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40 reviews for:
Death Stranding - Death Stranding: The Official Novelization - Volume 2
Hitori Nojima
3.59 AVERAGE
40 reviews for:
Death Stranding - Death Stranding: The Official Novelization - Volume 2
Hitori Nojima
3.59 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Summary: I played the game (quite a while ago) and thought it was a masterpiece of a story-based games, incorporating mechanics into the main themes. However, although the book adds some very welcomed insight into secondary characters, flashbacks, and clarifications on some imagery, it falls short in too many aspects... mostly due to the quality of the writing/translation.
Summary aside, let me tackle the key aspects of the book.
This book is a novelisation of the first half of Death Stranding, and the dialogue in the book is matched perfectly to that in the game. The scenes are replicated here, with a focus on the story... which is a shame, because: a) we get some insights into Sam's mind but it's very limited (I'll talk more on this later), and b) there is no description of the gameplay scenes.
What I mean by (b) is that Sam often sets up to deliver cargo, it fades to black, and Sam is arriving. This was annoying to me, because the mechanic of delivering, plus the benefits a player could reap from other players leaving constructions out there added a lot to the theme of human connection present in both the game and the book. Leaving it behind made the narrative feel incomplete. Granted, I'm not asking for aaaaall the gameplay to be "translated", but just enough for the reader to get the idea.
This is narrated by an omnipresent past(?) tense narrator that mostly follows Sam; however, it does jump into other characters quite a bit. They used styling very cleverly, especially to indicate when a codec or hologram is talking, or when Amelie whispers from the Beach.
Nevertheless, the narrative and the translation... are just off. This is, by far, one of the worst translated books that I have read. We have: (a) cases of incorrect spelling, (b) wrong verbal tenses (e.g., describes in past tense, next sentence is present tense, past tense again), and (c) poor choice of words. For example:
[...] those who were located far away disappeared too, and the place where the men <b>were now stood</b> had turned back into a standard hospital room.
[...] a porter <b>was stood</b> next to the activated delivery terminal.
Above, "was stood"; this problem with verbal tenses was everywhere. Look at the single-sentence paragraph below, tied up with "and":
The BB grizzled as if it understood the meaning of Mama's words, and was trying to say something back, and the Odradek moved slightly and pointed toward the ceiling in response.
And poorly connected sentences as the one below, where the text just doesn't flow:
Lockne made contact with Sam in his private room. She had already finished fixing the Q-pid. She had worked pretty fast. It was still only a few hours since Sam had first arrived.
I have read my fair share of novelisations, and many were outstanding books... this is just poorly written and poorly translated.
Regarding my point (c) (i.e., poor choice of words), most of the words used for emotions or descriptions are overly-simplistic, e.g., "sad smile", "Sam was sad", "sad skin" or, on the contrary, "happy" everywhere or (even worse) "felt happy" or "felt sad". Can't they feel "sorrow"? "Anguish"? "Distress"? This book was originally written in Japanese (to my knowledge), and it reads as if a lot of meaning was lost in translation... as if the translator picked the broadest and less nuanced word just to be on the safe side.
Furthermore, that clumsy writing makes the introspection scenes... very clumsy. Sam reads childish at times, not because of thoughts/emotions he is having, but because of the choice of words used to explain them and the terrible, hiccupped sentence structure.
Because of the terrible narration, the book fails in capturing the imagery of the game. Death Stranding was mind-blowing not only because of the incredibly complex (and highly thematic!) storyline, but also because of the visuals that seemed to bend the world of death and living together (e.g., think of Higgs' introductory scene pulling that Beached Thing out of the floor). I hadn't played the game in years, and I had trouble understanding some sections... I can imagine that someone that never played the game won't be able to get it.
The narration is not immersive, and really doesn't capture that otherworldliness of the games—and yes, that can be done. There are plenty of books out there with outright cinematic prose. If you ask me about game-derived books, Greg Bear's Forerunner Saga in the Halo universe is just pure perfection.
Now, what the book provides, in a very explicit and in-your-face approach, is clarification in the imagery or intention behind the game's plots. The theme of human connection is at the forefront, and we get some very interesting reflections with all of that. There are many parallelisms between Sam's quest to connect the UCA east-to-west with America's history of expansion east-to-west. There are themes of death (literal but figurative, as well), and others.
Overall, I think that if you played the game and want to have some clarifications, this could be one way of getting it. If you did not play the game, do not read this; play the game first, because this novelisation is simply not up to the task of bringing Kojima's world to another medium. That said, I will be reading Book#2 because the themes were very interesting.
