I honestly feel betrayed after reading this book.
I have to say, I really wanted to enjoy it. At the beginning I was extremely excited. I mean, it is part of a book series based on the Assassin’s Creed games! I was curious to see how the author would write their own original story based on the source material. After all, you can’t just write out all the cutscenes of the game in a bland, written format; there has to be some creativity to keep it interesting… right?
It’s a shame how having such big expectations almost always results in disappointment crashing it all down, the hope you once had withering away in flames.
The book follows the story of Ezio Auditore, a master assassin in his fifties, and his life-long fight against the power-hungry Templars. His quest takes him to early 1500s Constantinople. It was meant to be an original novel based of Ubisoft’s video game. Well was it? No… not really. In all honesty, most of the book just felt like a tedious copy and paste of the games story.
I had really hoped the book would delve deeper into topics I hade never seen any of the books I have read before tackle. The author takes every opportunity he had to remind the reader that Ezio was growing older. On nearly all of his assassinations, he would brace for the worst possible outcome for him, that he would not make it out alive. This underlying theme of aging excited me. It is rare to find a book that follows an adventurer that is not a young, springy teen. Here the author had a chance to illustrate in his writing the dramatic and emotional struggle with a man and his weakening body. They had a chance to make a realistic and thought-provoking historical fiction.
Instead, all we get is a man with all his Skyrim levels seemingly at 100. Yes, he may take a couple of deep breathes but he is still able to continue to catch up to a carriage and hold onto a rope as he is dragged across the floor. He is still able to fight off dozens of trained soldiers simultaneously AND he is still able to fall down cliffs, walking away relatively unscathed. All this just strips him of his character. It dehumanises him to be just another character with god-like strength. There is no real struggle.
Almost every action scene lacks a certain level of tension. There is no racing in your heart as you anxiously turn the pages, following the characters struggles and triumphs in their fights. The scenes end too quickly, giving no chance for any reader to get invested. There is far too much build up to a fight that ends with little to no interesting pay-off. The only scenes that were able to depict some conflict were only able to do so because of the game and how they had to play out. There was no need for creativity if the game had filled out the scene for the author already.
In the end, I was too hasty when praising this book. I am left disappointed and confused. What was this book made for? If it is not to tell an interesting original story or go into more depth on topics the game might have grazed over, then why write it? All I can say is this book has accomplished nothing but being able to rob me of my £2.99 ( it was on sale at Aldi ).