The LONG road to Valhalla: A Review of Assassin’s Creed

We’re going try something new on the blog this week: reviewing a video game.

I’ve never tried very hard to keep the contents of this blog focused on one particular topic or medium, but I’ll admit that generally I’ve have considered this space a “book blog” with the occasional digression into movies, comics, or my own fiction (oh and I suppose that one time: radio).

However, it seems that more and more stories are refusing to be bound by their original medium, and storytellers (or more likely their publishers) are finding new ways to adapt their tales and reach “readers” however they prefer to consume their stories.

This has obviously been going on in movies and television for some time. It seems like these days a movie cannot be made which wasn’t originally a best selling novel. Or vice versa, how many successful movies or shows are released without a novelization?

This formula has seemingly very rarely found success when adapting video games to the big screen. Indeed a 2016 adaptation of the very game franchise I’m about to review an entry in, Assassin’s Creed, is generally considered one of the worst failures of all time at videogame adaptation.

However, the new Mario movie is perhaps a striking example of how success can look when a video game is adapted for the screen (I’m sure there must be novelizations or comics of Mario long before now). Of course some could argue that the OG and real trail blazer here has always been the Resident Evil franchise.

Lastly I think it’s worth noting how, The Witcher has gone from extremely popular book series, to even more popular video game series, and finally, absurdly popular television show.

Adaptations from any medium to another are interesting in a general sense, and it’s easy to spend time pondering questions like “Why did they change this?” or “That was not how I imagined that”, but I also find properties which use multiple mediums to tell one unified story interesting as well.

I remember games like Halo, StarCraft, and Warcraft III doing this back in my youth. Allowing the reader to delve deeper into the world of the game by reading novels that embellished backstory or side quests only hinted at in the main games.

It seems like the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been doing this for quite some time as well, but I guess I’m only now catching on. I picked up the franchise with the game Assassin’s Creed Origins, and have greatly enjoyed each consecutive installment but never thought it worth mentioning on the blog because it wasn’t “book related”. Well, now I see that there are books and so discussions of the games could indeed be “book related”.

So here we are . . .

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

I’ll start by saying that while AC Valhalla is a great game, it is a LONG game. This is not really a very original assessment, but it is was the thing that stood out to me the most while playing.

After spending hours creeping around castles, assassinating some guards before eventually getting tired (or more likely caught) and blowing my horn to get the raiding party started, I would celebrate my victory for a brief few moments before immediately the next quest would arrive and I would begin it all again.

In literature, I love a doorstopper as much as the next person. I will spend a whole month, or even two, immersing myself in a world with a grin on my face because of the nuance and care an author has brought to their story. Every little detail that they could have breezed over but instead called into view . . . it’s the sweetness at the center of a pastry. It’s the reason I read the books I read.

In many ways, Valhalla has this same quality with its many side quests and mini games, items to be collected, and world events to experience. In games like God of War, the items you collect are not nearly as exciting as the puzzle you have to solve to get them. Valhalla has this quality too.

Only it never ends.

In a novel, at least you have the author setting your pace, and if they’re any good, you make all these discoveries as you move forward through the plot.

In Valhalla, you can spend days raiding or attempting to turn your camera to precisely the right vantage to view a rune which will give you a skill point. Meanwhile England remains unconquered and eventually, in order to “finish” the game, you’ll have to go forth and conquer.

I’m something of a completionist, and so the first time I tried playing the game, I thought I could find all the items, experience all the events and do all the raids. I burnt out and never reached the end.

The second time through, I stayed focused. Mostly main quests, and a couple side quests here and there. The second time? I “finished”. I put finished in quotes because what I accomplished was allying every territory in England to the Raven Clan, and I slayed each of the members and zealots of the Order of Ancients. I did the same with two of the three DLC’s (I’m still working through Ragnarök), but there is still sooo much in the game I haven’t done.

I think I have a screenshot that says I’ve only explored 2% of the map? I think that has to be an error but it still makes my point. The game is HUGE.

Don’t Judge the # of hours played lol

Despite all my complaining, there are lots of things I think the game does really well. Primary among them is its character work. Of course, there are tons of them, but each felt really fleshed out and even alive. They all have motivations, some grand in scale, and others simple but satisfying (which unfortunately does not help one stay focused on the main plot). One of my favorite quests was helping free a caged wolf for a group of kids. That wolf stayed in my room for the rest of the game, and honestly it was quite fun to return home and see him every now and again.

