Roc, 1997, $5.99, ISBN 0-451-45614-9, 300 pages, paperback

I usually steer clear of ”milled” novels. You know, the ones set in Star Trek, Star Wars, or worse, a game universe like Shadowrun. The ones I’ve read previously have always been disappointing. That’s not to say regular military sci-fi is always better -- long-time MagWeb.com readers of my reviews know otherwise. It’s just that these novels are cranked out without much excitement or originality. In other words, you read one, you read ‘em all.

But, the price was right on this book: free. So, always willing to learn a new trick, I started reading about a universe I knew nothing about. And actually, it was O.K. Give it a gentleman’s “C” grade. I didn’t really find much to recommend it, but not much to fail it.

Anyway, Tacoma is the home base of a band of mercenaries called Shadowrunners. And this A-Team is led by an orc (pity poor Peppard) and opposed by an elf in a high-tech future USA with magic. They get hired to steal a corpse, and sure enough, get double crossed, and shoot a lot and fight a lot, and hang out at the safe house a lot, and take care of the orc’s infant daughter, and so on. This basically reads like any other crash-and-bash movie script. And that’s about it. Not much to praise and not much to damn. I’m sure it makes a lot more sense to Shadowrun RPGers, but, for the rest of us, it’s less sensible.