Deus Ex 3 novel tie-in.

[Ostriig]

Originally Posted by Kotaku

Fans looking to delve deeper into the cyberpunk dystopia of the Deus Ex series need look no further than Deus Ex: The Icarus Effect, a novel coming next year from Del Rey and tie-in author supreme James Swallow.

Secret agent Anna Kelso and special-ops soldier Ben Saxon live in a world of great and powerful technological advancement, but dark forces conspire to push the limits of human potential, threatening the future of mankind. When the unlikely pair get too close to the truth, their actions could save the world, or doom it forever.

Okay, this sounds interesting. Well, the synopsis sounds cheesy, at least as Kotaku present it, but then again that's par the course for being accurate to Deus Ex source material. James Swallow is also working on the game itself, met him with Aerothorn at an IGDA panel in London last year, and I do remember him mentioning that there supposedly is a titanic volume of writing work going towards DX3. In which case I'm hoping for a good read to go with my game.

Which reminds me I've yet to read a videogame novel, I meant to pick up one of those Dragon Age ones, should probably get around to it.

[van HellSing]

Official press release, from Keir:

DEL REY BOOKS ANNOUNCES NOVEL BASED ON THE DEUS EX® VIDEO GAME SERIES

NEW YORK, NY – July 13, 2010 – Del Rey, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today that Del Rey Books will publish a novel based on the Deus Ex® video game series. DEUS EX: THE ICARUS EFFECT will be written by author James Swallow and will release in 2011.

DEUS EX: THE ICARUS EFFECT is set in the complex and enthralling world of Deus Ex, a cyberpunk-style technological dystopia where all is not what it seems. In the not-so-distant future, the world is a place of great innovation and technological advancement... but also a place of chaos and conspiracy. New technologies push the limits of human potential, even while they threaten the very future of the world. And from the shadows, dark and secret powers are coming together to take control, intent on designs so large, so intricate, they will take decades to come to fruition. But when two unlikely heroes—Anna Kelso, a Secret Service agent, and Ben Saxon, a special-ops soldier—draw uncomfortably close to the truth, the choices they make here and now will alter the course of history... or usher in an age of darkness.

“We’re really pleased to be able to announce this new DEUS EX novel with Del Rey books,” said Andre Vu, Marketing Game Manager, Deus Ex. “The novel is set in the DEUS EX universe and there will be characters and story elements in it, that will overlap with our next videogame DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION, which we hope fans will be very excited about.”

DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION the game has recently been unveiled at E3 2010 in Los Angeles, where the game received over 25 award nominations from gaming media from around the world, securing 13 awards at the show.

DEUS EX: THE ICARUS EFFECT will release in North America and Europe in 2011, the book will also be available in many other countries around the world please keep an eye on the Official Deus Ex: Human Revolution website for further details.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
JAMES SWALLOW is a renowned science fiction author whose first foray into writing came with the Sundowners Series, published in 2001. Since then, Swallow has gone on to pen both novels and scripts for popular franchises such as Doctor Who, Stargate, Warhammer 40,000, and Star Trek. He has also worked on numerous videogames including Star Trek Invasion, Maelstrom, and Killzone 2. In 2009 the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers awarded James with the Scribe Award for Best Speculative Fiction Original. He lives and works in the UK.

ABOUT DEL REY:
Del Rey Books (http://www.delreybooks.com) was founded in 1977 as an imprint of Ballantine Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group, under the guidance of the renowned Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, Lester del Rey. Del Rey publishes the best of modern fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history. In 2004 it expanded by launching Del Rey Manga, which has grown to be a major force in the U.S. graphic-novel field.

About Square Enix Ltd.
Square Enix Ltd., a part of Square Enix Europe business unit, is a London-based wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., one of the most influential providers of digital entertainment content in the world. Square Enix Ltd. publishes and distributes entertainment content from the Square Enix Group including Square Enix, Eidos and Taito in Europe and other PAL territories. Square Enix Ltd. also has a global network of leading development studios such as IO Interactive, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal. The Square Enix Group boasts a valuable portfolio of intellectual property including: FINAL FANTASY, which has sold over 97 million units worldwide, DRAGON QUEST® which has sold over 54 million units worldwide and TOMB RAIDER® which has sold over 35 million units worldwide, together with other well established products.

More information on Square Enix Ltd. can be found on the Internet at http://www.square-enix.com

[Briareos H]

yaaaaay!

[Koki]

Okay, this sounds interesting.

The only interesting thing about it is that this is the first time the money-grab shitty-book move happens before the game is actually released.

[DDL]

"Welcome to the Deus Ex: Human Revolution Installer! Please enter the 3rd word on line 5 of page 78 of your Deux Ex: The Icarus Effect novella, to continue installation."

