Gaming Literature: Do you partake?
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I read a Warhammer: 40000 novel once. It wasn't very good. Haven't been tempted to read another video-game-novel since.
As a general rule, I'd say no.
However, I have read two series of Star Wars novels, X-Wing and Republic Commandos.
What set those apart in my mind is the fact that both series took place entirely separate from events of the games/movies they share a universe with.
X-Wing takes place after the Star Wars movies end, and follow an entirely new set of characters through the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War. Just because the leadership was dead and the superweapon was destroyed didn't mean that everything was over. There was the power vacuum that the Republic had to quickly fill, and all of the remaining forces of the Empire to contend with. It was also nice to get some Star Wars material that was somewhat grounded. There's still Jedi in the series, but there are far more fighter pilots, politics and cunning plans on display than Jedi mind tricks or lightsabers.
As for Republic Commandos, it starts off with a different set of commandos than the ones featured in the game and takes a very interesting direction. The series focuses on the culture developed by the clones during the clone wars, and has an interesting side plot involving a female jedi and one of the commandos. They become romantically involved over the course of the first book, and both have to deal with the fallout involved in that decision in consecutive books. The Jedi has to wrestle with her conscience, while the clone commando is confronted with his own mortality. He realizes that even though he's found something worth living for, he'd never live long enough to see his son grow up. If he didn't die on the battlefield, his accelerated aging would give them a decade or so before his body decayed and he died. It was really interesting watching the characters work through these things, while the rest of the squad try to keep things running smoothly. The relationship becomes everyone's problem, because they all still have to work together to break up terrorist cells and overthrow Separatist planetary governments.
I also remember reading a book about a squad of Stormtroopers as they progress from young idealists through boot camp and into the questionable conflict. It was kind of neat to see the Empire from a more positive point of view, and explore how people with good intentions could get moved around through the conflict. Each squad member has their own moral dilemma once they start seeing the reality of working for the Empire, and the squad leader has the added burden of trying to keep everyone alive while also deciding where his loyalty lies (also, by extension, the loyalty of his squad). There may have been more books in the series, though I don't think they were released at the time and I haven't gotten around to buying them.
So yeah.
TL;DR: I don't always read books based on other properties, but when I do, it's usually something Star Wars-related, exploring different aspects of the universe.
However, I have read two series of Star Wars novels, X-Wing and Republic Commandos.
What set those apart in my mind is the fact that both series took place entirely separate from events of the games/movies they share a universe with.
X-Wing takes place after the Star Wars movies end, and follow an entirely new set of characters through the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War. Just because the leadership was dead and the superweapon was destroyed didn't mean that everything was over. There was the power vacuum that the Republic had to quickly fill, and all of the remaining forces of the Empire to contend with. It was also nice to get some Star Wars material that was somewhat grounded. There's still Jedi in the series, but there are far more fighter pilots, politics and cunning plans on display than Jedi mind tricks or lightsabers.
As for Republic Commandos, it starts off with a different set of commandos than the ones featured in the game and takes a very interesting direction. The series focuses on the culture developed by the clones during the clone wars, and has an interesting side plot involving a female jedi and one of the commandos. They become romantically involved over the course of the first book, and both have to deal with the fallout involved in that decision in consecutive books. The Jedi has to wrestle with her conscience, while the clone commando is confronted with his own mortality. He realizes that even though he's found something worth living for, he'd never live long enough to see his son grow up. If he didn't die on the battlefield, his accelerated aging would give them a decade or so before his body decayed and he died. It was really interesting watching the characters work through these things, while the rest of the squad try to keep things running smoothly. The relationship becomes everyone's problem, because they all still have to work together to break up terrorist cells and overthrow Separatist planetary governments.
I also remember reading a book about a squad of Stormtroopers as they progress from young idealists through boot camp and into the questionable conflict. It was kind of neat to see the Empire from a more positive point of view, and explore how people with good intentions could get moved around through the conflict. Each squad member has their own moral dilemma once they start seeing the reality of working for the Empire, and the squad leader has the added burden of trying to keep everyone alive while also deciding where his loyalty lies (also, by extension, the loyalty of his squad). There may have been more books in the series, though I don't think they were released at the time and I haven't gotten around to buying them.
