Book Challenge 12/12
Dec. 30th, 2016 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsMy plan has been enacted and I have now finished the final fill of the 2016 book challenge! Now, I admit, the book I read was 120 pages long and written for a young audience, so temporally and intellectually I was going easy on myself, but trust me, in its own way this was a "book that intimidates you":
"Worlds of Power #3: Ninja Gaiden"
Now, the author credit on this is a bit complex, so I'll just give it to you in full: "a novel based on the best-selling game by TECMO; Book created by F.X. Nine; Written by A.L. Singer; A Seth Godin Production; This book is not authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by Nintendo of America, Inc.; [published by] Scholastic Inc." (So the book creator wasn't the writer, okay...)
Before going into the book, some reflections on the game it's based on. The NES was the video game platform of my childhood, and Ninja Gaiden is a classic. In its day it had two claims to fame:
First, the gameplay itself. I've never played it myself to speak of, but it has a reputation for difficulty surpassed only by Ghosts n' Goblins, and I don't have the sense that that contest had been fully decided at the time. I have not personally pitched controllers over this thing, but I have certainly seen it done (my sister was very conscientious and always pitched them onto soft surfaces, but still).
Second, and actually more salient for me who relates to video games largely through watching them: cinematic cutscenes. They weren't common at the time, at least not on the NES, and really felt like an innovation in this game. Even recently as I've watched playthroughs (such as this one), the aesthetics hold up surprisingly well. The hardware limitations are met with an economy of visual storytelling that's downright elegant. Heck, even the gameplay animation for the player character is wonderfully economical and stylish. The story, to be honest, is bonkers, what with dragon-sword ninjas fighting demons in South American ruins and then the CIA gets in on it somehow, but it takes itself so damn seriously and presents all that insanity with just the right amount of grit and texture to really sell it (oh, and the music helps, too). Also remember this was in the days before YouTube playthroughs, so the story was only doled out as fast as you could finish the sadistically difficult game and by the time you managed it, the early cutscenes were utterly burned into your mind from so many attempts. Fair warning, there's a really annoying "woman as reward" moment at the end somewhat out of nowhere (yeah, you want to get shot again, buddy?), but hey, it was a different time.
So how did the book render all of this?
Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought when merely staring at the cover or flipping through it ("Oh god there are characters named 'Wimple' and 'Bonzo,' this is gonna hurt so bad..."). Even though I felt compelled to pick this thing up when I saw it in a thrift store, I was expecting reading it to hurt like a dental procedure --- I have or have had what I refer to as a "badfic allergy" and was indeed intimidated by the idea that this would trigger that kind of intense discomfort. And it was a bit of a rough ride, but it turned out it wasn't THAT painful.
It's not good by any stretch. It's pulp. Cliffhangers are manufactured to end chapters that were only four or five pages long to begin with. Descriptive imagery is overblown, occasionally inappropriate to the occasion, and seldom if ever really vivid. Abilities from the game are levered in for no particular reason; bosses from the game come and go in a single blow and leave neither corpses nor any impression on the reader. At least the suspicion that the writer knew just enough about Japan to be dangerous became irrelevant after the first couple of chapters.
The broader strokes of the game's story are all here --- the whole dragon-sword ninja/revenge/demon/South America/CIA business --- but a lot of liberties are taken. Our hero Ryu is de-aged to thirteen, presumably to match the intended reader (yeah look at that cover -- that guy's supposed to be 13), and the writer tries to strike a balance between "badass ninja" and "kid like you" and it just ends in confusion. Irene, awkwardly, is said to not be much older than Ryu (so, what, a 15-year-old CIA agent?); in the game I always imagined her as a tough cookie and that doesn't come through at all, but at least the above-mentioned "woman as reward" moment is mercifully scrapped. The Jacquio comes off as basically a mad scientist type and the "fight" with him is so anticlimactic I literally had to skim ahead and see none of his dialogue (he always talked in boldface) before I would believe it. Depictions of and references to death and dying are heavily bowdlerized, up to and including Ryu's dad turning out to not really be dead.
So yeah. Not good by any stretch, but not as painful as I feared. It did give me I think a refreshing splash of perspective (like, with my own self-doubts as a writer it's helpful to now and then see what actual mediocrity looks like), but perhaps the best thing for me about reading it was facing my fear, and in that I'll say it was in the intended spirit.
(Castlevania and Mega Man were closer to my heart, though, and also had World of Power volumes about them. I still don't know if I could take those.)
Challenge progress:
-A book published this year (2016)
-A book you can finish in a day
-A book you've been meaning to read
-A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
-A book you should have read in school
-A book chosen for you by [a loved one]
-A book published before you were born
-A book that was banned at some point
-A book you previously abandoned
-A book you own but have never read
-A book that intimidates you
-A book you've already read at least once
ALL CLEAR!!!