Another thing I enjoyed about Valhalla, which I think many more traditional gamers might not enjoy, is that it wasn’t incredibly ‘boss’ centric. There are tough fights for anyone looking for them, but this was not the main focus of the game which seems to reward exploration and problem solving more than just mashing buttons and grinding down health bars. There’s a balance here to be sure, one which I’m not entirely sure Valhalla achieved, but in general I’m happy the focus of the game wasn’t a bunch of ‘big bads’.

Finally, despite how much I complained about the game being immersive to the point of distraction, I do have to say that I’m somewhat in awe of all the research that seemingly went into creating the world. On some of the other AC games, I’ve played through the tour function and learned about the real history behind the setting. I’ve not yet completed this portion of Valhalla yet, but I think I will likely do so eventually.

Give this One a Shot?

If you enjoyed either of the last two Assassin’s Creed games, this one is much the same only seemingly a lot longer (and I though AC Odyssey was massive). And if you’re new to AC games in general, I think there is a lot here to enjoy, but just remember to stay focused. You will lose WEEKS of your life otherwise.

My favorite parts of the game were absolutely its characters and the moral situations you (and them) are placed in. I’m not sure what the lessons may be yet, but I’m sure there are some good ones to take away from the experience for anyone doing game writing, or even novel writing.

That’s all I have for now. Has anyone played this game? What were your favorite parts? Did you “finish”? Leave your answers in the comments!

Until next week!

Celebrating my 2nd #NationalVelociraptorDay with Raptor Red

Hold on to your butts, it’s #NationalVelociraptorDay again.

This year, I again decided to enjoy a piece of fiction instead of attempting anything remotely resembling research, but I’m feeling this year’s post is at least heading in the right direction (last year’s post on Velocipastor was . . . something else).

Raptor Red was at least written by a real paleontologist . . . about the life and adventures of a Utahraptor pack. Damn. Well there’s no #NationalUtahRaptorDay so far as I can tell.

Also, the image of Velociraptor that I assume most people associate with the term — from nearly a quarter century of watching and rewatching Jurassic Park for almost any reason at all (just me?) — actually has more to do with the real Utahraptor than it does with the real Velociraptor.

As you can see from the graphic, the big red raptor (Utahraptor; also good job Scott Hartman for doing Utahraptor in red like the title of this book) and the purple raptor (from JP) are roughly related when it comes to size. The real Velociraptor, in blue, is quite tiny by comparison.

Interestingly, as Raptor Red author Robert T. Bakker (of Dinosaur Renaissance fame) describes in the opening pages of his book, the designs of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park already had their dimensions before Utahraptor was ever found in Gaston Quarry in 1991 (Wikipedia points out that some Utahraptor bones were found in 1975 as well but not well known). Bakker would know, apparently he was helping Spielberg’s artists with the anatomy.

Is This Post Secretly About Jurassic Park?

No. I was just feebly attempting to defend my myself for talking about the wrong kind of raptor.

About Raptor Red then?

Yes! Onto the reason we’re here. How was Raptor Red?

Honestly, quite a lot of fun to read.

After the confusion that was 65, it felt really good to reengage with dinosaurs again in a way that felt both thoughtful and passionate. It is clear that Bakker has a real love for these ancient creatures and his attention to detail was astounding (though I can’t speak to its accuracy. 1995 was a long time ago so I’m sure some things have changed and also I just wanted to read and have a good time).

On a surface level, Raptor Red reads a little like an episode of Prehistoric Planet, dolling out information about how Utahraptors may have lived, providing some interludes from the points of view of other contemporary species, and showing us adaptations those species had for their unique niche.

In this capacity, Raptor Red exposed me to a bunch of new species I had never heard of before. Appearances by Astrodon, Acrocanthosaurus, and Ornithocheirus were new, as well as early mammals like Aegialodon, or marine reptiles like Kronosaurus. And it was great to see some old favorites too like Pterydactyls, Deinonychs, and Iguanadons.

But this is really only just the surface. I think the real draw of the story, and what keeps us reading is a second level altogether consisting of the humanity Bakker is able to give the Utahraptors which are essentially horrifying killing machines.

This happens in a few ways. Raptor interiority is one. Bakker represents their intelligence with more than just expert hunting tactics, but actual thoughts which is at first a little strange, but quickly palatable.

The pack dynamic and the constant struggle for survival are two more. In many cases, the tension of a scene comes from changes in environment which the raptors are not ready for, or not adapted to. They rely on either their aforementioned intelligence, or the bonds between themselves and the other members of the pack. Consequently, when those bonds begin to fray, trouble is always soon to follow.