So yeah.
TL;DR: I don't always read books based on other properties, but when I do, it's usually something Star Wars-related, exploring different aspects of the universe.
I guess I'll join the club too, well not yours specifically but you know...Vegosiux said:
My brain just isn't programmed to believe that any book based off of a video game could be anything but slightly below mediocre or worse.
Captcha: no dice
See, even the captcha agrees.
I've only read the Dragon Age novels and Fable: The Balverine Order. Although enjoyable I would only give them 3/5 *
Oh and the Knights of the Old Republic comics which are quite awesome.
Oh and the Knights of the Old Republic comics which are quite awesome.
Generally if the book follows the plot of a game it tends to be low grade crap.
So for the most part no, I've read some but prefer The Black Library, Ciaphas Cain and the Gotrek and Felix novels. I've been meaning to get into the Horus Hersay novels but have yet to find the time. As for the tangled mess that is the Star Wars EU I go for the Zhan/Thrawn series as well as the X-wing novels.
And with horror stories like Mass Effect: Deception floating about I'll stick to my current expanded universe fare.
So for the most part no, I've read some but prefer The Black Library, Ciaphas Cain and the Gotrek and Felix novels. I've been meaning to get into the Horus Hersay novels but have yet to find the time. As for the tangled mess that is the Star Wars EU I go for the Zhan/Thrawn series as well as the X-wing novels.
And with horror stories like Mass Effect: Deception floating about I'll stick to my current expanded universe fare.
While I did enjoyed reading my Guild Wars 2 books but since I've read them after playing the game itself, I did find some places inconsistant compared to the game. Granted I'm not saying the book should come out before the game, just rather one form shoud stick with the other form when it come to lore/ story wise.
I think your assesment of the author's quality is a bit unfair and doesn't recognize the realities of actually working as an artist. The truth is, since adaptations and other stories set in already popular franchises are usually guaranteed to sell at least a few hundred copies, writing them is often the equivalent of having a day job for many writers rather than a labor of love. Patricia Highsmith for instance started out writing for serialized comic books before publishing her first novel.Zhukov said:
OT: Usually I don't particularily care if a game is part of a trans-media-thingie as long as it is capable of standing on its own, though in some cases, like with Battletech or Star Wars (stuff I was at some point in my life (when I was twelve) a fan of), the added context of the all-around mythology can serve to give what happens in the game an additional level of meaning. In theory I also don't mind if a game spawns a series of spin-off novels, in practice though most game stories and "lore" (urrghh) are so stupid and cliché-laden they don't make for good non-interactive media, because of this and because, even if the books are actually good they are unlikely to attract a crowd of readers that aren't fans in the first place, most publishers don't bother to hire authors who actually want reasonable pay and most authors don't bother to put more than the most basic amount of effort into the books.
I enjoy quite a few game books of course Dan Abnett is amazing and is the reason I love warhammer 40k. Read and enjoyed some of the Warcraft and StarCraft books. Also loved the BioShock prequel. Oh and also the first 6 or so Gotrek and Felix books and the vampire Genevieve collection
I normally don't, but I did stumble into that realm with two games I enjoyed a lot.
The novelization of Baldur's Gate is wretchedly bad, I've got the first one based on the title alone and hated it to the core. A few years later, I borrowed the novelization of Shadows of Amn from a friend and... Yep, still completely shit.
About 2-3 years back, I was looking for some light reads and decided to give the Dragon Age prequel books a go. Better than BG novelizatons, but still pretty bad.
Not straying into that river again.
The novelization of Baldur's Gate is wretchedly bad, I've got the first one based on the title alone and hated it to the core. A few years later, I borrowed the novelization of Shadows of Amn from a friend and... Yep, still completely shit.
About 2-3 years back, I was looking for some light reads and decided to give the Dragon Age prequel books a go. Better than BG novelizatons, but still pretty bad.
Not straying into that river again.
