Streets Of Blood
Shadowrun #8
Carl Sargent &
Marc Gascoigne
1992


Editorial Reviews
Ingram
As dark shadows released from Victoria's reign run rampant in 2054 London, Geraint, Adept, Serrin, Francesca, and Rani are drawn into a world of deceit, death, and conspiracy.
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Customer Reviews
Avg. Customer Review:
Great from cover to cover, February 9, 1999
Reviewer:
One of my favorite Shadowrun novels. I highly recomend this to all Sci-fi/fantasy readers.
Gritty novel that captures the benighted feel of Shadowrun., January 15, 1999
Reviewer:
I enjoyed this novel a lot. It was fast moving and the megacorporate plot was truly serpentine. Among the characters is a master plotter nearly equal to the corps in Geraint, unlike most SR novles where straightforward hoop-kicking runners figure things out through shear grit and persistence. England in the world of Shadowrun is a dismal place and Sargent and Gascgoigne capture this feel well. The ending is also as bittersweet as it should be. Most Shadowrun novels have happy endings, which seem out of place in the grim future dominated by megacorporations.

Contents
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1

The first gleam of blood-red light arced across the cabin just as the massive tires of the suborbital Ghost shuttle screamed on first contact with Runway 11 of the world's busiest airport. The mage's mind was elsewhere, and the rough impact jolted him back into the real world of Heathrow's dazzling lights and concourses.
The call had come just when Serrin thought he'd almost gotten used to Seattle, even begun to feel slightly at home there, his suitcases slouched against the wall of a cheap hotel for more than the usual week or two. He'd been wary of the offer made by the suit with the impossibly even tone of voice, but the nuyen glowing on his credstick was no lie and money enough to bring him to London as requested.
Perhaps the corporation that wanted to hire him couldn't find a registered British mage to do the job for them. That was plausible enough, considering the way the Lord Protector's offices had nearly every British mage tied up good and safe in red tape. Every practitioner of magic had to pay a hefty fee and submit a DNA sample to be registered by the Lord Protector's office. A foreigner trying to register could wait weeks, or even months, just for the processing of his or her application. Serrin had bypassed the usual difficulties and delays-and possible refusal of his application-because the powerful Renraku Corporation had owed him a few favors. Thanks to them Serrin's carefully coded DNA sample was properly filed in one of the huge basement complexes of the Temple District. Gently, without admitting it, they had pointed him in the direction of the right people, which was the least they could do to make up for his leg turned to mincemeat while doing some work for them.
"We'd like you to sign this disclaimer of responsibility, however," the jittery accountant had muttered, all the while avoiding his gaze. ''It'll, ah, tie up any loose ends. Just protocol." Maybe a leg turned to mincemeat was just protocol after all.
The magnetic seatbelt undipped and Serrin got slowly to his feet, reaching up to open the overhead compartment. He pulled out his pigskin bag, then instinctively clutched it to his chest as if protecting some intimate part of himself. He edged forward along the aisle behind a snot-nosed child, who whined in protest as a blotchy-faced woman dragged him along toward Customs. For a split-second, the elf had a feeling of pure absurdity, a sensation of unreality, of being almost out of his own body. He grabbed at the papers inside his shabby jacket as if for support. With a shake of his head, he focused on the passport, the visa, the medical documents, the permits, and the licenses. Damn the British love of bureaucracy! Getting through Customs and Immigration in London was like having to read a long letter very slowly to a very deaf, half-senile great-aunt who, even in her rare moments of lucidity, willfully feigned a lack of comprehension.
Standing at the head of a stairway leading to British tarmac, Serrin shivered. It was one-fifteen in the morning, early November, the temperature hovering around zero Celsius and a dismal filmy drizzle of rain coating his skin with grime from the London skies. So much for the year 2054 and the city's miracle weather-control dome!