The thing about so many novels based on games is they often really suck. I think its actually kind of hard to do really. When its a RPG everyone plays the game differently. Yet the novel has to try and be the quintessential version of the game. What does that mean exactly? How can a game that is inherently different for each person have one version? I don't think it can and that can mean that no one will be happy. In the end some of the game novels were quite good. I enjoyed the Crystal Shard trilogy a great deal when younger but the Drizzt series of books with the villain the author just kept bringing back got old really fast.
Free Fall I thought had a different problem. Its not based on a RPG but rather a card game. Now I like the card game a lot. Its fast and fun, has cool art and is cyberpunk. So how does the book do as a Net Runner one? Well an epic fail. The book of a setting should be instantly recognizable as connected to it. If I tore off the cover and lead up pages of the book you should be able to tell exactly what it is from and what it is. With Free Fall its not the case. The game is about Hackers and corps, this is a detective novel.
But what is it like as a book? Actually pretty good. Its been well written and I have moved through it pretty quick. The characters are mostly decent and apart from a couple of contrived relationships its well put together. Although its not a great Net Runner book it is a decent Cyberpunk book and providing you can deal with that aspect of it then its worth picking up.
Never trust the dice
