, totally, but I’ve kind of lost track of how many,” and then you’ll want to punch him in his stupid arrogant face. He lives in Chicago with his wife, son, and daughter, who are all perfectly pleasant.
Chris A. Jackson has been sailing and writing full time since 2009. As a sailor, writer, and gamer, nautical fantasy came naturally. His Scimitar Seas novels won multiple gold medals from Foreword Reviews Magazine for best fantasy novel of the year, and his Pathfinder Tales novels Pirate’s Honor and Pirate’s Promise, have received high praise. The non-nautical Weapon of Flesh Trilogy has become a Kindle bestseller, spurring international interest. His first Iron Kingdoms story, “Blood and Iron,” debuted in 2014. More Pathfinder Tales stories, the Weapon of Fear Trilogy, and other works are coming in 2015. Drop by jaxbooks.com for updates.
R. L. King is the author of the Amazon-bestselling urban fantasy series The Alastair Stone Chronicles, as well as writing for Shadowrun (officially and unofficially) since before many of its fans were alive. Her first SR novel, Borrowed Time, was nominated for a Scribe Award by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and her next one, Veiled Extraction, will be published in 2017. She lives in San Jose, CA, with her ever-patient spouse, a herd of assorted cats, and a gecko named Lofwyr who’s expecting to come into his powers any day now.
Philip A. Lee is a freelance writer and editor whose many contributions to the gaming industry include more than a dozen short stories for BattleCorps.com and sourcebook/fiction writing for the BattleTech, Shadowrun, Cosmic Patrol, and Valiant Universe Roleplaying Game universes. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife and their three cats. To learn more about his work, look for @joechummer on Twitter and visit philipleewriting.com.
Steven S. Long is a writer and game designer who’s worked primarily in the tabletop roleplaying game field for the past twenty-some years, during which he’s written or co-written approximately 200 books. He’s best known for his work with Champions and the HERO System, but has worked for many other RPG companies. In recent years he’s focused more on writing fiction, and has had numerous short stories published. His Master Plan for World Domination has reached Stage 65-Epsilon.
Kai O’Connal is the author of the Shadowrun novels Fire & Frost and the forthcoming The Johnson Run. Kai is rumored to live somewhere near the Arctic Circle, where the Northern Lights are always bright, and illuminate whatever story is being created at that time. To say any more would be invite undue speculation, which is why this paragraph stops exactly where it does.
Devon Oratz received his BA in Creative Writing in 2008 from the Charles & Lily Lieb Port Creative Writing program at SUNY Purchase, and was thence imbued with such delightful skills as talking about himself in the third person with a straight face. In 2011, he got his dream job (since the age of 10) working for Catalyst Game Labs as a freelance writer for Shadowrun, the greatest tabletop RPG ever created, and which inspired his own game Systems Malfunction. Since then, Devon has written for numerous Shadowrun products, including Street Legends, Corporate Intrigue, Artifacts Unbound, Street Legends Supplemental, Jet Set, and Clutch of Dragons, as well as being chosen for the design team of Shadowrun 5th Edition.
O. C. Presley is better known in the Shadows as Opti, host of the Neo-Anarchist Podcast, giving shadowrunners the chip truth on Shadowrun history. When he isn’t doing that, he waters the garden of marriage and learns from his two amazing kids. His true passion is inciting everyday folks to rebellion against the global domination system of therapeutic, technological, consumeristic militarism. He likes Thai food best.
Aaron Rosenberg is the author of the bestselling DuckBob series and the Dread Remora space-opera series. His tie-in work contains novels for Star Trek, Warhammer, WarCraft, and Eureka, and the upcoming Shadowrun novel Shadow Dance. He has written children’s books (such as the award-winning Bandslam: The Junior Novel and the #1 bestselling 42: The Jackie Robinson Story), educational books, and over seventy roleplaying games (including the original games Asylum, Spookshow, and Chosen, work for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, and Pinnacle, the Origins Award-winning Gamemastering Secrets, and the Gold ENnie-winning Lure of the Lich Lord). He is the co-creator of the ReDeus series and the O.C.L.T. series, and a co-founder of Crazy 8 Press. Aaron lives in New York with his family. You can follow him online at gryphonrose.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/gryphonrose, and on Twitter @gryphonrose.
Scott Schletz has been lending his quirky creativity (in an official capacity) to the Shadowrun universe for the past five years, though if you ask his friends it’s more like 25. He’s contributed to over thirty projects in his short run, including adventures, sourcebooks, short stories, and even a video game. A few of those projects have even won awards. When not freelancing he teaches high school science in Bug City and takes his friends on occasional adventures into the madness of his mind. His greatest accomplishment to date involves a massive expenditure of Karma in order to manipulate fate to grant him his amazing wife Nikki and son Avi.
Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author. She wrote the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, and Switchblade Goddess, the nonfiction book Shooting Yourself in the Head for Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide, and the collections While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. You can learn more at www.lucysnyder.com or follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.
Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning writer, game designer, computer game designer, podcaster, screenwriter and graphic novelists who is best-known for his New York Times-bestselling novels I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer in Residence at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. When not writing or teaching, he spends too much time playing games and figuring out how to cook things that taste good.
R. J. Thomas is a Northwest Ohio native, certified deputy sheriff/peace officer, and Shadowrun freelancer who got his job by joining the Catalyst Demo Team just to stalk the line developer at a gaming convention (ironic). No charges were filed, and five years later, he’s contributed to multiple Fourth and Fifth Edition products such as Hazard Pay, Ten Mercs, Run and Gun, Street Grimoire, Rigger 5, and Battle of Manhattan. When not causing chaos in the Sixth World, he runs games at home and at conventions as a CDT Agent where he uses his professional knowledge against his players whenever possible.
Malik Toms has been writing and playing Shadowrun since before the age of Xbox. When not pondering the fate of the SINless, he teaches English and Creative Writing at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Malik currently resides in the sweltering pits of Arizona with his three kids and Pokemon-themed cat.
Monica Valentinelli writes stories, games, essays, and comics for media/tie-in properties and her original works from her studio in the Midwest. She co-designed the setting for Shadowrun: Court of Shadows, is the developer for Hunter: the Vigil Second Edition, and was the lead developer/writer for the Firefly RPG books based on the Firefly television show by Joss Whedon. Her new book, The Gorramn Shiniest Dictionary and Language Guide in the ’Verse, recently debuted from Titan Books. When she’s not obsessing about deadlines, she designs jewelry and dabbles in other artistic endeavors. For more about Monica, visit www.mlvwrites.com.