This feels very human. And a lot more like a novel than a documentary.

So a third level which presents a kind of message or theme should not feel out of place, but a passage about the “momentous transition in family life from a male-dominated pack structure to an incipient matriarchy.” (pg 135), stood out to me as somewhat surprising. I have in my notes:

“Raptors fighting the patriarchy?”

Bakker explains later that inspiration for this came from how “Owls, hawks, and eagles have societies organized around female dominance, and we can think of tyrannosaurus and raptors as giant, ground-running eagles.” (pg 249).

Looking to these kinds of birds for inspiration makes sense (they are also raptors), but I think it was a detail that could have just as easily been left out.

But one I’m sure glad wasn’t.

Give this One a Read?

Absolutely. Two killing toe-claws way up for Raptor Red. This book has both the detail and science of a documentary, as well as the drama and catharsis of a novel. It’s clear that Bakker has a deep sense of awe, and a love for dinosaurs, but also the ability to tell a great story like a novelist. I can’t imagine a better way to spend #NationalVelociraptorDay, then with a copy of Raptor Red.

That’s all I have this week. Has anyone read this one? What were your thoughts? Please leave them in the comments section. I’d love to talk about this one.

Partner Stories: A Review of Penric’s Demon

So this novella kinda came out of nowhere for me, kinda knocked my socks off, and until I finished writing this post, I was pretty unsure why.

Of course, Lois McMaster Bujold is a name seen often enough in the types of places fantasy and science fiction readers hang out. Certainly one that had occupied a small space in the back of my mind, probably since I first started “paying attention to the genre”. But it was a name that, for me, wasn’t really drawn on the map. Indeed I could not even sketch a little serpent in the corner of said map and write “here be dragons”, because I wasn’t even sure it was dragons that would “here be”.

A quick skim of her Wikipedia page would have me writing “here be Hugo Awards”. With four best novel wins, two best series wins, and a healthy amount of nominations (all of which were nominated for and took wins in other awards), her accolades number high enough to require a chart and several bullet points beneath the chart.

I suppose this is why I’d heard of her.

Having read a few Hugo award winners now, it seems to me that each author on the short list has a “thing” which is exceptional (and often novel) about their writing which set them apart from the vast legion of SFF titles that were published that year.

From reading the Green Bone Saga I think it’s safe to say that Fonda Lee’s “thing” is incredible characters and generational drama which play on (read: destroy) your heart strings and leave you something of a husk for several days after finishing (all of this in the best possible way of course). The magical kung-fu gangster setting is also quite stand-out as well.

Shannon Chakraborty’s “thing” seems to be Islamic myth and legend which I had not read much (or any) of before seeing her name on the awards list. Of course she supports her “thing” with incredible amounts of research, worldbuilding, and great characters so expertly crafted and engaging that I actually cared about the resolution of their love triangle. Her most recent release, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, still focuses heavily on her “thing”, but also brings inclusion into the mix. I’m excited to read what she does next.

From the (albeit) limited sample size of Penric’s Demon, Bujold’s “thing” is a little harder to lock down. Her prose are expert, affecting the kind of serious diction we expect from a fantasy novel, but contrasting it with the often not-so-serious events, thoughts, and actions of Penric, a teenage boy.

The magic in The World of The Five Gods seems mysterious but clearly well thought out enough to be systematic. I never felt bludgeoned over the head with its mechanics and indeed enjoyed a lot of the nuance in how the main characters were able to find loopholes in the “rules”.

Finally, I felt the scope of the adventure to be quite refreshing. I’m happy to read (listen to, or watch) universe threatening epics as much as the next person, but a “simple” yarn about a country lord accidently acquiring and learning to live with a demon was certainly a nice change of pace.

But none of these things seem to be THEEE “thing”.

So I asked twitter . . . and then I asked twitter again.

Upon my second ask I got a response that it was: “Partnerships! Bujold likes a good partnership story, so under all the plot stuff, you get two people who cross paths and are surprised at how well they come to work together”

And it was like my mind exploded. THIS was absolutely the “thing”.

There is so much in Penric’s Demon that will make you smile (my personal favorite was when he must split with his fiancé (arranged) to essentially go adventure, and she gives him a giant wheel of cheese. It was somehow so heartfelt but also hilarious), but at the end of the day, it was Penric’s and (the demon) Desdemona’s relationship — so clearly viewed by everyone else in the novella as something supposedly antagonistic — which had me smiling the most.

