Playing It, Buy The Book
I’ve been spending the morning pulling images together for one of the main features for the new issue, which if you must know is on the subject of novels based on games and whether they happen to be a good or bad thing for science fiction in general – which as a subject is a little different to whether the novels themselves are bad. Anyway, in searching through the obvious books based on Star Wars, Mass Effect and Halo – of which there appear to be thousands, I came across a couple of novels I’d not heard of at all.
I had no idea for instance that there had been a Star Control novel, or indeed two based on the old X-Com games (one of them by Diane Duane, the author of The Wounded Sky, which just so happens to be one of my absolute favourite Star Trek stories).
Though I was less surprised to discover a trilogy of Dawn of War tie-ins – since of course there is an entire library of Warhammer 40K books out there – it did strike me as odd there wasn’t a direct Space Marine book to lead into the recent shooter of the same name. Then it occurred to me that there had been one, in name at least, which I’d read back in 1993 during the dark days before I’d bought my first PC; when I read little else but serial Star Trek trash.
These days I have a love-hate relationship with SF tie-in novels. I love the idea of slipping into familiar surroundings without too much effort, but end up hating the paper-thin characters that seem unable to fill the page as they do the screen. I recall picking up the first Halo novel at an airport and only managed 30 pages before declaring it the worst book I’d ever acquired. More recently I tried out an Old Republic book and tossed it away soon after. The only tie-in I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed was Mass Effect: Revelation, but it’s hardly up there with the classics of modern science-fiction.
And yet, there must be some good example of game-to-book SF writing out there that I would like. Maybe I’ll start a new and infrequent blog series to discover it. If I could justify picking up an old copy of X-Com UFO Defense: A Novel I might start there.
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The Anarchy Online book (written by Ragnar Tornquist) impressed me, and used a formula that works very well in my opinion: don’t copy-paste the story told in the game, improve it ! Talk about the universe, the characters, the past, the surrondings, etc. It deepens the experience so much.
Anarchy Online is a sci-fi game, and the books simply introduces the events that lead to the world being the way it is when you click “create a new player”. Something like 20 or 30 thousands of years, nothing less. (plus the fact that it’s the very first english book i finished, make it very dear to me !)
I shall have to seek this book out. I had no idea it existed… no wait, I think I may have owned it once, and gave it away before I had a chance to read it. What I fool I am!
The player character in a game is supposed to be an empty vessel, so that through it, the player can be transported to another time and place. There is nothing more immersion breaking than having the player character switch to a cut scene and say/do things the player is sitting there thinking “I wouldn’t have done that”
Novels based on games have to take into consideration the same thing.
Also, and I know this is controversial, but the games with the best storylines are at best average when objectively compared with the best told films or (non-game based) novels. Most games are still split into good guys and bad guys and paper thin characters
I tend to disagree on that point, i don’t see why all games should have “empty vessels” as player characters. I enjoy very much games like Max Payne, whose main character has a rich, complicated, and tortured story. I enjoyed so much KotOR, and i’m not going to spoil anything but the major plot twist is based on the past of the character the player embodies, a past that was not decided by the player, and god was it good.
What is important, game or book, is that the story or the characters or whatever makes you want more. Play more or read more. I know that playing Eve Online made me want to read the first book, and that book made me want to read the others, and that’s all that matters to me. The fact that some people are obsessed with some kind of hierarchy (a game-based book “average at best” ? Why is that so ?) is too bad, it tends to bias their reading experience while they should welcome any book with the same fresh and unbiased eye.
The EVE: Online books are really good. The two stories I read created a real in-depth look into their universe.
I’ve read Empyrean Age and Burning Life. I’d agree that they draw back the curtain on Eve, but I wasn’t taken with the story in either of them. Empyrean Age was mostly quite good, but the ending was an outright cheat. Burning Life was… less good.
I’ve not read Templar One, but I’ve been playing a fair bit of Dust recently and I’m tempted to give it a go.
Burning Life was not written by the same author and had other goals (its main purpose is to give role players things to draw from).
Personnaly I enjoyed Empyrean Age and Templar One very much, the Eve Online background lore is so rich and deep, and these 2 books are one of the main reason for this depth (chronicles help a lot, too).
It’s main purpose should have been to tell a good story well, otherwise it should have been a source book. It was well-written from a technical standpoint, granted, but the story was weak beyond compare. Hjalti is an excellent writer though – his chronicles are a testament to that. I hope he has another book in him, one that doesn’t follow someone else’s agenda.
The worst one I actually read through was probably the Killzone book. I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll not find anything that’s better than the first Mass Effect book. Maybe it’s too constraining for authors?
Revelation was written by Mass Effect’s lead writer (and the Eve books were written in-house), whereas most tie-in novels are farmed out. Maybe that’s the main problem.
That may well be. Though not a sci-fi title, the best game tie-in I’ve read was the prequel novel to the first Dragon Age, written by David Gaider who was also the lead writer for the game. Its called “The Stolen Throne”, and having read it actually significantly enhanced the game for me.
The principal antagonist for much of the game, Loghain, makes really dumb decisions because of his hate for some off-camera baddies called the Orlesians, and everyone you meet considers him a hero to the kingdom and his betrayal shocking. Where most players just accept this, Loghain is heroic character in the novel; in many ways he is the protagonist. His actions in the game make perfect sense in context with the book and his betrayal becomes much more significant.