A review by redheadbeans
The Secret Crusade by Oliver Bowden

4.0

I think it was a really interesting companion to the game. As someone who has never played but has looked up a decent amount of somewhat confusing information on it, this really helped explain a lot of the details of the AC world. I liked reading about it and I was rewarded by actually knowing what people were talking about when I watched a friend play "AC 2: Revelations".

This is Al'tair's story, pretty much from the beginning (when his father is an assassin and he has not yet been inducted into the order) to when he says goodbye to the Polos in "Revelations". Desmond is not in this book - the story focuses purely on his ancestor.

The events in the book are not always the same as those in the game, but I think that some artistic license is allowable, and there was a mix of "I like the book version better," and "I like the game version better", so really neither has the upper hand. If you love the AC world, I would suggest reading this. If you want to get into the AC world but are a poor college student who cannot afford the games, then go and see if your library has this book, because this is where things started.