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Extreme Paranoia: Nobody Knows the Trouble I'Ve Shot!
Extreme Nobody Knows the Trouble I'Ve Shot! Paperback – June 1, 1991 by Ken Rolston (Author)
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 18, 2015
I've recently started playing Paranoia online so picked this book up to get a flavour of the game to enrich the roleplaying experience.
This book is based on the roleplaying game Paranoia, a game set in a dystopian future where Citizens live in Alpha Complex, a huge self-contained world where everyone is happy as their every need is taken care of by The Computer, a benevolent artificial intelligence that oversees every aspect of Citizen's lives. Of course the reality is somewhat different, dealing with The Computer is a bureaucratic nightmare, nothing really works properly or on time. Quality of life is actually pretty much rotten and life is cheap. But that's okay because citizen's don't bother with breeding, they clone. If your clone dies then one of your replacement clones simply takes your place. Citizen's are designated by colour and it is a great honour to rise through the ranks (one simply has to obey a citizen of higher rank, your quality of life is infinitely better. However, the truth is it is probably better to keep one's head down and not rise through the ranks and draw the attention of The Computerr.
In this novel Home-R-ICK-2 is a Troubleshooter Team Leader - there job is to find trouble and shoot it! This is because despite The Computer's all seeing wisdom some citizen's seek to destroy the happy life of Alpha Complex due to being Commie Traitors, Mutants, members of Secret Societies and any other number of illogical sins. However, The Computer hasn't guessed that pretty much everyone is a member of a Secret Society and / or a Mutant. And of course pretty much everything is Treasonous and liable for Confession / Execution (like turning up late to a briefing when the meeting is in the past). So everyone is a Commie Traitor.
The story of Home-R-ICK-2 is fun for a while but there isn't enough material in here for a full book. Rolston has written many role playing games and I've enjoyed much of what he has written previously but he just isn't a good enough writer to make this book interesting. The early part of the book covers a number of Paranoia tropes, for instance being on a mission but being unaware of what the mission is or even where the briefing room is (because everything is classified at your security level). We have the rigmarole of trying to obtain equipment and actually getting pretty cool and dangerous (I meant PERFECTLY SAFE) test equipment to use / not destroy. It does read like the early stages of a Paranoia game but then the book kind of falls apart and isn't just to interesting. There are a couple of laughs in here (I particularly liked the pop culture references to wrestling robots and the nods to Star Wars and The Hobbit). That said, there isn't enough quality humour to push the story on.
The story itself was quite linear and it didn't seem to matter if Home-R-ICK-2 succeeded or not. That's kind of the point of the game - it's the treachery and confusion that makes it fun but it just wasn't that good of a read.
This book is based on the roleplaying game Paranoia, a game set in a dystopian future where Citizens live in Alpha Complex, a huge self-contained world where everyone is happy as their every need is taken care of by The Computer, a benevolent artificial intelligence that oversees every aspect of Citizen's lives. Of course the reality is somewhat different, dealing with The Computer is a bureaucratic nightmare, nothing really works properly or on time. Quality of life is actually pretty much rotten and life is cheap. But that's okay because citizen's don't bother with breeding, they clone. If your clone dies then one of your replacement clones simply takes your place. Citizen's are designated by colour and it is a great honour to rise through the ranks (one simply has to obey a citizen of higher rank, your quality of life is infinitely better. However, the truth is it is probably better to keep one's head down and not rise through the ranks and draw the attention of The Computerr.
In this novel Home-R-ICK-2 is a Troubleshooter Team Leader - there job is to find trouble and shoot it! This is because despite The Computer's all seeing wisdom some citizen's seek to destroy the happy life of Alpha Complex due to being Commie Traitors, Mutants, members of Secret Societies and any other number of illogical sins. However, The Computer hasn't guessed that pretty much everyone is a member of a Secret Society and / or a Mutant. And of course pretty much everything is Treasonous and liable for Confession / Execution (like turning up late to a briefing when the meeting is in the past). So everyone is a Commie Traitor.
The story of Home-R-ICK-2 is fun for a while but there isn't enough material in here for a full book. Rolston has written many role playing games and I've enjoyed much of what he has written previously but he just isn't a good enough writer to make this book interesting. The early part of the book covers a number of Paranoia tropes, for instance being on a mission but being unaware of what the mission is or even where the briefing room is (because everything is classified at your security level). We have the rigmarole of trying to obtain equipment and actually getting pretty cool and dangerous (I meant PERFECTLY SAFE) test equipment to use / not destroy. It does read like the early stages of a Paranoia game but then the book kind of falls apart and isn't just to interesting. There are a couple of laughs in here (I particularly liked the pop culture references to wrestling robots and the nods to Star Wars and The Hobbit). That said, there isn't enough quality humour to push the story on.
The story itself was quite linear and it didn't seem to matter if Home-R-ICK-2 succeeded or not. That's kind of the point of the game - it's the treachery and confusion that makes it fun but it just wasn't that good of a read.
May 19, 2021
In the late 80s and early 90s tabletop RPG tie-in novels were all the rage. Most of this trend was, and still is, dominated by R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt. The Forgotten Realms novels made a market niche and most of the other big games rode the bandwagon, too. Shadowrun has a run of novels beloved by fans despite some.. questionable quality. And, through it all, Paranoia was never a game to not jump on a bandwagon.
There's a slew of Paranoia novels and I think, as I work my way through them, I'll find that this is the best of the lot. Ken Rolston has an insanely good bibliography to his career including being lead designer on freaking MORROWIND.
