I have been an avid fan of this game series right from 2007 when "Shadow of Chernobyl" came out. It's been a while since the last part, "Call of Pripyat" and with barely any news about "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2", it wasn't a surprise that GSC brings out the first English book (or at least supports an indie publication) to fill in the gap.
The Russians have published over 40 or 50 books based on the Zone, none of which have been translated to English for whatever reason. It would have been a logic solution for GSC to pick the best of the Russian books and bring it out on the Western book market. Thus I was surprised to realize that "Southern Comfort" was written in English from the scratch by a certain John Mason (I didn't find much about him on the net, but I'm sure he's not the Christian writer with the same name...)
My surprise was even bigger when I found out that "Southern Comfort" (why not "Stolichnaya", anyhow?...) is about a new Zone, and only the first two chapter are located in the familiar Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl and Pripyat. And where's the new Zone? You wouldn't guess: Afghanistan. With eyebrows raised to the top of my head, I gave it a try nonetheless - after all, in the original Strugatskiy book that spawned the whole Stalker universe, "Roadside Picnic", there are five Zones with the story itself set (most likely) in British Columbia. Honestly? Thinking about a place with perils and mysteries, I'd admit that Afghanistan would come much sooner to my mind than Canada. Besides, as a new location it's definitely a better choice, and in better taste too than re-creating a Zone around, let's say, Fukushima.
The book is Create Space published, that means print on demand, but the artwork and printing quality are excellent. Even if printed in relatively large fonts, "Southern Comfort" has 466 pages overall. It looked promising once I laid my hands on it.
As a fan of the games, I wasn't disappointed - the story starts in the Exclusion Zone, and the idea of a new Zone is spoon-fed gradually. The first chapters are used to make the reader aqcuainted with the protagonist, an Ukrainian army major by the name of Mikhailo Tarasov. Obviously, the author also had readers in mind who don't know the games as the basics of Zone lore and history: page by page, more and more is revealed about Tarasov and the Zone. By the time he arrives (so to say, to avoid spoilers) in the New Zone, he became a character I found very easy to identify myself with - something crucial in a book written in third person view, where we see and experience everything through the protagonist himself. I liked that - personally, I'm not much into "I" stories or an omniscient point of view.
The vividly described locations helped to overcome my reservations to the whole Afghan idea. Actually, as the plot took a few surprising turns right from the beginning, the story got me involved to such extent that I didn't miss the old locations anymore. It reads as a book but feels like a video game - the locations are all different like game maps are, action is followed by parts set at a slower pace, dialogues are snappy.
So, the book develops like a post-apocalyptic Tom Clancy (at least one of his better ones) until Tarasov is given a "side quest" which turned my whole view of video game novelizations in general, and "Southern Comfort" in particular, totally upside down - out of nothing, just like all the mutant-infested crevasses of the New Zone, a veritable chasm of human depth opened up in front of my eyes. All I could say was "what the hell? could it be that someone at last wrote a good game novelization?" but then, after just another gory part, I realized that the touching story of the old Soviet outcast was just the first clasp of thunder before the storm.
Almost out of nothing, enter the Tribe and its renegade US Marines, and suddenly I found myself reading a virtual re-make of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now" (which got mi finally hooked as they are among my all-time favorites). With them, it's not only the laws of physics and nature that are turned upside down in the New Zone, but the moral values of our world as well. There was some serious bitching about the state of the world before, as some characters have British, German and other background and all flock to the New Zone to escape their own misery, but with the Tribe an alternate world is created where crude justice prevails over "human rights bullshit" and where "desperate people from all the world" arrive. The Colonel's monologue, who appears as a contemporary version of Colonel Kurtz, falls way short of Brando's ingenious words - but gets close to it at parts. Lines like "Corpse by corpse, we carved out a piece of the world that belongs only to us now, where we can preserve our honor. This is our Promised Land, and this Stronghold our Alamo. You are nothing but a trespasser here. That?s why you have to die.? made the chill run down my spine. It's fit for a movie. And if that wasn't enough already, after a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs another character steps in to finish the kill - the book as a game novelization died with her stepping in and raised from its death as wonderful literature.
More epic battles follow until Tarasov finally reaches his original destination - a bunker system hidden beneath the "City of Screams", an actually existing old ruin in Central Afghanistan, where all the pieces of the puzzle fall together. A few details here are clearly video game stuff, such as the search for pen drives and notes, but ultimately it's creepy horror, very much reminiscent of the undergrounds in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Some might find an all-in battle in the dark passages more to their liking, but while fight scenes are abundant, I personally liked the idea of a more psychological process. A dark "Spirit" creeping into the tough guys' head is more intriguing than endless gun fights, if you ask me.
And finally, when I safely presumed that all is over and happy end is near, the book played yet another trick on me and the plot kept twisting on, like one of those mutated Snakes that just refuse to die. Despite all this, the book could have still failed by not delivering an end fitting enough to the epic story. And this being true-blood S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stuff, one can't expect a happy end with the heroes riding away into the sunset. Yet it ends in the only way it could, leaving the book neatly concluded but the story could still go on.
