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Shadowrun Novels #11
Striper Assassin
For the world of humans knows her as Striper, the deadly Asian assassin and kick-artist. She has come to the City of Brotherly Love seeking revenge and made it her killing ground. But she is not the only predator stalking the dark underbelly of the Philadelphia metroplex. There are other hunters prowling the night, and some possess a power even greater than hers.Some may even want her dead.When the moon rises full and brilliant into the dark pall of the night, the bestial side of her nature battles for dominion, demanding vengeance and death.Who will survive?Who dares to hunt the hunter?
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First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 14, 2025
Another enjoyable Shadowrun book. This one had a lot of peripheral characters that were somewhat difficult to keep track of, especially as they disappear quickly and are replaced by others that are equally forgettable. The main thread following Striper was a good arc and has a satisfying conclusion that ties the entire novel together.
August 5, 2015
The last of the Shadowrun books I bothered reading
9 February 2012
I really can't remember this book though I know that I have read it because a friend of mine suggested that this was the best Shadowrun book ever written. I am not sure whether I thought it was that good, and considering my current position on spin-offs, I probably would only put it down to entertainment value. I do like reading stories and watching movies about assassins doing their work, but in the end I have generally found them to be quite wanting. Probably the best movie that I have seen about an assassin would be Grosse Pointe Blank.
Instead of talking more about this particular book I will finish off my discussion of the Shadowrun books (and the Shadowrun world) talking about the matrix. I have touched on it briefly in my review of 2XS, but the simsense/btl chips (silicon) are only one aspect of the vast computer network that is the matrix. The reason they are an aspect of it is because these programs give the user a full sensory experience of the movie/story. There is a similar thing with the matrix is that the technology allows one to access computers by hooking the machine up directly to one's brain, which means you don't simply look at the operating system on the screen but rather become one with it.
As I suggested before, not everybody has cyberware, particularly mages. In the Shadowrun world having cyberware affects one's ability to perform magic, though it is not uncommon for somebody to have what is called a datajack. This is a plug that is installed on your body, connecting directly with your cortex, so that you can access the information directly from a computer without worrying about using a screen. While standard computers are still available, most computer programmers and hackers (the term in the Shadowrun universe is Decker) do not like them because they are quite slow (and have earned the name turtle). Instead they use what are termed as decks, which are keyboards that can be connected to the net and then to your brain. While one can connect directly too the net, it is generally not wise as the deck protects the user from any malicious software or sudden electrical spikes.
The concept of the matrix was nothing new at the time of the creation of Shadowrun. The concept have been borrowed from William Gibson, who had written about the idea at least a decade previously. However, in the early nineties the internet was pretty much non-existent. Only computer programmers, engineers, and their kids, were really the only people who had exposure to it. Even with my father being an engineer/scientist, who had been working with computers right back to the mid-seventies, we did not get internet access until at least 1996.
Much has changed between then and now, but it is difficult to suggest that with regards to the matrix, that Shadowrun was before its time. I don't think it was, but rather was borrowing ideas that had been around for a while. The idea of a world-wide computer network, cyberware, connecting your cortex directly to the computer network, and a visual matrix, had all been around since William Gibson. While the concept of a magical future was different, once again it was not new, and even the rise of the mega-corporations had been around for a while, particularly considering Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.
It is interesting to look back at these books, and games, from 2012 because we seemed to have moved forward somewhat. Nobody back in 1993 would have believed that we would all have a personal hand held computer that we could use for a variety of things. Back in 1993 only yuppies had mobile phones (not entirely true, as tradesmen also found them very useful), the internet was restricted to government, corporate, and educational institutions, and the corner deli was still owned by a self-employed individual. However, through the nineties many things changed, the corner deli was replaced by the chain store, mobile phones became ubiquitous, and pretty much most of the developed world is connected to each other by the net.
Oh, and before I forget, if you wanted porn you had to sneak into an adult book shop and pay for it, and if you wanted to meet people you had to go about it the old fashioned way. The internet has both its good side and its bad side, and personally, I would rather not return to a world without it. I do find the explosion of pornography to be a little disturbing, and while there are many arguments for and against it, and that one can argue that all of the participants are willing (I actually suspect that many are not, and also suspect that they actually do not make huge amounts of money by taking their clothes off and having the body plastered all over the net), the biggest concern that I would have is the greater amount of temptation that it puts on people. Previously if you wanted porn, you had to buy it in full view of everybody (unless you had mail order), however these days you can access it in the privacy of your own home, and the only people that will know about it is your ISP (and maybe the IT professional that you live with).
