Topic: Nintendo Life Book Club

@Eel Coraline is great book. I love Neil Gaiman's work which reminds me I still need to read his Norse Mythology book.

I didn't realise there was a Bioshock novel, I'm gonna have a looksie for it now.

@jump there's a few! This one I have is apparently meant to be a direct prequel to the first game, going over the creation of Rapture, and how it all went downhill. (Though of course it's not necessarily canon to the series, as these novelizations usually go).

And yeah, Coraline was very enjoyable, and it came with a "demo" of another one of his books, The Graveyard Book, which was also interesting. I may get that one too.

Ah, I did enjoy the novelization of the first movie when I read it some time ago.

I'll an eye on that one.

Yes, very good. It's a pity that the latest films associated with this franchise are mediocre.

If anyone's into horror at all I recently got through John Langan's "The Fisherman". I tend to try to vary my reading but have found horror to be quite therapeutic over the last year or so, oddly. It's some old fashioned cosmic horror and smacks a little of classic King too (Pet Cemetary namely).

And if anyone's into the weirder stuff I have been really enjoying Penguin's Modern Classics reissuing of Kobo Abe's novels. If you're at all familiar with the term "theatre of the absurd" then chances are you'll enjoy these: Box Man and The Ruined Map are favourites so far.

I finished Resident Evil Nemesis last night.

I think it might be my favorite in the series so far, really faithful to the story of the original game, but at the same time it was a new unique take on the events that was fun and engaging to read. I just wish the story had a better epilogue- I would have preferred it to maybe focus on the actual main characters, or do something interesting with the aftermath of the events, but it instead pretty much repeats the epilogue from the previous book.

I’m now starting Resident Evil Code Veronica, which seems to be a little bit shorter.

I read the official novelisation of Death Stranding, by Hitori Nojima, who was a writer on the Kojima Productions team. It essentially weaves together all the cutscenes from the game, seven hours long, and ties them together by giving us some neat insights into the blank slate of a protagonist that is Sam Porter Bridges. His aphenphosmphobia, his hate of BRIDGES, it’s reflected in the writing and it’s really well done. Of course the majority of the gameplay itself is not included, namely the travelling aspect. But that’s fine because it really fleshes out some characters that for the first half of the game are mere holograms. There’s two volumes, and this covers the first one. Each in game episode becomes a chapter, so there’s fifteen chapters.

I've now finished reading Resident Evil Code Veronica.

It was again a fun read, more faithful to the games than previous ones by virtue of not having many chances to include original characters, though it does include mentions to the original regulars like Trent in the beginning and end, just not actual participative roles.

As far as story goes, it does well until the last portion, when it remembers Chris and Wesker are supposed to be in this book, and the focus changes to them for a bit. Particularly Wesker, who absolutely and definitely died in the first novel, but just kinda handwaves it and says "I got better" when he appears here. It's far more egregious when you consider his role in the novel amounts to basically nothing, he only appears to quickly explain who attacked the island, and to bounce Chris into the antarctic facility to find Claire. I think the novelization would've been much more effective if they had taken some liberties and replaced him.

Like the previous novel, the epilogue was kinda deflated. Though I have to admit it gets points for not being a repeat of the last two epilogues. It just amounts to Wesker looking at the smoke from the destruction of the facility and stating how much of a Cool Guy®️ he thinks Trent is.

Kinda sad because this is the last novel, chronologically, so it would've been nicer to have an epilogue that focused on the main main characters instead.

I'm now moving onto Resident Evil Zero Hour, the last novel in the series, but chronologically the first one. Let's see how that does!

I used to have the first 3 S.D Perry Resident Evil novels years ago back in 2000 or 2001 or whenever. Caliban Cove was kind of cool at the time with Rebecca in it long before the Resident Evil 0 videogame.

I think I enjoyed SD Perry's Resident Evil 2 novel more than Umbrella Conspiracy that was based on the first game

I’ve been reading a series known as “The Last Apprentice”, and it’s a pretty good dark fantasy novel series. I read the first two a while ago, and I need to pick back up and read the third book. It’s meant for children 10+, but the books seem a whole lot darker, and even though I finish them in the matter of days, they’re pretty good reads.

I feel that novels made for kids and teens should be entertaining to read for adults too. It's kind of a sign of good quality.

@urrutiap my favorite so far has been Nemesis.

@Eel It applies very much to film as well. The Incredibles movies have very clever screenwriting, because it has enough humour to attract children but also a few jokes adults would only get. There's no infantile humour that would turn adults away, and it isn't boring enough to disengage kids.

I myself am a very passionate reader! I remember one of my all time favorite reads was the classic 1984. I had to read it in High School for a book report, and I was constantly engaged in it, even reading ahead whenever I could, since we had time set aside in class for reading. But I was lured in even past that time. It definitely requires a more thoughtful mind to understand, but it’s an easy recommendation for me.

I was conducting my quarterly trade meetup and decided to trade a few lackluster Switch games for a copy of Dmitry Glukhovsky's "Metro 2033". I enjoyed the games well enough to consider giving the novel they're based on a read. Looking forward to getting cozy with this at some point. Although my reading backlog is getting as bad as my video game backlog, lol.

@Magician Judging from how often you post audio books I just assumed you didn't actually read but just listened to books for some reason.

@jump

Most of the time I consume the audiobooks as a form of background static while I'm busy at work. Once every blue moon when I'm not playing video games, watching movies or anime, or... sniff have a social life, yes...I occasionally like to read.

@Magician I tried audiobooks but they don't gel with me, which is weird as I have podcasts going on in the background when working/gaming which I enjoy and they aren't that different and liking books in general.

I tried again with audiobooks a few months ago for Neil Gaiman's Sandman as I loved the books and the voice cast was amazing (Michael Sheen, Andy Serkis, James McAvoy, Taron Egerton, Kat Denning plus more I'm forgetting) but I was working and got two hours in to realise I couldn't follow what was going on. I really need to give it another go when I'm not doing something else.

Ok I've finished reading Resident Evils Zero Hour.

It felt shorter in general than the other books, and didn't include a lot of references to the original elements of the Novelization-universe, but I feel it's a great standalone little adventure.

I quite enjoyed it while it lasted, a quick easy read, but a fun one.

The epilogue was a bit disappointing with how nothing it was, but whatever, I know what happens after that anyway.

So now that I've read them all, I think my favorites are Zero Hour and Nemesis. In case anyone is interested in giving the series a try.

I'm now starting Bioshock Rapture, read the prologue right after I got done with Zero Hour.

Ive been out of town two days ago so I went to Barnes and Noble to buy a couple of things

Wheel of Time books 3 and 4
Paul of Dune
the last two prequel books of the Butlerian Jihad trilogy
the latest issue of Rue Morgue magazine. decent magazine but it aint old school Fangoria