Give This One a Read?

Yup! Come for the magic and wit (catch your breath with the relatively short page length), but stay for the bonding.

(not to be confused with the bondage which is more the speed of Kushiel’s Dart)

Welp that’s all I’ve got this week. Has anyone read this one? What made you smile the most? Let me know in the comments!

A Shot of Pure Imagination: The Ballad of Perilous Graves

I could hardly wait to read this book when I first heard about it back in June of 2022, but I held my not-quite-alive-but-not-dead horses about it and waited until recently for my turn to select it for our monthly book club.

See, in real life, New Orleans is the type of place that doesn’t even need the suspension of disbelief required of a book or other work of fiction. I Googled a history of the city, and the first result, History of New Orleans from neworleans.com, reads like the wiki page of a fantasy novel. Highlights include:

• Colonial New Orleans
• Beset by Pirates and Privateers
• Mardi Gras (of course)
• Highest concentration of Millionares in mid 1800s
• Victorian New Orleans
• The Dawn of Jazz
• Katrina

I’m sure I could pull soo much more out of the article too if only I could sit still long enough to do more than skim something these days. Anyway, the point is, New Orleans is already its own speculative reality.

I’ve been twice, and can confirm, the city is exactly as surreal and baffling as it sounds. Music of all kinds seems to leak from any open door, window, or crevice. There’s no shortage of new and interesting kinds of food. In one bar we went to (which had no sign and required a passcode), there were literal vampires, and someone had struck up a conversation about opening their third eye.

(I’ve also recently learned that cab drivers won’t pick up fares in certain areas because there are too many ghosts which often disappear before the ride is done and stiff the driver)

And of course, perhaps the most fantastical element of real-life New Orleans: you’re ALLOWED TO DRINK OUTSIDE. Like pretty much anywhere . . . so far as I could tell.

Anyway, what if a writer was to pour his considerable imagination and love for this amazing city into a piece of fiction? What might we find there? A super human girl who can lift cars? Floating 3D graffitti which gives people such a pleasureable high that they abandon jobs and families and lives to follow these tags around like a bunch of technicolor zombies? Actual zombies? Driving undead carriages through a part of town reserved for those who are quite dead but not quite gone?

Whatever the F*@k a nutria is?

These are the promises of Alex Jenning’s The Ballad of Perilous Graves, and in those promises, the book succeeds in droves. Somehow, he is able to take an already heightened reality and turn it up even more. Way past 11. Maybe 12, or even 20.

There is no shortage of imagination in this book. I think perhaps most readers will give a raving review on these merits alone. I nearly did myself as I’m pretty much a worldbuilding junky.

However, my main critique (and seemingly the same complaints of the others in the book club), is that this book is LONG. It takes a long time to read and it’s not just because the book is 453 pages. It’s because the reader cannot go nearly a full one of those pages without a break in scene, a jump backward in time, or a jump . . . sideways? . . . . in time?

The cast of heroes is thankfully not too large (4 ish really), but this gets somewhat complicated by the (slight spoiler) fact that some of them have doubles which aren’t delineated very clearly until three quarters through the book when they start interacting with each other.

There are at least three main villains. On the order of nine McGuffins and a whole host of bizarre settings of which an underwater bar in the renovated hull of a crashed UFO is not even the wackiest (again 20/10 worldbuilding).

Within all of that, we also have a post-op trans man as one of the main characters. I’m undecided as to whether or not I would have liked to see this element brought forward more. I understand that every story with a trans person does not need to be ABOUT being trans, but also these kind of details are not for nothing. If there was a greater significance (or message) present within his inclusion, it seemed (to me) to get lost amongst the rest of the noise.

Given all of these elements, it’s pretty much a miracle the book is as comprehensible as it is. However, I eventually did find myself weighed down by keeping track of all of these elements and by the last third I just wanted to get to the end.

Give this One A Read?

If you’re someone who doesn’t mind feeling a bit (ok a bunch) lost while reading a book and are interested in a concentrated shot of pure imagination, definitely give this book a read. I cannot imagine a better tribute to such an amazing city.

If you’re going to get annoyed trying to keep about a million details in your head, and frustrated if they’re not consistent (they may be I just stopped checking after a while), perhaps this is one to pass on.

That’s it for me this week. Has anyone read this? Which part of Hidden NOLA would you like to see in “real” NOLA (I’d say sky trolleys FTW!)? What were your favorite parts? Your least favorite parts? Please let me know in the comments!