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Virtual Realities: A Shadowrun Sourcebook
1991, Large Paperback, 160 pages
160 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 8, 2021
3 stars for the main supplement, 5 stars for the novella.
I originally read this back in the 90s, around the time it was released, and I remembered loving the novella inside it so much that even when I only barely remembered the content (a netborn AI? Who is designed to look like an angel?) that when I saw it available used I grabbed it immediately to reread.
The main supplement suffers most from being terribly outdated, which is the risk of 1991 authors anticipating technology in the 2050s, but it includes mentions of having to place an order for this cutting-edge 2050s technology... by calling a toll-free phone number. It also just feels very sparse; it's a bit of description of the sort of thing a decker (shadowrun hacker) can run into while decking, with the premise of being a list of new corporate offerings.
The novella inside it is incredible, however, and if it also suffers from a bit of limited technological imagination (an issue with graphics described as being nowhere in line with actual real life visuals, for example) this is easily dismissed as a matter of its time. The story itself is a sort of combination of religious symbolism and technological (ie, the matrix as the garden of eden) where a net-born ai (Or is he?) is raised to know nothing but the internet and slowly gains knowledge of the outside world, and of the wrongs being done around him and to him. It's extremely well-written, and powerful, and it really makes me care about Renny and his teacher, a hacker who goes by Lucifer (which is on the nose, but it's more on the nose about the nature of lies than about the religious element). When I say religion, mind, you should know that it's not preachy nor is it a religious story (in that it expresses faith or anything like that) -- rather, it's using the religion as a metaphor for human growth and that the incredibly old story of the Garden of Eden is essentially one of coming-of-age and then compares that to the situation our character is in. Which really underplays the blatant but gentle weaving this story does, because it's just... it's just about Renny, this net-born consciousness, learning and growing and getting angry and making choices, with the religious references acting as easy symbols to help emphasize the story in front of you.
Anyway it's just -- a very good story about biological intelligence and artificial intelligence and a kid who deserves better and is going to eventually learn to claim that for himself.
I originally read this back in the 90s, around the time it was released, and I remembered loving the novella inside it so much that even when I only barely remembered the content (a netborn AI? Who is designed to look like an angel?) that when I saw it available used I grabbed it immediately to reread.
The main supplement suffers most from being terribly outdated, which is the risk of 1991 authors anticipating technology in the 2050s, but it includes mentions of having to place an order for this cutting-edge 2050s technology... by calling a toll-free phone number. It also just feels very sparse; it's a bit of description of the sort of thing a decker (shadowrun hacker) can run into while decking, with the premise of being a list of new corporate offerings.
The novella inside it is incredible, however, and if it also suffers from a bit of limited technological imagination (an issue with graphics described as being nowhere in line with actual real life visuals, for example) this is easily dismissed as a matter of its time. The story itself is a sort of combination of religious symbolism and technological (ie, the matrix as the garden of eden) where a net-born ai (Or is he?) is raised to know nothing but the internet and slowly gains knowledge of the outside world, and of the wrongs being done around him and to him. It's extremely well-written, and powerful, and it really makes me care about Renny and his teacher, a hacker who goes by Lucifer (which is on the nose, but it's more on the nose about the nature of lies than about the religious element). When I say religion, mind, you should know that it's not preachy nor is it a religious story (in that it expresses faith or anything like that) -- rather, it's using the religion as a metaphor for human growth and that the incredibly old story of the Garden of Eden is essentially one of coming-of-age and then compares that to the situation our character is in. Which really underplays the blatant but gentle weaving this story does, because it's just... it's just about Renny, this net-born consciousness, learning and growing and getting angry and making choices, with the religious references acting as easy symbols to help emphasize the story in front of you.
Anyway it's just -- a very good story about biological intelligence and artificial intelligence and a kid who deserves better and is going to eventually learn to claim that for himself.
