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A review by wranglerofwords
Dishonored: The Return of Daud by Adam Christopher
1.0
Yeaaaah...no. I went into this hoping it'd be at least a three star, and maybe even highlight the narrative parts of the games that I enjoyed the most. Instead, what I read was a very, very clunky transfer of mediums that took everything that would work fine in a game and butchered it in text. What I mean by that:
Daud's characterization is not great, imo. The book ignores any development towards pacifism from the games and instead has him butcher his way through every fight scene with little to no creativity. The renowned assassin, the Knife of Dunwall walks into traps for the sake of plot, kills pretty much everyone in his way with zero thought towards it (that I remember, at least), and then reminisces his backstory of deserving his titles for the sake of exposition towards readers who have no memory of his story in the games, for whatever reason. Great.
There doesn't seem to be much added backstory towards any of the characters I care about; there are nods to other characters without any real impact (the geniuses and the rich dude), the whole plot is a wild goose chase and we end more or less where we started but with a more battered Daud and more random characters popping up.
The one thing I did get slightly interested in was
This book did nothing for me beyond spoil Daud, bait me on for no reason, give me a laugh at a couple of lines I simply could not imagine characters saying (or even just thinking, for that matter), and convince me of how not to do a video game-based novel.
Daud's characterization is not great, imo. The book ignores any development towards pacifism from the games and instead has him butcher his way through every fight scene with little to no creativity. The renowned assassin, the Knife of Dunwall walks into traps for the sake of plot, kills pretty much everyone in his way with zero thought towards it (that I remember, at least), and then reminisces his backstory of deserving his titles for the sake of exposition towards readers who have no memory of his story in the games, for whatever reason. Great.
There doesn't seem to be much added backstory towards any of the characters I care about; there are nods to other characters without any real impact (the geniuses and the rich dude), the whole plot is a wild goose chase and we end more or less where we started but with a more battered Daud and more random characters popping up.
The one thing I did get slightly interested in was
Spoiler
the effects of blinking without enough mana. It was a nice transfer over of an in game concept to a narrative device, though it was resolved and never referenced again within a couple chapters with one (1) drink of Addermire.This book did nothing for me beyond spoil Daud, bait me on for no reason, give me a laugh at a couple of lines I simply could not imagine characters saying (or even just thinking, for that matter), and convince me of how not to do a video game-based novel.