God of War [Paperback]

This is a book I really wanted to like. While I'm familiar with neither the God of War game nor the fiction of Robert E. Vardeman, Matthew Stover is one of my very favorite writers and the cover blurb made the story seem very much up Stover's alley. Unfortunately, whereas it seems many of the best-acclaimed novels based on video game franchises (like Halo and Gears of War) tell stories set around and between the events of the games, this novel is directly based on the first game in the God of War series and, I can only imagine at Sony's behest, hews so closely to the events of the game that it reads more like a glorified strategy guide than a novel in its own right.

Over the course of these 300 pages, the book reads exactly like a video game set to prose. The main character Kratos kills innumerable hordes of monsters; as he faces increasingly powerful monsters, he gets power-ups in the form of gifts and artifacts from various gods and mythological figures. Later on, the flood of monsters slows to a trickle and instead there are more puzzles involving timing and jumping and miniquests to find keys to unlock doors, and the overall impression is that while video game puzzles may pleasurably kill many hours in a game, they don't make for very interesting reading, especially when they're being solved by a character who hasn't changed or grown or become any more likable between pages 1 and 250, by a character whose life seems dictated more by the demands of the plot than because he's got any sort of personality or wit or cleverness about him (more than once monsters stand around and wait (quite graciously) for Kratos to recover as he collapses exhausted for "long minutes"; at one point he kicks a notch in a rock wall with his sandalled feet).

As for Kratos himself, he's a brutal, unstoppable and virtually indestructible sociopath, haunted by an atrocity he committed a decade ago but apparently not haunted enough to refrain from slaughtering noncombatant citizens left and right in the present; rather than seeking to make peace with himself through atonement or by any other means, his response to his shame has essentially been to redirect his destructive lifestyle. He's basically a big baby who wants the gods to relieve him of his painful memories but is unwilling to do anything for himself other than spread more pain and death in the world. It's very hard to square the pain and shame he feels at this terrible act in his past with his utter lack of remorse or regret for any of his ongoing terrible acts, and the novel doesn't really manage to develop his personality to an extent that this makes sense. It doesn't help that throughout the novel he is the only significant character aside from the gods; every other character is basically an NPC who wanders into the book for a paragraph or two, fulfills his or her purpose and is never heard from again. Every so often we do switch to Athena's point of view as she conspires or quarrels with other gods on Olympus; these diversions from Kratos are welcome but rarely tell us much that we don't already know.

Overall, this book is a tremendous wasted opportunity; for a book "offering deeper insights" into the events of the game, it stays much too loyal to gameplay mechanics and puzzles, at the expense of any opportunity for character development that might earn a more satisfying emotional payoff. Games and novels are two different media and in striving to adapt this story from one to another too literally, this epic quest for absolution and vengeance has been reduced to rather a bore. To the writers' credit it is readable, no mean feat given the restrictions of the project, but I can't imagine that it has much to offer fans of the game, and only rarely do the authors' styles have the chance to shine through. Not recommended except to the most die-hard fans of the game or the authors.

It's the love for the game God of War that lead me to pre-order this months earlier. I loved the game so much I wanted to read about it too. The story is what makes GOW franchise legendary. Thats what I wanted to read. Read the story of Kratos. But this book just took me through the game.

I found myself skipping pages after pages where the author has described every single move Kratos makes while killing Harpies or minotaurs. It felt like the author has written book while playing the game. This is not what I wanted to read. I played the game. I didn't want to read about it too. What I expected instead, was to read the story behind Kratos. About Kratos, Zeus, Athena, Kronos, Hades, Gaia, etc. Thats what I wanted to read. Not how Blades of Chaos kept slashing left and right, page after page after page.

This is my first time reading a book of either of the authors. Book's well written. But it simply does no justice to the great story behind Kratos. There is soo much more. I'm still hoping someone would do justice to this great game with the pen.

I read a few pages of it and put it down, because I have the game, actually all of them, and beated them all. I gotta tell ya I'm huge God of War, it's my favorite game series of time.
And they've published a book on the game, how stupid is that? I finally realized, this book is like a copy of the first game, and I finally said to hell with it. Now, I guess they made this book for people that are fans of the game, or series, but suck at it.
And now they have a book based on the game, and they can read it, then figure out the ending for themselves, so they don't have to stress themselves out on the game.

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