Friday, September 17, 2021

Gallows Humor

 Finishing up Stephen Kenson's Talon Trilogy with The Burning Time, which wraps up Talon's story quite well. 

I'm technically skipping the second book here, Ragnarock, since I read it last year, but ok.

Anyway, Talon and his crew get sucked into a new adventure thanks in part to a run gone bad. (I mean, that's pretty much Shadowrun for "You meet at the local tavern"...) In this case, trying to get something from Cross Applied Technologies, which ends up bringing Roy Kilaro involved. Roy, who wants to become a Seraphim, is in Boston from Montreal investigating an odd data stream he found from one of Boston's chip heads. 

On the home front, Trouble, the cabal's Decker, falls back in with her ex, since the gay street mage obviously ain't interested in the slotting she's offering. Talon, in the mean time, keeps running across his ex's ghost. And it would seem Mama Iaga is using Gallow to help pull off whatever plan she has for the Christmas return of Halley's Comet. (I get the distinct impression this particular book was written right before a new edition, since a second wave of goblinization known as SURGE starts happening towards the end, who lead to less rigid character creation in the system.)

By the end, everyone gets something akin to a happy ending, other than Mama Iaga, who pretty much gets what she had coming. 

I rather enjoyed this book, particularly towards the end when Talon more or less takes an Orphic journey to find Jason, his ex. While my love life has never been QUITE as dramatic as Talon's, the emotions we get through his adventures ring quite true. These are well worth picking up if you can find them.

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