SOMETIMES THE BEST PRIZES AREN'T FOUND ON THE BATTLEFIELD... In the 25th century, the Free Worlds League is fighting for its life against the encroaching Lyran Commonwealth and its new weapon, the BattleMech. With a new, untested leader on the FWL throne, a precarious plan is hatched to gain the Great House the edge it needs to fight off the invaders. Using guile and seduction, a small team of infiltrators plans to take the information the Free Worlds League desperately needs, and the men who possess it, into their arms in one fell swoop...but how can they create a scenario where these technicians will come over of their own free will?

It is a time of trials for the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth. Besieged by enemies on all sides, their once-mighty forces are struggling to survive—as is their leader... Anson Marik is at his wit’s end. His Lyran enemies—aided by the mercenary warriors of Clan Wolf—are pressing on the borders of the Commonwealth. His chief tactician has resigned in the midst of the chaos. And his abilities as a leader are failing him. He’s unable to summon up his legendary rage to focus his mind, and the loss couldn’t have happened at a worse time. For his enemies are already on the move, taking the Commonwealth planet by planet, forcing Marik to pull his forces back in a bravely-fought running retreat. And if Marik cannot gather his strength to stop the invasion, his people will be doomed...

THE LONGEST JOURNEY... Six shadowrunners. Three mysterious packages. And twelve kilometers of a dangerous, dilapidated bridge across one of the wildest sprawls of the Sixth World. It should be a simple job. Retrieve three sealed packages, then take them across the city of Lagos to their destination. All the runners’ skills will be tested—they’ll face ambushes, double-crosses, and more, and along the way they might be able to answer the question of just what’s in those packages, and why they’re so important. The team has a lot on their side, including a street samurai who’s a legend on the streets, a hotshot rigger with a lot of enemies, a young shaman seeking justice, a decker with a dark secret, and a pair of pros from Seattle trying to keep up with everything the unfamiliar sprawl throws at them. But the deadly streets and sinister neighborhoods of Lagos contain their own unique dangers, and it’ll take every trick the runners know to complete their mission and escape the city in one piece…

SPIN THE WHEEL... Bannickburn is a burned-out Scottish mage with little power and fewer prospects when he falls into fast company. A notorious crime boss, Bigio family caporegime Quinn Bailey offers him a job that could turn his life around. Soon Bannickburn is living once again in the style he's accustomed to. AND TAKE YOUR CHANCES... But when Bannickburn tries to leave the family, Bailey calls in his markers, and now Bannickburn must aid the Bigios as they pit themselves against a rival mob in a power struggle that moves from the Seattle sprawl to the elven enclave of Portland. Leading a handpicked crew of shadowrunners, Bannickburn is about to hit the jackpot—and learn that in every game, winners can turn into losers with the squeeze of a trigger...

THE THRILLING CONCLUSION OF THE FRAME JOB SERIES! Double-crossed. Ambushed. One, and possibly two megacorps out for their heads... Yu, Emu, Rude, Frostburn, and Zipfile have been through a lot in the last few days. Their backs are against the wall. And when that happens, there’s only one thing left to do—come out swinging (or in Rude’s case, shooting). Their recon and data-gathering has all paid off. They know who to hit, where to hit them, and how. Now all they gotta do is infiltrate a heavily secure corp building in a busy business area of Seattle in broad daylight and bring it down…from the inside. And all that stands in their way is Mr. Johnson himself, corp security, and another hundred and one things that could go wrong… And, assuming they can pull this mission off, there’s still the matter of the second Johnson who hired them…and who might want to ensure there are no loose ends after this job. Will the Frame Job be the team's last one, or will they use everything they have to find a way to come out on top?

