EVE: The Book Review

ORIGINAL POST

Readers with short attention spans may skip to the end for the abridged review. I can confirm that the book is available in the U.S. through Amazon.co.uk.

So I read EVE: The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales, now a published author who is also the Lead Writer for EVE Online at Crowd Control Productions. Before the novel, he was known for his two novellas set in the game universe, Theodicy and Ruthless. This latest work details the events approaching Zero Hour, the momentous battles that kicked off the war between the four empires of New Eden.

As stated in the previous post, I normally make it a point to avoid books based on entertainment franchises. God knows the world would not miss the dozens of Warcraft and Star Wars novels which occupy metres of shelf space in otherwise reputable bookstores. "Oh no! The Burning Legion threatens to destroy Azeroth!" "Oh no! A heretofore unknown Sith lord threatens the love child of Yoda and a heretofore unknown but beautiful mysterious rogue female internally conflicted jedi!" Even worse are the thousand-odd extended synopses of Star Trek episodes that clog the racks of used book stores everywhere.

I digresss.

The focus of the book is on major characters, rather than events as such, which is refreshing given that nearly all of the backstory for EVE Online's latest expansion pack has come in the form of news bulletins. The war is accepted as inevitable, but outside of the novel, the reader knows only as much about, say, the attack at CONCORD headquarters in Yulai as news agencies are able to provide. The means and motives behind the actions of key figures in New Eden (and sometimes the actions themselves) were entirely opaque to the outside world.

Empyrean Age follows Keitan Yun, the Minmatar Republic's ambassador to CONCORD; Tibus Heth, a Caldari Constructions worker with revolution on his mind and a sinister backer; "Marius," the clone of a deceased Amarrian potentate who has no memory of his past life; Jamyl Sarum, the demigoddess destined to lead Amarr to universal supremacy; and Korvin Lears, a capsuleer in the Federation Navy. Sometimes this focus on so many different storylines causes mild dissonance, but any meandering in plot direction is minor if it occurs at all.

The fact that this story highlights perhaps two months of the history of the four Empires, and that that history must necessarily continue after its end, could frustrate some readers. I know that Marius's story in particular lacked a satisfying conclusion, and the omnipotent narration could have been put to good use clearing up much of the mystery about his past. The book does not lend itself to a sequel, so I don't hold out much hope for ever finding out more about him. The other four major arcs were resolved as well as they could have been, so this lapse was fairly disappointing.

Though its focus was on only a few people, Empyrean Age was careful to make clear the broad implications of their actions. It read like historical fiction rather than sci-fi; at its heart, it was a story about humanity rather than technology, the horror of war rather than the mechanics of plasma rifles. In this regard, it mimics EVE Online, which is widely regarded to be a political game masquerading as sci-fi. That humans now have spaceships is largely irrelevant; they are still human. The notable exception to this, one that is covered extensively in the book, is the moral obligation of the immortal capsuleer to his crew and to his duty.

Every one of Empyrean Age's 517 pages feels fresh, interesting, and relevant to the story, and nowhere does it lean on information that could only be gleaned from an outside source. Despite its basis in a game universe, it could very well stand alone as just a good book. Anyone reading the book without outside knowledge of EVE would definitely be puzzled by the last two pages, however, which bring to mind about a hundred questions that I will be asking in a spoiler thread on the EVE forums.

Anyway, time for the cliffs notes for the people who don't like walls of text:

Pros

• Well-written, deep story.
• Answers a lot of questions surrounding the events of EVE Online: The Empyrean Age.
• Good stand-alone read.
• Nice cover art.

Cons

• TYPOS! Far too many typos and misspellings for a published work. "Ragnarok," the ship class of the Minmatar titan, is consistently misspelled many tiems. I'm not even counting all the ways the redcoats butcher words like "color" and "savory."
• "Marius" story arc lacks closure.

Rating: 9/10, for showing that game novels can be inspirational.