And I hope it will go on one day - after reading "Southern Comfort", I only wanted two things: having GSC make their next game from this book, and joining the Tribe. Maybe, if S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 disappoints, I might just do that.
The Russians have published over 40 or 50 books based on the Zone, none of which have been translated to English for whatever reason. It would have been a logic solution for GSC to pick the best of the Russian books and bring it out on the Western book market. Thus I was surprised to realize that "Southern Comfort" was written in English from the scratch by a certain John Mason (I didn't find much about him on the net, but I'm sure he's not the Christian writer with the same name...)
My surprise was even bigger when I found out that "Southern Comfort" (why not "Stolichnaya", anyhow?...) is about a new Zone, and only the first two chapter are located in the familiar Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl and Pripyat. And where's the new Zone? You wouldn't guess: Afghanistan. With eyebrows raised to the top of my head, I gave it a try nonetheless - after all, in the original Strugatskiy book that spawned the whole Stalker universe, "Roadside Picnic", there are five Zones with the story itself set (most likely) in British Columbia. Honestly? Thinking about a place with perils and mysteries, I'd admit that Afghanistan would come much sooner to my mind than Canada. Besides, as a new location it's definitely a better choice, and in better taste too than re-creating a Zone around, let's say, Fukushima.
The book is Create Space published, that means print on demand, but the artwork and printing quality are excellent. Even if printed in relatively large fonts, "Southern Comfort" has 466 pages overall. It looked promising once I laid my hands on it.
As a fan of the games, I wasn't disappointed - the story starts in the Exclusion Zone, and the idea of a new Zone is spoon-fed gradually. The first chapters are used to make the reader aqcuainted with the protagonist, an Ukrainian army major by the name of Mikhailo Tarasov. Obviously, the author also had readers in mind who don't know the games as the basics of Zone lore and history: page by page, more and more is revealed about Tarasov and the Zone. By the time he arrives (so to say, to avoid spoilers) in the New Zone, he became a character I found very easy to identify myself with - something crucial in a book written in third person view, where we see and experience everything through the protagonist himself. I liked that - personally, I'm not much into "I" stories or an omniscient point of view.
The vividly described locations helped to overcome my reservations to the whole Afghan idea. Actually, as the plot took a few surprising turns right from the beginning, the story got me involved to such extent that I didn't miss the old locations anymore. It reads as a book but feels like a video game - the locations are all different like game maps are, action is followed by parts set at a slower pace, dialogues are snappy.
So, the book develops like a post-apocalyptic Tom Clancy (at least one of his better ones) until Tarasov is given a "side quest" which turned my whole view of video game novelizations in general, and "Southern Comfort" in particular, totally upside down - out of nothing, just like all the mutant-infested crevasses of the New Zone, a veritable chasm of human depth opened up in front of my eyes. All I could say was "what the hell? could it be that someone at last wrote a good game novelization?" but then, after just another gory part, I realized that the touching story of the old Soviet outcast was just the first clasp of thunder before the storm.
Almost out of nothing, enter the Tribe and its renegade US Marines, and suddenly I found myself reading a virtual re-make of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now" (which got mi finally hooked as they are among my all-time favorites). With them, it's not only the laws of physics and nature that are turned upside down in the New Zone, but the moral values of our world as well. There was some serious bitching about the state of the world before, as some characters have British, German and other background and all flock to the New Zone to escape their own misery, but with the Tribe an alternate world is created where crude justice prevails over "human rights bullshit" and where "desperate people from all the world" arrive. The Colonel's monologue, who appears as a contemporary version of Colonel Kurtz, falls way short of Brando's ingenious words - but gets close to it at parts. Lines like "Corpse by corpse, we carved out a piece of the world that belongs only to us now, where we can preserve our honor. This is our Promised Land, and this Stronghold our Alamo. You are nothing but a trespasser here. That?s why you have to die.? made the chill run down my spine. It's fit for a movie. And if that wasn't enough already, after a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs another character steps in to finish the kill - the book as a game novelization died with her stepping in and raised from its death as wonderful literature.
More epic battles follow until Tarasov finally reaches his original destination - a bunker system hidden beneath the "City of Screams", an actually existing old ruin in Central Afghanistan, where all the pieces of the puzzle fall together. A few details here are clearly video game stuff, such as the search for pen drives and notes, but ultimately it's creepy horror, very much reminiscent of the undergrounds in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Some might find an all-in battle in the dark passages more to their liking, but while fight scenes are abundant, I personally liked the idea of a more psychological process. A dark "Spirit" creeping into the tough guys' head is more intriguing than endless gun fights, if you ask me.
And finally, when I safely presumed that all is over and happy end is near, the book played yet another trick on me and the plot kept twisting on, like one of those mutated Snakes that just refuse to die. Despite all this, the book could have still failed by not delivering an end fitting enough to the epic story. And this being true-blood S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stuff, one can't expect a happy end with the heroes riding away into the sunset. Yet it ends in the only way it could, leaving the book neatly concluded but the story could still go on.
And I hope it will go on one day - after reading "Southern Comfort", I only wanted two things: having GSC make their next game from this book, and joining the Tribe. Maybe, if S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 disappoints, I might just do that.