9 February 2012
I really can't remember this book though I know that I have read it because a friend of mine suggested that this was the best Shadowrun book ever written. I am not sure whether I thought it was that good, and considering my current position on spin-offs, I probably would only put it down to entertainment value. I do like reading stories and watching movies about assassins doing their work, but in the end I have generally found them to be quite wanting. Probably the best movie that I have seen about an assassin would be Grosse Pointe Blank.
Instead of talking more about this particular book I will finish off my discussion of the Shadowrun books (and the Shadowrun world) talking about the matrix. I have touched on it briefly in my review of 2XS, but the simsense/btl chips (silicon) are only one aspect of the vast computer network that is the matrix. The reason they are an aspect of it is because these programs give the user a full sensory experience of the movie/story. There is a similar thing with the matrix is that the technology allows one to access computers by hooking the machine up directly to one's brain, which means you don't simply look at the operating system on the screen but rather become one with it.
As I suggested before, not everybody has cyberware, particularly mages. In the Shadowrun world having cyberware affects one's ability to perform magic, though it is not uncommon for somebody to have what is called a datajack. This is a plug that is installed on your body, connecting directly with your cortex, so that you can access the information directly from a computer without worrying about using a screen. While standard computers are still available, most computer programmers and hackers (the term in the Shadowrun universe is Decker) do not like them because they are quite slow (and have earned the name turtle). Instead they use what are termed as decks, which are keyboards that can be connected to the net and then to your brain. While one can connect directly too the net, it is generally not wise as the deck protects the user from any malicious software or sudden electrical spikes.
The concept of the matrix was nothing new at the time of the creation of Shadowrun. The concept have been borrowed from William Gibson, who had written about the idea at least a decade previously. However, in the early nineties the internet was pretty much non-existent. Only computer programmers, engineers, and their kids, were really the only people who had exposure to it. Even with my father being an engineer/scientist, who had been working with computers right back to the mid-seventies, we did not get internet access until at least 1996.
Much has changed between then and now, but it is difficult to suggest that with regards to the matrix, that Shadowrun was before its time. I don't think it was, but rather was borrowing ideas that had been around for a while. The idea of a world-wide computer network, cyberware, connecting your cortex directly to the computer network, and a visual matrix, had all been around since William Gibson. While the concept of a magical future was different, once again it was not new, and even the rise of the mega-corporations had been around for a while, particularly considering Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.
It is interesting to look back at these books, and games, from 2012 because we seemed to have moved forward somewhat. Nobody back in 1993 would have believed that we would all have a personal hand held computer that we could use for a variety of things. Back in 1993 only yuppies had mobile phones (not entirely true, as tradesmen also found them very useful), the internet was restricted to government, corporate, and educational institutions, and the corner deli was still owned by a self-employed individual. However, through the nineties many things changed, the corner deli was replaced by the chain store, mobile phones became ubiquitous, and pretty much most of the developed world is connected to each other by the net.
Oh, and before I forget, if you wanted porn you had to sneak into an adult book shop and pay for it, and if you wanted to meet people you had to go about it the old fashioned way. The internet has both its good side and its bad side, and personally, I would rather not return to a world without it. I do find the explosion of pornography to be a little disturbing, and while there are many arguments for and against it, and that one can argue that all of the participants are willing (I actually suspect that many are not, and also suspect that they actually do not make huge amounts of money by taking their clothes off and having the body plastered all over the net), the biggest concern that I would have is the greater amount of temptation that it puts on people. Previously if you wanted porn, you had to buy it in full view of everybody (unless you had mail order), however these days you can access it in the privacy of your own home, and the only people that will know about it is your ISP (and maybe the IT professional that you live with).
November 7, 2025
the schlockiest, cheesiest, over the top noir, fast-paced bullshit in the entire world. i love every single one of these stupid Shadowrun novels and i'm not sorry.
April 6, 2016
The main problem with this book is that it's got an unreliable narrator.
The issue I have with that is that an unreliable narrator works on the fact that the POV person says or thinks something, but you can puzzle out the truth of what's actually going on by observing the narration. It relies heavily on picking up on that dissonance.
But the POV character in this book is alien - she's a tigress. We have no way of knowing how an actual tigress would feel about things. So the reveal halfway through the book that things aren't right is very anticlimactic.
Aside from that I found the book to be very piecemeal and poorly constructed. Lots of side plots that went no where, etc. Very disappointing.
The issue I have with that is that an unreliable narrator works on the fact that the POV person says or thinks something, but you can puzzle out the truth of what's actually going on by observing the narration. It relies heavily on picking up on that dissonance.
But the POV character in this book is alien - she's a tigress. We have no way of knowing how an actual tigress would feel about things. So the reveal halfway through the book that things aren't right is very anticlimactic.
Aside from that I found the book to be very piecemeal and poorly constructed. Lots of side plots that went no where, etc. Very disappointing.