Extreme Paranoia: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot! follows Homer-R-ICK, a red clearance troubleshooter who, due to a technological malfunction, is struggling to even get to his mission briefing since his previous clone was killed and he does not have the requisite details. This was still in the days of pun-based naming conventions and Homer's name is wonderfully clever. A Homeric Hero. Like Odysseus. Who is defined by their place and adherence to their social mores. Well, that's all Alpha Complex expects of any citizens. It's a really neat little reference that I wasn't expecting in a novel with characters named things like Whatta-U-SAY.
Homer-R-ICK's odyssey follows that of a normal Paranoia adventure. There's the trials and tribulations of getting to your briefing, there's the issues with picking up your gear, the mission itself, and the debriefing. In a traditional Paranoia module all of these phases will be equally dangerous.
Writing a tie-in novel for a relatively esoteric TTRPG is hard. D&D comes with a pretty big cultural footprint owing to Tolkien. Even the general public has a pretty decent idea what an elf is. Paranoia doesn't have that benefit and so the novel is dotted with footnotes to explain concepts that would be apparent to players but would be baffling to a normie. These are a necessity to give a novel a wider audience but they are intrusive. Rolston has done his best to at least make them entertaining. They aren't as good as Terry Pratchett's footnotes, but what is?
The book is reasonably entertaining. It's not incredibly funny, you won't be rolling with laughter, but there's some decent jokes here. The writing is tolerable, which frankly is a rarity for RPG tie-in novels, and most of the jokes land pretty well. It does veer in to territory that I generally consider 'not great' for Paranoia to go in to: Direct parody. The evil mastermind is a rogue bot intelligence calling itself Sparkacus. As soon as that was revealed in the first 1/2 of the book I immediately knew how it all had to end. However, the ending playing out didn't bother me so much. The Computer gave some delightful narration over it. Direct parody works less well in an RPG adventure than it does in a structured novel and it came off pretty well here. Also some bonus points for the Giant Mutated Cockroach encounter, that was a personal favorite.
Overall, it's definitely not something I'm going to carry on thinking about long after I've read it. It's no Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a serviceable novel with a few good yucks in its page count. To be honest, just being competently written probably elevates it to one of the best RPG tie-in novels ever written.
There's a slew of Paranoia novels and I think, as I work my way through them, I'll find that this is the best of the lot. Ken Rolston has an insanely good bibliography to his career including being lead designer on freaking MORROWIND.
Extreme Paranoia: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot! follows Homer-R-ICK, a red clearance troubleshooter who, due to a technological malfunction, is struggling to even get to his mission briefing since his previous clone was killed and he does not have the requisite details. This was still in the days of pun-based naming conventions and Homer's name is wonderfully clever. A Homeric Hero. Like Odysseus. Who is defined by their place and adherence to their social mores. Well, that's all Alpha Complex expects of any citizens. It's a really neat little reference that I wasn't expecting in a novel with characters named things like Whatta-U-SAY.
Homer-R-ICK's odyssey follows that of a normal Paranoia adventure. There's the trials and tribulations of getting to your briefing, there's the issues with picking up your gear, the mission itself, and the debriefing. In a traditional Paranoia module all of these phases will be equally dangerous.
Writing a tie-in novel for a relatively esoteric TTRPG is hard. D&D comes with a pretty big cultural footprint owing to Tolkien. Even the general public has a pretty decent idea what an elf is. Paranoia doesn't have that benefit and so the novel is dotted with footnotes to explain concepts that would be apparent to players but would be baffling to a normie. These are a necessity to give a novel a wider audience but they are intrusive. Rolston has done his best to at least make them entertaining. They aren't as good as Terry Pratchett's footnotes, but what is?
The book is reasonably entertaining. It's not incredibly funny, you won't be rolling with laughter, but there's some decent jokes here. The writing is tolerable, which frankly is a rarity for RPG tie-in novels, and most of the jokes land pretty well. It does veer in to territory that I generally consider 'not great' for Paranoia to go in to: Direct parody. The evil mastermind is a rogue bot intelligence calling itself Sparkacus. As soon as that was revealed in the first 1/2 of the book I immediately knew how it all had to end. However, the ending playing out didn't bother me so much. The Computer gave some delightful narration over it. Direct parody works less well in an RPG adventure than it does in a structured novel and it came off pretty well here. Also some bonus points for the Giant Mutated Cockroach encounter, that was a personal favorite.
Overall, it's definitely not something I'm going to carry on thinking about long after I've read it. It's no Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a serviceable novel with a few good yucks in its page count. To be honest, just being competently written probably elevates it to one of the best RPG tie-in novels ever written.
August 30, 2021
The story follows Homer R-ICK-2 (and later Homer R-ICK -3 and -4), a red level troubleshooter trying to complete his mission in alpha complex, a vast underground complex ruled over by Friend Computer. The book is based on the Paranoia game. The book was ok, it was quite funny and entertaining at times but also was in my opinion way to long for what it was. The setting was very unique and interesting, and the characters where ok, but other than Homer, Jacko, and the computer, the characters were quite uninteresting. Overall it was a decent enough read.
November 27, 2025
Ken Rolston gelingt hier eine (fast) perfekte Umsetzung des Rollenspiel Paranoia in einen Roman. Absolut lesenswert. Für Paranoia Fans und für Neueinsteiger empfehlenswert.
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