BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Bioshocks ranks as one of my favorite video games of all time, if only for the artistry. I dig that decayed art-deco look it has going, the juxtaposition of hope and doom that offers an excellent tension to the game play. As well as the look and feel of it, the game’s a decent little shooter, tells a good story, and, for a several hours experience, entertains quite well. When I came I across this novel in the book store, I dutifully filed it away under “to be read.”
So far, books based on video games have not offered up very good reads, and alas, this one doesn’t either. Oh sure, it gives lots of background on the personalities one encounters in the game, which was enough to get me to download it and try for a replay. But the writing is fairly flat, for my taste. The anti Ayn-Rand sentiment is fairly shoved down the reader’s throat, at the cost of any real character development, or plot for that matter.
I mean there’s “plot” in the sense that we see the how the city of Rapture goes from a bad idea to a haunted graveyard, but everything along the way is fairly hack. The characters are a bit cartoonish. The scientists who too gleefully experiment on human beings, the murder and torture that cause passerby to stare in shock—then move on and forget.
Of course, that’s kind of the video-game way, isn’t it. You play a violent game, you kill people, (bad guys) and there’s no real remorse or regret. I guess I want more from novels than I want from games. The irony here is that I know better, but I was seduced by the artistry of the game, and I thought the novel could live up to that depth.