Black Madonna (Shadowrun) (Paperback)

I wouldn't go so far as to call the book "religiously bigoted," but I definately agree that if any other religion was portrayed as false FASA would have been "highly unlikely" to publish the novel under the Shadowrun aegis. After all, the entire Shadowrun universe was carefull crafted with the assumption that all beliefs were equally valid (belief itself being what matters) - to then say "all beliefs are equally pussant in the SR universe, except Christianity which is a hoax" seems odd at best (I would suggest, however, that if the fine folks at FASA are going down this road they should at least show some courage and really do it - it's a telling sign that none of this has shown up in any SR FRPG materiels. Faint of heart I suppose).

The thing that really annoyed me, however, was the smug undertone, especially from "Brightlight" (a highly annoying character, his goals asside), along with the unstated premise that anyone of Leonardo da Vinci's genius couldn't *possibly* be a mere human/mortal, but *must* be an Immortal Elf. Speaking as someone who, for the most part, actually doesn't dislike these chaps (Harlequin, Ehran, et al), I still find this distastful.

In summary, IMO the book starts off intriguingly, but doesn't really have much to do with the Shadowrun universe (asside from some name dropping, I.E. references to Renraku or wired reflexes, everything else seems detatched & disconected - this could be any Cyberpunk story, without the punk that is), ends rather flatly, and doesn't end in a convincing way. In my opinion, that is because the subject matter isn't appropriate for a novel - not that questioning the recieved wisdom of the church is by itself not P.C., but because if Sargent & Gascoigne want to explore this theory it needs to be done in a more convincing manner - lay out the evidence, deal with counter arguments, etc. In other words, this is a topic that is unbelievable in novel form (even in a universe of dragon presidents & NAN revivals etc) - which means the reader (or at least this reader) loses suspension of disbelief as the book reaches it's supposed climax, the time when it is most important that the reader remain gripped by the storyline.

I admire the audacity of the writers, but they fell short.

I did enjoyed the high level politics ( Vatican, Secret cults etc' ) and the feeling of the big brother watching you .

I kept looking for that down to earth reasoning and all i got was a lot of talk ,speculation and one way blind alley storyline. The matrix descriptions where a bit dry and the hacking itself was boring. I could not relate to the "heroes" and the plot got thicker and thicker until the unresolved , unclear and abrupt end of the book that left me unsatisfied .

All in all a disappointment.