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[Makoto Priano]

Hey folks! After a lengthy period away, I've been getting back into EVE these past few months. It's been mostly fun and games, of course, but I let my curiosity get the best of me and snagged the three EVE novels while I catch up on PF. It took forever to force my way through Empyrean Age, and I'm now working on Burning Life.

The question: what are your folks' thoughts on these books?

In my case, well-- my god. Empyrean Age. From the Women In Refrigerators moment with PM Midular (SERIOUSLY? It was almost flippant!), to the three instances of Heroic, Sorrowful Single Tears, or the fact that a -novel- fails the Bechdel Test...?

Anyway. So far, I'm not far into Burning Life, but it seems to be a better read, if a touch focused on 'explaining the game' as a world.

Thoughts? Recommendations? Must-reads?

[Shiori]

TBL is a bit bland, but works well if you approach it as an exposition tour of the EVE universe.

As for the two novels by Tony Gonzales, the short version of the advice is "No."

The long version, "NoooOooooOOooooo!"

[Makoto Priano]

Yeah. God. Baron Karsoth Harkonnen, the Minmatar Failed State--er, Republic, the Gallente Totally-Paradise-And-Best-At-Everything (was Gonzalez a GalFed RPer, or...?), the Caldari-- well. How to describe that. Was he trying to model the Caldari State off 1900s Russia, with serfdom and a tsar?

Alright. Not venting. Really.

[kalaratiri]

TBL is a bit bland, but works well if you approach it as an exposition tour of the EVE universe.

As for the two novels by Tony Gonzales, the short version of the advice is "No."

The long version, "NoooOooooOOooooo!"

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

[Aria Jenneth]

I gather TBL is solid.

Otherwise? With due respect to CCP, I don't take anything from Tony G as canon without a secondary citation. The man literally could not keep straight which Caldari battleship was the new kid on the block-- a bit of canon that isn't exactly obscure (it's in the Raven and Scorpion item descs).

The melodrama that pervades his worldbuilding in an otherwise noir setting doesn't help my opinion one bit. The man was hired to write "Blade Runner," and came up with "Star Wars."

I know Hellgremlin thinks we're too hard on the guy, and I do sympathize with the plight of a writer faced with a deep, yet unfinished and changeable, canon, but the rest of the Eve PF has been pretty thematically consistent, making Tony G the outlier.

[Mithfindel]

A lot of what I don't like in TEA could have been fixed by subjecting the text to a person called an editor. Assumably the deadline (expansion going live) meant that CCP somehow managed to get MacMillan to act as a vanity press. However, some people do somehow like the novel. If you like Ruthless and Theodicy, you'll probably like The Empyrean Age.

[Makkal]

It's a game novel.

It's crap.

A lot of what I don't like in TEA could have been fixed by subjecting the text to a person called an editor.

I know a first time novelist who wrote a 80k cozy mystery. No build up, saturated market, no one thought it would make any sort of splash. Her agent has her do a full edit twice before submitting it to publishers, and the Random House editor she ended up with asked for another six.

It was one of those mysteries where there are recipes scattered throughout the book and the editor even made the various dishes to make sure that they were 1) easy enough to make 2) actually decent.

I once chatted with the game writer who'd written a novel for that IP. He wrote the novel in about five months and had a single full edit on it. ONE.

And it was his first novel too!

[kalaratiri]

The Burning Life is good, but more of a 'tour' of Eve than an actual deliberate story.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

It's a game novel.

It's crap.

Believe it or not, this does not necessarily have to be the case (though it is generally the rule). And accepting that all tie-in novels will be crap is part of what keeps the level of crap rather high.

[Makkal]

Tie-in novels are books for people who don't read anything but tie-in novels.

The authors and publishers don't need to raise their bar because they already have an audience that's willing to pay because it's Halo, or EVE, or Star Wars, or DnD. That audience is what keeps the crap level high.

[Makoto Priano]

And this, I think, is why we need to hogtie and gag CCP's marketing division, so that they don't push pap for the sake of harvesting money. I swear...

(edit: and don't get me started about how they're using all the liveried ships for promotions, instead of giving us a way to build/acquire/fly liveried ships. ugh.)

[Svetlana Scarlet]

And this, I think, is why we need to hogtie and gag CCP's marketing division, so that they don't push pap for the sake of harvesting money. I swear...

Well, to be fair, when you go to FanFest and people say that TEA is the best book they've ever read, that doesn't really make them feel like they aren't serving their audience. This was not an uncommon occurrence in 2008-2009.

[Makoto Priano]

Wait. Please tell me you aren't serious.

Please.

Dear god. These must be the troglodytes who don't actually bother reading, and so simply aren't literate enough to realize how filled with pap TEA is.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

Wait. Please tell me you aren't serious.

Please.

Dear god. These must be the troglodytes who don't actually bother reading, and so simply aren't literate enough to realize how filled with pap TEA is.

I am serious. I will refrain from making further judgements, but yes, I was rather surprised and saddened to hear such a thing.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I must respectfully reject the idea that all video game tie-in fiction must be terrible... although I do admit that most officially published tie-in fiction is terrible. Horrifyingly, I've actually read a great deal of well-written fan-fiction (most notably Tiberium Wars, whose writer takes ques from both RL military memoirs and Warhammer 40k). This has convinced me that while the fiction itself is not necessarily at fault, game companies have a strange ability to pick up the uniquely unqualified writers to do much of their work.

So, with that said and done:
TEA - No. Just no. The Empyrean Age is a book that should not have been written (and definitely not read). You can learn all the most important (and painful) points from the community; there is no need to subject yourself to the actual book.

The Burning Life - As people have said, it's more a giant infodump than a true novel. It's... okay, I guess? It's no genius, but you do learn a lot about the universe and aren't left with the urge to repeatedly impact the nearest wall with your head.

Templar One - It's... well, I won't say it's as bad as TEA. That isn't to say it doesn't have its wallbanger moments, but they come at a less dramatically staccato rate. Those that do come are pretty bad, though - without :spoilers:, I'll say that one which really bugged me was a returning character from TEA being selected for something he shouldn't have been, while millions (if not billions) of other more suitable candidates were out there. This has entirely predictable results.