Alien: Isolation The Novel Bursting January 2019!

[Perfect-Organism]

So, I stayed away from this topic as I didn't want to spoil the experience of reading the book.  Alas, this morning I finished it, and I caught up on reading the posts.

I have to admit there were many sections of longueur which had me take looong breaks away.  Eventually, the book picked up some pace and I found it interesting to see just how much of young Amanda we got to see.  That was cool.  But something was missing in this work for me.  Maybe it was... passion.

[Hudson]

So, I stayed away from this topic as I didn't want to spoil the experience of reading the book.  Alas, this morning I finished it, and I caught up on reading the posts.

I have to admit there were many sections of longueur which had me take looong breaks away.  Eventually, the book picked up some pace and I found it interesting to see just how much of young Amanda we got to see.  That was cool.  But something was missing in this work for me.  Maybe it was... passion.

Bingo. If I'm not mistaken KRD says in an interview he was asked to write this book, not the other way around? It shows.

[Corporal Hicks]

But something was missing in this work for me.  Maybe it was... passion.

For sure! You could feel him having more interest in his original material in the book.

[Kradan]

Agreed

[Hudson]

But something was missing in this work for me.  Maybe it was... passion.

For sure! You could feel him having more interest in his original material in the book.

From his standpoint, I can totally understand that. If you're writing a book, how could you not be more engaged in the original stuff you're creating, rather than what probably feels like a transcription of someone else's source material? It's one thing to novelize a graphic novel, or a film based on the screenplay. Both of these are more or less pieces of writing being converted into another form of writing. For a video game, I would imagine it's a really cumbersome experience, especially if you're not even playing the game and you're essentially just trying to write the prose version of a YouTube video. I'm sure it wasn't a fun experience per se.

However, people who saw the title, Alien Isolation, and had played the game, were not eagerly awaiting DeCandido's take on Ripley's backstory before they were looking to experience an adaptation of the video game's story. If you're getting paid to write a media tie-in, I think you need to deliver on fan expectations, and I don't agree that this occurred. That's where I don't understand what the editors of this book were going for from a marketing perspective. Most of the people who played the game probably didn't read this book. I think that's a fair assumption. But I bet most people who read this book had played the game.

Superficially, there's no tension in flashbacks. Each time the flashbacks pop into this book, Sevastopol's story comes to a grinding halt and the pacing gets messed up. Then, when we return to the modules of the story that are supposed to be scary, the momentum never picks up. The whole thing feels very strange if you're familiar with how tense the game can be. I just don't feel any sense of dread or fear in the parts of this book where you tonally need that. It's a boring book and the game is never boring.

I think it will be remembered as one of the more awkward entries in the Zula/Amanda Team-Up Era, or whatever we'll label it as.

[Nightmare Asylum]

This discussion is making me think back to reading Halo: The Flood back in high school, and how much I hated all of the parts that adapted the Halo: Combat Evolved 1:1 but how I really enjoyed the parts that broke away from Master Chief's POV. I remember the Master Chief parts all basically reading like a gameplay guide, which just... wasn't enjoyable.

[Hudson]

This discussion is making me think back to reading Halo: The Flood back in high school, and how much I hated all of the parts that adapted the Halo: Combat Evolved 1:1 but how I really enjoyed the parts that broke away from Master Chief's POV. I remember the Master Chief parts all basically reading like a gameplay guide, which just... wasn't enjoyable.

I haven't read them yet, but I'm curious about SD Perry's Resident Evil books. They were popular enough to get reprinted, which seems like kind of a rare thing outside of Star Wars books. But Resident Evil from 1998 is such a sparse game in so many ways, in some ways like Halo. Especially with long stretches of silence from the main protagonist. I want to see how she tackled the gameplay.

[Perfect-Organism]

The Aliens felt like space bugs again, with none of the fearful dread associated with the game.

On a positive note, thanks were given to Dan Abnett and the folks who wrote the game.  It always kind of stuck in my craw that Mark Verheiden never received any credit for his work which was transcribed by a Perry or two into some novels.  It was quite shameful.

[TheBATMAN]

This discussion is making me think back to reading Halo: The Flood back in high school, and how much I hated all of the parts that adapted the Halo: Combat Evolved 1:1 but how I really enjoyed the parts that broke away from Master Chief's POV. I remember the Master Chief parts all basically reading like a gameplay guide, which just... wasn't enjoyable.

I haven't read them yet, but I'm curious about SD Perry's Resident Evil books. They were popular enough to get reprinted, which seems like kind of a rare thing outside of Star Wars books. But Resident Evil from 1998 is such a sparse game in so many ways, in some ways like Halo. Especially with long stretches of silence from the main protagonist. I want to see how she tackled the gameplay.

The books are pretty faithful. The Umbrella Conspiracy and RE2 in particular are pretty faithful adaptions and one of the fun things is being able to visualise where in the mansion or RPD the characters are at that point in the book. Her original RE novels are not quite as good unfortunately.

[Perfect-Organism]

Podcast review is up  http://www.avpgalaxy.net/files/podcasts/avpg_pc_episode096.mp3

Just finished listening to this.  It pains me to say it, but the review is spot on.  This novel, while ok for the knowledgeable reader, and valuable for the uninitiated, just could have been so much better, especially if The author played the game.

[j0nesy]

i try to avoid thinking about this novelization anymore, but it still boggles my mind that the writer thought he could successfully replicate the atmosphere and tone of this incredibly immersive game, without actually playing it (i think he watched the digital series released by ign, but that's not really the same)

[SpaceKase]

Between all the logs, and the twitter account, and the backstory and cut bits and the narrative of the game itself, why didn't the just get the writer/s of the game to make the adaptation?

[HuDaFuK]

Because writing a novel is very different from writing a game script.

Having said that, Abnett did do a short story in the Bug Hunt anthology.

[Corporal Hicks]

He was a well known author of Warhammer books too. He had the experience.

[Nightmare Asylum]

He's also a really great comic writer. His run (along with his former writing partner, Andy Lanning) of Guardians of the Galaxy from 2008-2010 is one of my favorite comic books ever, and is basically responsible for creating the team lineup that everyone knows today from the James Gunn movies.