McNab, a former SAS operative and author of numerous non-fiction and fiction books, is credited with the Battlefield 3 novelisation – sharing credit with DICE executive producer Patrick Bach – shipping alongside the video game. No details on the plot, but the 400-page novel will set you back about 10 bucks if you’re interested in some military video game fiction.
More about McNab and his literary work at the author’s official site.
Debs
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:40 AMOut of curiosity, has anyone ever read a good video-game based book?
I’ve been wary of approaching video game novelisations, especially when they can’t even make them into movies correctly…
Shane
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:46 AMNo. They are worse than movie novelisations in my opinion.
Haven’t read many, but those I have picked up on the shelf at Borders, I quickly put back down (Metal Gear Solid, for example, was embarrassingly illiterately written)
Debs
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:50 AMI heard the same about the Assassin’s Creed novelisation – though I thought that would be an easy book to write since they give you so much story to work with in the first place.
Ah well, I guess my bookshelf won’t be populated with video game books anytime soon.
mattroe
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:54 AMI’ve heard very good things about the Halo books. Although I guess nearly all of them aren’t technically novelisations of the games, and the one that is one is the most unpopular.
Jo
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:32 AMDoes Mogworld by Yahtzee count?
That was good.
James Maguire
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:36 AMBooks that are about what happens in the video games usually aren’t very good. But books set in the same world can be good. For example, the Diablo books are awesome, especially the Sin War series, really gives you a lot of back story, I’ve re-read them about 6 times.
The Halo books were good. Also the Forgotten Realms books, based in the same world as the Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate games and usually featuring Drizzt Do’Urden are definitely worth a read to any fantasy fan!
SunSkorpion
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:59 AMI picked up the first Hellgate:London book when that game first came out. Was seriously disappointed, not by the story, which was ok. It was so poorly edited. It looked like they had hand written a final copy and scanned it in to print. The end result being that a lot of the long letters – d’s, p’s, b’s – ended up getting chopped into ‘ol’ combinations. made reading the thing really frustrating.
Story wise, farily interesting about a former templar leaving their underground community to see the world, then coming back when the world starts to implode.
Jason
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:43 PMalthough not based on the actual games events i have heard very good things about that dragon age books
Daniel B
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 10:55 AMThe assassins creed novels are quite bad, although I still read every one of them.
I begun reading the first Mass Effect book last night and so far it’s okayish…..
Aidan
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 3:18 PMKarpyshyn’s books are fairly decent, at the very least they provide a good backstory and extra info on the games.
I think they’re a bit hamstrung by having to write for an audience that might not necessarily read a lot of fiction; so the books’ stories play out like levels of a game.
Glenn
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 11:55 AMI have read the Halo and Starcraft books, they’re both good reads because they’re based on the back story, not the events in the game (and go figure the most boring books in those series were the ones based directly on the game).
HoboShotgun
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 1:38 PMThis is good news, this Andy McNab has was a serious elite soldier who fought in both Gulf Wars, he has written some very good non-fiction books about his time in the SAS and it really is great stuff, this is definitely the guy to be writing this book, it WILL be good based on what he has written before.
McGarnical
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 1:51 PMYeah, I’ve read quite a few of McNab’s fiction novels. Firewall was especially good I thought.
For those keeping score, McNab was also technical weapons training adviser on Heat. That bank-robbery shootout is a work of art. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113277/trivia?tr=tr0613340]
Wayno@War
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 3:51 PMI read an exerpt of the God of War novel and it was actually quite good. I never bought it but I’d read it for sure…
Something like Battlefield could go either way really. Although as much as I love Battlefield, I would much prefer a real world biographical account of wars/ conflicts past, as opposed to a Clancy-esque fiction. In saying that though, I still enjoy war fiction…
Just give me the damn game…
ben
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 4:10 PMI ave read the Halo and Gears of War novels and they are quite good and provide some nice back story to the game universe, although most of the novels in these series do not cover the in game story.
roflpig
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 4:59 PMAlthough pretty much all video game books are bad its probably due to the people writing them and the absurdity of the content. this is a very good writer of the genre of war and if he writes this book as he has written his books before i believe it will make for a good read
Someone Else
Friday, July 22, 2011 at 10:52 AMThe Gears of War books are, in my opinion, very good and I much prefer them to the game. Of course, they’re not novelisations, but you could pretty much stick ‘em in the same category.
What is encouraging is that it’s McNab writing the books. He might be a liar and a traitor to the memory of the dead members of his team, but he is a damn good author when it comes to military fiction.