PS: Upon talking to an acquaintance, we compared books and it seemed that their copy was not as terrible as mine. A problem with the editions, perhaps? I have no clue; my paperbacks don't match (one is 5mm taller), and the binding is different... getting them was actually a hassle because the paperbacks are not easily available. Wondering if Book#2 will have this same problem or not...
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Vomit, Murder, Pregnancy, War
Minor: Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Alcohol
Mass extinction, extinction events, death of billions
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Suicide, Violence, War
I thought that this book would be filled with Sam’s point of view and his thoughts throughout the game’s story.
It’s not.
You don’t even get any real character descriptions or descriptions of Sam’s surroundings. It’s just ‘regurgitate the game dialogue without alteration and without Sam’s thoughts ad nauseam while making no attempts to enrich the original story with more descriptions or Sam’s character’.
Reading this book relies heavily on the reader having played the video game; you need to know who the characters and what they look like but also what the environment and other things like Chiralium, Beaches look like. The book tries to explain the Death Stranding but it doesn’t do a good job [at least from my perspective]. Even the introduction of characters like Clifford fall flat because there are no descriptions of real value to help the reader understand him and his situation early on.
Naturally, the game does [all of] this better because we hear and see Sam and his world, there’s a sene of dread and urgency. The book should be an extension of this and pull the reader into this desolate world where death is around every corner. Instead we get new pages/paragraphs starting where Sam walked for ‘100’s of kilometres’ or ‘11 days’ without much trouble from MULE’s or BT’s. The first ‘boss’ scene Higgs causes is boring and over very quickly. Whereas in the game you’ll probably die the first time if you’re underprepared and/or not sure what to expect. But at the end of the video game version fo the fight there is the gratification of the win.... In the book... not so much. It’s over in a flash and just left me feeling like it wasn’t a big deal.
Sam is absolutely SILENT [almost] verbally [which is inline with his game version] and mentally. We get no internet monologue for him. I wanted to read his thoughts on people and his situation. See the world through his eyes proper.
No. This book is written in a ‘go here, oh, we just go here after a long journey that you don’t get to see’ style. It leaves out a lot of what made the game enjoyable [at least for me]. The people [preppers], the side stories. And gave me a lot of ‘ oh my god! JUST GET ON WITH IT!!!’ moments. This book is lacking in explanation, imagination, character development and insight.
I doubt the second part is any better but I’ll read it because I paid for it. Sigh.
It’s not.
You don’t even get any real character descriptions or descriptions of Sam’s surroundings. It’s just ‘regurgitate the game dialogue without alteration and without Sam’s thoughts ad nauseam while making no attempts to enrich the original story with more descriptions or Sam’s character’.
Reading this book relies heavily on the reader having played the video game; you need to know who the characters and what they look like but also what the environment and other things like Chiralium, Beaches look like. The book tries to explain the Death Stranding but it doesn’t do a good job [at least from my perspective]. Even the introduction of characters like Clifford fall flat because there are no descriptions of real value to help the reader understand him and his situation early on.
Naturally, the game does [all of] this better because we hear and see Sam and his world, there’s a sene of dread and urgency. The book should be an extension of this and pull the reader into this desolate world where death is around every corner. Instead we get new pages/paragraphs starting where Sam walked for ‘100’s of kilometres’ or ‘11 days’ without much trouble from MULE’s or BT’s. The first ‘boss’ scene Higgs causes is boring and over very quickly. Whereas in the game you’ll probably die the first time if you’re underprepared and/or not sure what to expect. But at the end of the video game version fo the fight there is the gratification of the win.... In the book... not so much. It’s over in a flash and just left me feeling like it wasn’t a big deal.
Sam is absolutely SILENT [almost] verbally [which is inline with his game version] and mentally. We get no internet monologue for him. I wanted to read his thoughts on people and his situation. See the world through his eyes proper.
No. This book is written in a ‘go here, oh, we just go here after a long journey that you don’t get to see’ style. It leaves out a lot of what made the game enjoyable [at least for me]. The people [preppers], the side stories. And gave me a lot of ‘ oh my god! JUST GET ON WITH IT!!!’ moments. This book is lacking in explanation, imagination, character development and insight.
I doubt the second part is any better but I’ll read it because I paid for it. Sigh.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"Just a good old fashioned boss fight" a great read. Everything the first volume sets up comes together. It's a little clumsy in places, but ties together at the end.
Really good. Contrary to some of the other reviews I don't think you need to have played the game. This book can hold its own as a scifi novel. It's intricate and well written, by no means a light read. Onto part 2.