July 10, 2015
Explores the Shadowrun version of the internet - and hackers
11 May 2013
When Shadowrun first appeared a number of books were released that dealt with various aspects of the setting. Virtual Realities deals with the matrix. A part of me wondered why I even got this book because I never actually used the matrix in any of my games, and when I did, it would end up alienating all of the other players who could not enter the matrix. There was a similar problem with regards to the astral plane, namely that unless you were a mage, your character could not access it, and any adventuring in there would end up leaving the rest of the party sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
I suspect that the main reason I got this book though was because of the really cool cover, and a part of me would have loved to have seen a movie containing scenes like the cover on this book. Mind you, they did have a movie like that around that time called 'The Lawnmower Man'. I still have that movie, though I am not sure if it is in my get rid of pile or if it is in my keep pile (it's in my 'get rid of, taking up too much space, pile). It is a pretty good movie, but I have watched it so many times that parts of it begin to annoy me.
One of my friends who ran a long running Shadowrun game did have a good way of using the matrix and the astral plane, and that was to try to restrict its use significantly. Mind you, none of the players actually played a decker (and from my memory not many of my players played deckers either – by the way decker is Shadowrun talk for hacker – namely because they tended to be pretty useless unless they were in the matrix). What my friend did though was to have NPC deckers that did all of that stuff. I played a Messianic Jewish magician who later on in the game was corrupted with power and became a practising member of the Kabbalah. He did go into the astral plane, but not enough to ruin the game for the others.
This book is divided into two parts. The first section deals with various rules for deckers, including their decks (portable computers that they plug into their head and then into the matrix, in Shadowrun you don't use computers by using keyboards, you use computers by thinking), the various programs that deckers can use, and rules relating to the matrix. However, as I mentioned, we never actually used this book because the matrix was so complicated that it pretty much slowed the entire game down. The second part of the book was a short story, however I cannot remember anything about the short story other than that it was about an artificial intelligence trapped in a computer system.
11 May 2013
When Shadowrun first appeared a number of books were released that dealt with various aspects of the setting. Virtual Realities deals with the matrix. A part of me wondered why I even got this book because I never actually used the matrix in any of my games, and when I did, it would end up alienating all of the other players who could not enter the matrix. There was a similar problem with regards to the astral plane, namely that unless you were a mage, your character could not access it, and any adventuring in there would end up leaving the rest of the party sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
I suspect that the main reason I got this book though was because of the really cool cover, and a part of me would have loved to have seen a movie containing scenes like the cover on this book. Mind you, they did have a movie like that around that time called 'The Lawnmower Man'. I still have that movie, though I am not sure if it is in my get rid of pile or if it is in my keep pile (it's in my 'get rid of, taking up too much space, pile). It is a pretty good movie, but I have watched it so many times that parts of it begin to annoy me.
One of my friends who ran a long running Shadowrun game did have a good way of using the matrix and the astral plane, and that was to try to restrict its use significantly. Mind you, none of the players actually played a decker (and from my memory not many of my players played deckers either – by the way decker is Shadowrun talk for hacker – namely because they tended to be pretty useless unless they were in the matrix). What my friend did though was to have NPC deckers that did all of that stuff. I played a Messianic Jewish magician who later on in the game was corrupted with power and became a practising member of the Kabbalah. He did go into the astral plane, but not enough to ruin the game for the others.
This book is divided into two parts. The first section deals with various rules for deckers, including their decks (portable computers that they plug into their head and then into the matrix, in Shadowrun you don't use computers by using keyboards, you use computers by thinking), the various programs that deckers can use, and rules relating to the matrix. However, as I mentioned, we never actually used this book because the matrix was so complicated that it pretty much slowed the entire game down. The second part of the book was a short story, however I cannot remember anything about the short story other than that it was about an artificial intelligence trapped in a computer system.
May 24, 2010
The story inside this sourcebook was amazing. I almost never read a sourcebook straight through, and I read this in one (very long) sitting.
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