July 23, 2017
#24in48
This was so much darker than the previous books in the series I read, but it was still brilliant. So creepy, gory, and terrifying.
This was so much darker than the previous books in the series I read, but it was still brilliant. So creepy, gory, and terrifying.
June 4, 2024
Lots of side stories, but over all I really like this one. Perhaps one of the best of the Shadowrun novel. But there is a bit of story in a past novel Shadowrun: Into the Shadows.
June 25, 2025
Could have been interesting but weirdly misogynistic.
November 20, 2019
So I've been going back and looking at old Shadowrun novels lately and I picked this one up at a used book store for three bucks. It was pretty good, but a few things bugged me.
Like how some characters just seemed to be introduced (the decker from Miami) to introduce other characters (Hammer) who then had a brief introduction with Striper. The book does drag at some points where Striper is sitting around thinking or when we get to parts where the corporate people are just talking about business and about "projects" and "assets."
One of my biggest complaints is this "news crew" that is wandering around trying to find the supposed "serial killer" that is stalking the city. They don't really contribute anything to the story and they only briefly see Striper at one point and they don't have any impact on the story and it makes me wonder why they are there. Also they use a lot of slang, and I mean a LOT of slang! I understand that when authors write they want their characters to use their own slang that the author creates for them, but when they use so much that I can't even understand what they are saying, it's too much.
My last complaint is when the character "Raman" is thinking about or talking about a female character. He always calls them, "the she." At first I thought this was a typo that the editor overlooked but then it happened again and again and again. Why couldn't he just use the person's name or say, "her"? Honestly it made me feel like something was either wrong with his brain or something was wrong with the copy of the book I got.
So even with all these little things that bugged me, it was still a good book for the Shadowrun series.
Like how some characters just seemed to be introduced (the decker from Miami) to introduce other characters (Hammer) who then had a brief introduction with Striper. The book does drag at some points where Striper is sitting around thinking or when we get to parts where the corporate people are just talking about business and about "projects" and "assets."
One of my biggest complaints is this "news crew" that is wandering around trying to find the supposed "serial killer" that is stalking the city. They don't really contribute anything to the story and they only briefly see Striper at one point and they don't have any impact on the story and it makes me wonder why they are there. Also they use a lot of slang, and I mean a LOT of slang! I understand that when authors write they want their characters to use their own slang that the author creates for them, but when they use so much that I can't even understand what they are saying, it's too much.
My last complaint is when the character "Raman" is thinking about or talking about a female character. He always calls them, "the she." At first I thought this was a typo that the editor overlooked but then it happened again and again and again. Why couldn't he just use the person's name or say, "her"? Honestly it made me feel like something was either wrong with his brain or something was wrong with the copy of the book I got.
So even with all these little things that bugged me, it was still a good book for the Shadowrun series.
dnf
January 28, 2022I didn't finish this book. I've started it three times now, and barely manage to get a bit further each time.
I've been playing Shadowrun for a decade now, I love the game and the world and the things you can do... But these books have been really hit or miss for me. And this one was a straight up miss.
From the title I thought it would be fun and dark and interesting, but 40 pages in and I still wasn't interested in what was happening at all. The characters were mostly blank slates, none of them had really been fleshed out by that point and it felt like it was jumping around way too much to hold my attention.
I almost never DNF books, and when I do, it is so rarely so early in, but I expected by that point to have something to hold my interest, and after three tries over however many years I think it's just time to call it.
Better luck to the next one...
I've been playing Shadowrun for a decade now, I love the game and the world and the things you can do... But these books have been really hit or miss for me. And this one was a straight up miss.
From the title I thought it would be fun and dark and interesting, but 40 pages in and I still wasn't interested in what was happening at all. The characters were mostly blank slates, none of them had really been fleshed out by that point and it felt like it was jumping around way too much to hold my attention.
I almost never DNF books, and when I do, it is so rarely so early in, but I expected by that point to have something to hold my interest, and after three tries over however many years I think it's just time to call it.
Better luck to the next one...
January 22, 2014
It's a little uneven, I didn't like the lead character enough to justify three stars most of the time but overall it's a good Shadowrun novel showing the events from very different perspectives: a solo shadowrunner, a privatized police detective, a couple of high-end corporate managers and an independent reporter with her cameraman. All that leaving a good sense that a lot of shit is happening behind the scenes all the time which is a must for any Shadowrun novel.
Read
April 14, 2008Science Fiction
March 10, 2009
Mein erstes Buch, das ich von der Shadowrun Serie gelesen habe. Es hat mich damals sehr beeindruckt und war eine unterhaltsame Ergänzung zum Rollenspiel.
June 6, 2015
loves it. great plot twist towards the end.
February 6, 2019
Just no.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews