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Chicago was actually quite nice, it was nice that those of us who have never even played third edition get to read about a city where insects have gone amok and where the answer to all the city’s problems are special forces units in ghostbuster suits, leaving downtown Chicago with a supposed huge background count and Mad Max like groups around it. One thing that really stuck me was the different districts did not really mesh. They really did feel like they had just been dropped into the environment. So on one side we have mad inventors living in suburbia and on the other we have people who don’t shave with mirrors and make armor out of tires.
The most sympathetic character surprisingly in the Chicago section is the Lone Cockroach, who standing in front of a long abandoned kindergarten in only his raincoat. You really do want to bring home make a cup of tea for and slather your younger brother in honey in the off-hand chance he accepts the offering.
Overall, Chicago was well written although I found that the ecology section did not really fit the book. I would have preferred on having more adventure hooks instead, which are not found with Chicago but at the end of the book.
Lagos I have almost gone through. I started on it yesterday for a few hours and I have trying to read through it today as well. While fascinating in some ways, I did feel that it kept on going on and on. It was really you feel you have finally reached the end of the chapter and oh look you have another ten pages, and it doesn’t help that the chapter runs over the same material, just from different angles. Meaning that you have to read through another page of” look danger” before finding the important part about how actually dangerous drinking the water is or where you should not stick your willy.
So after getting bored with the text, I played a bit of a game. The word water or waterway can be found 96 times, which would mean with the law of averages be repeated at least twice per page. In comparison flesh and slavery combined only came out to 56, being repeated only once per page. I guess the moral of the story is don’t drink the water in Lagos and when you want sex go to the nation of Asamondo where if the STDs won’t bite then certainly the ghouls won’t either.
However, if you continue reading the chapter on Lagos, it does reward you being an excellent description of a chaotic town where everyone has their hand out. This is actually the first time Africa in any detail has been described and I thought it the real gem in Feral Cities. Even though it feels it was crushed at some point and scattered around the room.
The other urban wilds are Bogotá, GeMiTo, Geneva, Karavan, and Sarajevo, which are much more in brief with their descriptions.
I felt the idea of turning Geneva into a wild zone interesting as an intellectual challenge. However, considering how much of the world’s banking is located there, the sole international database for SINs, the United Nations, CERN, connection with Orbital Zurich, and being a country’s capitol. This attack would have effective for about 10 minutes before someone decided that the best way to remove the techno-menace would be several strategically placed EMP bombs. Switzerland having a populace that you will never see violent until someone takes away their money.
Karavan was an interesting concept, but I kept feeling that it was very similar to concepts from the 1980s of land cities in the mid-west of the United States. Where people in large caravans of vehicles drive after zeppelins.
The focus of the book really was on two cities, the conclusion of Bug City and the introduction to a new region through Lagos in West Africa. Ample material to pick from, Chicago was varied and a very different city in comparison with Lagos. The other urban wilds were useful, but not as immediately useful as Chicago and Lagos. I would have actually preferred on tighter writing with both cities so that Feral cities would balance it out with more information on other urban wilds.
The most negative thing I can say about the Feral Cities is that it lacks cohesion. I do not mind that they have decided to take cities and turn them into post-apocalyptic world visions. The problem I have is when there is no structure to each city.
To explain what I what I mean by a lack of cohesion, Lagos is covered in a general manner in the beginning, some of the outlying nations are covered in the middle, and then Lagos is again covered in a bit more detail at the end and then all adventure hooks are all at the back of the book. This gives the impression of having three to four writers who were given the topic to write about, but covered it by going in slightly different directions. It also means that is hard to find references because you have to skim through the entire chapter for it. To be honest, I kept on thinking how Robert Young Pelton's the World's Most Dangerous Places not only was better written, but more short and to the point.
In short, if you want to buy a book which is specifically about Shadowrun and surviving the most dangerous cities in the world this is for you. However, if you’re like me who likes a better written, more balanced book with more cities, regions and adventure ideas I recommend picking up Robert Young Pelton's the World's Most Dangerous Places off amazon instead.
No I am not Robert Young Pelton.
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