So, I made it! The book challenge was fun and worth doing, and I would do it again --- but not immediately. So not in 2017, but 2018? We'll see.
"Worlds of Power #3: Ninja Gaiden"
Now, the author credit on this is a bit complex, so I'll just give it to you in full: "a novel based on the best-selling game by TECMO; Book created by F.X. Nine; Written by A.L. Singer; A Seth Godin Production; This book is not authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by Nintendo of America, Inc.; [published by] Scholastic Inc." (So the book creator wasn't the writer, okay...)
Before going into the book, some reflections on the game it's based on. The NES was the video game platform of my childhood, and Ninja Gaiden is a classic. In its day it had two claims to fame:
First, the gameplay itself. I've never played it myself to speak of, but it has a reputation for difficulty surpassed only by Ghosts n' Goblins, and I don't have the sense that that contest had been fully decided at the time. I have not personally pitched controllers over this thing, but I have certainly seen it done (my sister was very conscientious and always pitched them onto soft surfaces, but still).
Second, and actually more salient for me who relates to video games largely through watching them: cinematic cutscenes. They weren't common at the time, at least not on the NES, and really felt like an innovation in this game. Even recently as I've watched playthroughs (such as this one), the aesthetics hold up surprisingly well. The hardware limitations are met with an economy of visual storytelling that's downright elegant. Heck, even the gameplay animation for the player character is wonderfully economical and stylish. The story, to be honest, is bonkers, what with dragon-sword ninjas fighting demons in South American ruins and then the CIA gets in on it somehow, but it takes itself so damn seriously and presents all that insanity with just the right amount of grit and texture to really sell it (oh, and the music helps, too). Also remember this was in the days before YouTube playthroughs, so the story was only doled out as fast as you could finish the sadistically difficult game and by the time you managed it, the early cutscenes were utterly burned into your mind from so many attempts. Fair warning, there's a really annoying "woman as reward" moment at the end somewhat out of nowhere (yeah, you want to get shot again, buddy?), but hey, it was a different time.
So how did the book render all of this?
Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought when merely staring at the cover or flipping through it ("Oh god there are characters named 'Wimple' and 'Bonzo,' this is gonna hurt so bad..."). Even though I felt compelled to pick this thing up when I saw it in a thrift store, I was expecting reading it to hurt like a dental procedure --- I have or have had what I refer to as a "badfic allergy" and was indeed intimidated by the idea that this would trigger that kind of intense discomfort. And it was a bit of a rough ride, but it turned out it wasn't THAT painful.
It's not good by any stretch. It's pulp. Cliffhangers are manufactured to end chapters that were only four or five pages long to begin with. Descriptive imagery is overblown, occasionally inappropriate to the occasion, and seldom if ever really vivid. Abilities from the game are levered in for no particular reason; bosses from the game come and go in a single blow and leave neither corpses nor any impression on the reader. At least the suspicion that the writer knew just enough about Japan to be dangerous became irrelevant after the first couple of chapters.
The broader strokes of the game's story are all here --- the whole dragon-sword ninja/revenge/demon/South America/CIA business --- but a lot of liberties are taken. Our hero Ryu is de-aged to thirteen, presumably to match the intended reader (yeah look at that cover -- that guy's supposed to be 13), and the writer tries to strike a balance between "badass ninja" and "kid like you" and it just ends in confusion. Irene, awkwardly, is said to not be much older than Ryu (so, what, a 15-year-old CIA agent?); in the game I always imagined her as a tough cookie and that doesn't come through at all, but at least the above-mentioned "woman as reward" moment is mercifully scrapped. The Jacquio comes off as basically a mad scientist type and the "fight" with him is so anticlimactic I literally had to skim ahead and see none of his dialogue (he always talked in boldface) before I would believe it. Depictions of and references to death and dying are heavily bowdlerized, up to and including Ryu's dad turning out to not really be dead.
So yeah. Not good by any stretch, but not as painful as I feared. It did give me I think a refreshing splash of perspective (like, with my own self-doubts as a writer it's helpful to now and then see what actual mediocrity looks like), but perhaps the best thing for me about reading it was facing my fear, and in that I'll say it was in the intended spirit.
(Castlevania and Mega Man were closer to my heart, though, and also had World of Power volumes about them. I still don't know if I could take those.)
Challenge progress:
ALL CLEAR!!!
So, I made it! The book challenge was fun and worth doing, and I would do it again --- but not immediately. So not in 2017, but 2018? We'll see.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-29 09:49 pm (UTC)In the back of the book, our friend "F.X. Nine" includes "a list of some other books that I thought you might like," including The Count of Monte Cristo and My Side of the Mountain. Yeah. You have to remember tho, this was in the days before Amazon recommendations...