For more than a year, "divine leader" Daoshen Liao has relentlessly pushed his Capellan Confederation forces in their invasion of the Republic. Now the time has come for the next stage of his conquest - a conquest that will begin not with an enemy, but with his own family... Raised among royalty in the Magistracy of Canopus, where the superiority of women is a cultural axiom, Danai Liao-Centrella possesses all the confidence necessary for her to ascend through the Confederacy ranks, despite having to contend with the constant machinations of her maniacal brother, Daoshen. But when her latest mission ends in defeat and personal disgrace, Danai will face the greatest challenge of her life. Chancellor Daoshen rewards her failure by giving her a battalion of her own and a brand-new battlefield. And Danai is about to learn that in service to the state, even family comes second to safeguarding the Capellan Confederation.

DARK RUINS, DARKER SECRETS... Vaquita has had a rough go of it lately. She was doing all right, building a career as a London-based rigger, when something went wrong inside her head. Suddenly the mental space she used to have all to herself was shared as a foreign personality carved out a section of brain for herself. It wasn’t exactly madness, but it sure felt like it. It also made for some tough going for a time, and several lost jobs, but lately Vaquita’s gotten her swagger back. Her life may be a little trickier than the average runner’s, but she’s also got some skills she didn’t have before, not to mention new ways of bringing in the danger. And she has the perfect testing ground for her new abilities—the hulking, abandoned Angel Towers Arcology. Filled with squatters, gangs, vicious critters, and certain areas people only talk about in whispers, Angel Towers has enough danger and hidden caches of tech to keep a dozen teams of shadowrunners busy. But ith her small, new team, Vaquita’s going to use it to not only rebuild her rep, but take it to the next level. But the arcology’s secrets and dangers go far deeper than Vaquita realizes, and she’ll have to deal with the perils at every turn—as well as the people who put them there...

BESET ON ALL SIDES… It is a time of trials for the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth. Besieged by enemies, their once-mighty forces are struggling to simply survive—as is their leader… Anson Marik is at his wit’s end. His Lyran enemies—aided by the warriors of Clan Wolf—are pressing on the borders of the Commonwealth. His chief tactician wishes to resign in the middle of chaos. And his abilities as a leader are failing him—he finds himself unable to summon the legendary rage that focuses his mind—and the loss could not have come at a worse time. For his allied enemies are on the move, taking the Commonwealth apart planet by planet, forcing Marik to pull his forces back in a fighting retreat. And if Anson Marik cannot gather his strength to stop the invasion, his people will be doomed...

WELCOME TO THE YEAR 2072… …And a world unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. A world where magic and machines exist side-by-side. Where cybernetics can replace organs or entire limbs with ease, and arcane spells can make the impossible happen. Where the Matrix has become an artificial world of its own, filled with all kinds of pleasure, treasure, and trouble. Where dwarves, elves, orks, and trolls walk alongside humans every day. Some work for megacorporations whose invisible tentacles wrap around every aspect of modern life. Others choose a much less legal career, doing whatever dirty work the corp executives need done—for a price. WELCOME TO SHADOWRUN Featuring fifteen new stories about the men and women who make their living in the shadows of the Sixth World, Spells and Chrome takes you into the dark and dirty streets of a bleak future. Whether risking their lives to execute a mission for an employer who might be planning to double-cross them anyway, or just doing whatever they need to do to survive another day, shadowrunners use everything they’ve got—cyberware, spells, or a very big gun—to get the job done.

FIVE RUNNERS. ONE JOB. And a Whole Lot of Trouble... It should have been a simple walk in the corp. Stroll into a mid-level corporation disguised as a nameless mid-level manager in a suit, deliver an unknown data package to an isolated network, and stroll out again. But nothing is ever simple in the shadows. Now five shadowrunners are on the run themselves. Framed by their employer, the mysterious Mr. Johnson, and marked for termination by every hired cop, corp security man, and shadowrunner in Seattle, the team must find out who set them up, why they did it, and figure out how to deliver their payback—without getting killed in the process. The Complete Frame Job is the collected six-novella story set in the gritty, dark future, magic-and-machine world of Shadowrun.