[mothra]

this sounds like ... totally uninteresting. what is special about this ? I don't read any novels, game-comics or movie tie-in stories but I know they exist and are inevitable (and most of the time of inferior quality) side-effects of the "blockbuster" marketing the gaming industry uses. Dead Space had a cartoon, comic, game, soundtrack, AR game, whatever. I'm not surprised they are doing this as well for DX:HR. Only thing like mentioned before is that it could actually come out before the game.

[SubJeff]

What's worse than a book tie in with a film? A book tie in with a game, that's what.

I understand people's want for further info into a world they love but it's not for me. I'd never read any fanfic because, well I guess I don't get that obsessed that I can see beyond all the flaws in the idea and inevitably the execution.

[rachel]

I'll stick to my own tie-in, thankyouverymuch

[Bluegrime]

I'm going to not be a pessimist about this. Think of how rich the world of the original Deus Ex would have been if it had a series of novel tie-ins to flesh out details that they couldn't reasonably cover in the game. It could be quite nice.

[Papy]

What's worse than a book tie in with a film? A book tie in with a game, that's what.

Not video games, but several books based on AD&D were quite enjoyable.

[van HellSing]

The thing that gives me a bit of optimism is that the author also works on the game, so at least he has first hand knowledge of the game world.

[Illuminatus]

Think of how rich the world of the original Deus Ex would have been if it had a series of novel tie-ins to flesh out details that they couldn't reasonably cover in the game

Deus Ex did have an incredibly rich game-world thanks to the ample (and well written) reading material (a huge amount of sub-plots and foreshadowing goes on just in the emails, newspapers, etc). Invisible War did away with a lot of that flavour, and the story and characters feel far more wooden and inconsistent as a result. It would be awesome if EM included that level of detail again in the game itself rather than release some cheesy cash-grab side novel.

[SubJeff]

Not video games, but several books based on AD&D were quite enjoyable.

Which ones?

[Papy]

That was a long time ago, but I remember some of the DragonLance series, like Chronicles and Legends, were quite readable, particularly for people who were playing AD&D. I was also able to enjoy others like Azure Bonds. Of course, none were great literature (but to put things in perspective I think Tolkien was not great literature either), but I had no problem finishing those books. I certainly read worst things.

[Matthew]

That reminds me, I really need to try to pick up copies of the Alpha Centauri tie-in novels.

[<Username>]

The Icarus Effect was on my list of "books I want to read" since 2011. It got surprisingly good reviews for a videogame tie-in novel. After finally reading it now, I agree: The book is better than you would expect. Sure, there is an overreliance on violence and the prose is not exactly high art, but the pace is brisk and something interesting happens in every chapter. Befitting for the Deus Ex series, the plot revolves around conspiracies, double crossings, and human augmentation technology.

The two main characters are not very complex, but adequate for this kind of book: Anna Kelso was the more interesting of the two, because she has character flaws and vulnerabilities. Ben Saxon is a more stereotypical good soldier character, but he also has some flaws that are exploited by the antagonists. I enjoyed how the Tyrants from Human Revolution get more fleshed out, especially the character of Jaron Namir. Reading this novel before playing either Human Revolution or The Fall could definitely improve the experience.

From the book, some of the dialogue between Ben Saxon and Jaron Namir as well as the episode with the Tyrants in Moscow appear almost 1:1 in the prologue of The Fall. A vision of "crowds of panicked people desperately trying to flee hordes of crated rioters, all of them augmented, all of them mad with wild fury" heavily foreshadows the finale of Human Revolution.

For an additional bit of fun while reading the book, I tried to collect all mentions of elements that appear in any of the Deus Ex games published to date:

People:
Adam Jensen (mentioned)
Ben Saxon
Bob Page (mentioned)
Eliza Cassan
Elizabeth DuClare (mentioned)
Gunther Hermann
Isaias Sandoval
Jaron Namir
Juan Ivanovich Lebedev
Lawrence Barrett
Lucius DeBeers
Mikhail Kontarsky
Morgan Everett
Philip Riley Mead
Sam Duarte
Stanton Dowd (mentioned)
Widow
William Taggart
Yelena Federova

Locations:
Detroit
Moscow, Hotel Novoe Rostov
Paris

Organisations:
Belltower
Gang of Five
Glass Curtain
Harvesters
Humanity Front
Illuminati
Juggernaut Collective
Majestic 12
New Sons of Freedom
Picus News
Purity First
Red Arrow Triad
Sarif Industries
Tai Yong Medical
Tyrants

Technology:
Boxguard security robot
Hermes leg augmentation
Hyron Project
Killing Floor
Neuropozyne

Weapons:
Buzzkill stun gun
Pulsar electromagnetic pulse grenade
Steiner-Bisley assault rifle
Zenith semi-automatic pistol

Other:
Australian Civil War
Operation Rainbird

Quotes:
"If you want to make enemies, try to change something." (spoken by D-Bar in Icarus Effect)