PixlBit

Sometimes in the Greg Bear books, I wish he would just come out and reveal all from the very beginning. I think he tries to withhold important information just to keep you turning the pages, and that annoys me a little bit. The first two books in the series had me scratching my head quite a bit, but it gets all tied up neatly, finally, at the end of Silentium. It seems like a lot of novel, three of them, to wait for the denouement.

I've seen them in the library. The audio book versions as well.

The books are more thoughtful than the games. If the books followed the style of the games, they would be all action and pretty forgetable. As they are, they go into detail about the technologies, history, and personalities involved, making them much more interesting than just space marines mowing down hoards of Covenant.

The more I think about it, his use of telling a story through found documents is not too interesting a device. When he gets into a longer chapter, I think that's where he begins to shine and the book gains some momentum.

Those terminals are totally an afterthought. You have to stop playing to read them and think about the story when the game should be delivering the story as you play it. The Halo games were always action first, story, maybe if we have time. Also, the games were a lot about location and visual cues, rather than dialog or cut scenes, although there are some of those. The locations in Halo are always stunning and interesting, but you really need the books if you want your story fix. The games just give me a good sense of place and fun things to do in them.

I would say Silentium starts out kind of slow. It's done throughout from the point of view of the Judicials who are taking down everything and requesting depositions from the main characters. Through most of the book, I was thinking that this seemed like reading the author's collection of notes before he actually put it all into a story, but the last few chapters really began to get exciting and feel like a traditional story, rather than just a collection of documents organized chronologically.

Cool. I was trying to figure out the Anonymous thing. Thanks for the comment!

I played that same demo then picked up the game later on.

Same here. I put it in my cue for Level 5 games to play when Ni no Kuni came out but still didn't get to it. One day...

There's been a bunch of comics with the Arkham Asylum title. I think I have three comics called Arkham Asylum: something something now.