As far as I know, game-based books are usually based on the universe of the game itself and not so much on an individual game.Zhukov said:
Even though though, I haven't encountered a videogame universe interesting enough to read books about. Not that they're not interesting, but when you're currently reading The Wise Man's Fear (re-read), Hitchhiker's Galaxy 1 (re-read), Great Expectations, Through The Looking Glass and A Storm of Swords Pt. 1 there's little time for game-based novels.
That and there's plenty of books on my shelves I've bought for cheap but haven't gotten around to yet. Nothing game-based in that either. They just seem to be too catered to fans, though that's just a guess, to really appeal to my tastes.
I used to be more of a snob and refused to read anything game-branded for that reason, but I picked up one of the Dragon Age tie-in novels in an airport once (The Calling, I think) and was surprised by how decent it was (ditto the recent DA Silent Grove/Those Who Speak comic series).
Sure, it wasn't some grand literary work, but it was a solid fantasy romp, so I'm okay with admitting that I was wrong before. I've flipped through a few other tie-ins that haven't impressed me, but that's just as likely to be true of any other book that I pick up without being familiar with the author.
Sure, it wasn't some grand literary work, but it was a solid fantasy romp, so I'm okay with admitting that I was wrong before. I've flipped through a few other tie-ins that haven't impressed me, but that's just as likely to be true of any other book that I pick up without being familiar with the author.
No, snobbish would be to generally despise fiction based on a pre-existing IP.Zhukov said:
For someone who already loves glorified fanfiction such as a video game based on a TV show based on a comic book, the term you are looking for is "hypocritical". Or at least "surprisingly inconsistent".
I would only be interested in reading gaming literature if said literature was written by the selfsame author who penned the original game's story. Though to be honest, I could count on one hand the amount of games I've played that actually had truly great stories. So I feel no impetus to seek out literary expansions of the legions of mediocre game plots I've experienced.
Was it one of those Dawn of War novels by C.S. Goto? I don't blame you if that's true.Haukur Isleifsson said:
...
You don't know how hard it is for me to not pounce on you and scream about how wizard the Eisenhorn Trilogy is and how you should read all of it right now.
I found that to be the best of the Mass Effect tie-ins. It was able to help build up the universe and provide some insight to the next game without having to be a necessary read in order to enjoy the future games.AntiChrist said:
Anyway, I like the idea of tie-in novels that expand the universe and/or the characters of the game. Straight up adaptations of games though, haven't really enjoyed any of those.
The best that I've read is easily Perfect Dark: Initial Vector and Perfect Dark: Second Front. I just can't emphasize enough how amazing these books are. Whatever you may say about Perfect Dark Zero, these books are simply phenomenal. It's such a shame that they didn't sell too well, as plans for more books were in place, but they weren't able to follow up on them.
In general, I find the idea of novels based on games to be somewhat distasteful. Perhaps it's just me buying into the stigma, but I'm not so sure.
I have read one book based in a game universe, since it was written by a legit author whose other work I liked. It was Martyr, set in the Dead Space universe, and had the good fortune to be utterly removed from the events of the game, and only tenuously connected to the lore, allowing the author to write a story rather than rehash one. The end result was actually a pretty good book, though it did get a bit bogged down in the last quarter or so.
If we throw comics into the mix, I have also picked up a couple of the Dead Space ones (hey, I like the Dead Space universe), because the imagery is just fantastic. The writing was predictably shit, but it could be easily ignored, allowing one to focus on the real point of the book: Christopher Shy's artwork. God damn, that man can draw.
I have read one book based in a game universe, since it was written by a legit author whose other work I liked. It was Martyr, set in the Dead Space universe, and had the good fortune to be utterly removed from the events of the game, and only tenuously connected to the lore, allowing the author to write a story rather than rehash one. The end result was actually a pretty good book, though it did get a bit bogged down in the last quarter or so.
If we throw comics into the mix, I have also picked up a couple of the Dead Space ones (hey, I like the Dead Space universe), because the imagery is just fantastic. The writing was predictably shit, but it could be easily ignored, allowing one to focus on the real point of the book: Christopher Shy's artwork. God damn, that man can draw.