Is there a way to incorporate Dapper into metro apps?
No. As you noticed, the absence of System.Data is pretty much a show-stopper, however, in addition, WinRT also does not support metaprogram support, so the whole kernel will need to be rewritten to use regular (i.e. slow) reflection. There are some complicated hoops you can jump to get around this, but without System.Data this seems like a lost cause.
Basically, the intention with WinRT (as I understand it) is to consume your data from things such as web services, the classic "smart client" model, not the "rich client".
So you might think:
- server (full .NET)
- using "dapper" to access data
- display of any call / serialization protocol
- client (.NET for applications in the Windows Store, or be that as it may, is the term today)
- consumes some call / serialization protocol
Strictly speaking, you can IIRC break all the rules and just refer to .NET anyway, but it will not pass any MS test and will not be a proper metro application of the Windows Store.