A Novel Idea

I love books. I also love games. If only there was some way of uniting my two passions...

What a coincidence.

Game books aren't exactly brand new, but they have been enjoying quite the rise in popularity over the past few years. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Halo all have their own spin off novels. Assassin's Creed has a few lack-luster adaptations. Even Gears of War, a series not known for its deep storytelling, has several tie-in novels all written by the lead writer of the series (At least that's what thirty seconds worth of research on the Waterstones website tells me).


As you might be able to deduce from the image above, I've recently been reading the Bioshock novel, as well as one of two Elder Scrolls novels. Both are first person RPGs (albeit differently), both have a focus on narrative (albeit differently) and now that I think of it, both feature the gameplay mechanic of throwing dangerous things out of your hands to ruin the day of those in your vicinity. Albeit differently.

First off, BioShock Rapture. The original is one of my favourite FPS games in recent years, and I actually really enjoyed the sequel, despite the general consensus of "more of the same". Rapture provides us with a look into the three ages of the titular city, from the idea in Andrei Rianofski's mind (Yes, apparently Andrew Ryan is a Russian immigrant) to the construction of the thing to its inevitable fall from grace. Surprisingly, an awful lot of the book focuses on the social and economic side of the whole endeavour, with plasmids and splicers only really showing up until the last quarter of the book.

In fact, Rapture really doesn't reference the game a huge amount. If I say BioShock, what's the first thing that springs to mind? If you aren't thinking about Big Daddies, then clearly you played a different version to me. The Big Daddies honestly are barely mention, and get half a page worth of origin story. They turn up later, but the appearance seems referential at best.

Rapture seems to be trying to tell its own story, but is limited by the fact it HAS to end with the Fall of Rapture. Learning the background of Cohen, Steinmann and Fontaine is interesting, but Rapture doesn't manage to add much to the already rich story of the BioShock universe.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the book.
I just wanted to remind people that BioShock 2 was actually pretty good

The Infernal City takes a different approach. Set in the already lore-rich Elder Scrolls land of Tamriel, Infernal City tells a story set fifty years after the Oblivion crisis. Not having actually played the fourth Elder Scrolls game, I was a little in the dark about some of the details, but I've recently become something of a TES lore nerd, because apparently I wasn't well-versed in enough fictional extended universes.

The novel follows a few characters, but the central focus is Annaig, a young Breton (human, for those unversed TES races) girl and her Argonian (lizard man) assistant, Mere-Glim. There's no set up into the universe to be found, as the story throws you straight in. Annaig and Mere-Glim are living a relatively normal life when giant floating citadel, called Umbriel, turns up and starts turning people into the undead. I think. It's actually sort of unclear what is going on on the ground, since most of the action takes place inside of the floating city.

There's a lot of strange things going on in TIC, and I think the point maybe that you AREN'T supposed to understand most of it. More often than not the characters will be confused by what's happening, and you'll be confused along with them. In fact, it's not entirely unlike booting up Morrowind for the first time.

There's also a sub-plot with the Crown Prince and his emotional issues (he either cries at or has sex with everything) that sees him team up with a very angry Dunmer (dark elf). At one point they travel through Oblivion, which is a really well written segment of the book.

There's one more sub-plot about a Inspector named Colin, who murders someone at the start investigates a few things in the middle and runs away from something at the end, and his story doesn't really seem to go anywhere at all. That's probably my biggest complaint about TIC; it finishes before anything really gets going. The sequel has just come out fortunately, so I will be finding out how everything is wrapped up. I'm guessing someone will die. That tends to happen in Elder Scrolls stuff.

Game novels aren't going away. In fact, they're only really going to be getting bigger, with the way gaming is going. With a bit of work, and some good writers starting to move into the arena, I think we can expect some great reads coming out of great games.