Crysis: Legion

Crysis

by Peter Watts

MANHATTAN IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.
THEY’RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE.
 
Welcome to the Big Apple, son. Welcome to the city that never invaded by monstrous fusions of meat and machinery, defended by a private army that makes Blackwater look like the Red Cross, ravaged by a disfiguring plague that gifts its victims with religious rapture while it eats them alive. You’ve been thrown into this meat grinder without warning, without preparation, without a clue.

Your whole squad was mowed down the moment they stepped onto the battlefield. And the chorus of voices whispering in your head keeps saying that all of this is on that you and you alone might be able to turn the whole thing around if you only knew what the hell was going on.

You’d like to help. Really you would. But it’s not just the aliens that are gunning for you. Your own kind hunts you as a traitor, and your job might be a bit easier if you didn’t have the sneaking suspicion they could be right. . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Video Games, Action, Military Fiction, Games, Cyberpunk

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

At least you can count on Peter Watts to deliver a decent adaptation. His ultra-dry, ultra-sly style of hard science-fiction is on full parade here in the official adaptation of Crysis 2. Watts gracefully-- mercifully-- takes full artistic liberty with the source's threadbare narrative, filling in the character's backgrounds, cutting out most of the action fluff, and most importantly, fleshing out the science, which is really what we all came for.

Peter knows his lingo. He can take a pop-existential concept, like the afterlife, and repackage it as something fresh and compelling. This is in part due to his knowledge of living anatomy and the inspired use of "bleeding edge" terminology when laying out futurist concepts. The parts of the book that ramble on about the humanistic dilemma of synthetic augmentation (which he uses as the foundation for several subplots surrounding the main character's dilemma) venture beyond the self-aware alien invasion / private mercenary silliness and into some fairly interesting territory.

*Minor Spoilers* "Alcatraz" has essentially "died" in combat and been resurrected by a "nano-suit"... given to him by a character from the first part... yadda yadda... reverse-engineered from stolen alien hardware. It uses his rotting corpse as fuel and his gray-matter as a tactical suite, sewing up enough cuts to keep him going but diverting the rest to wherever it deems necessary to accomplish the mission. It uses nano-technology to assimilate his central nervous system and by extension his entire "self"; he becomes a true cybernetic being, a post-contemporary Frankenstein. Although still able to think and "feel", the main character is never quite sure if he is in control of his actions and emotions or if they are simply the result of the suit's hormonal stimulants. He doesn't much care, because he's too busy killing stuff.

The author's comprehension of real-world chemistry makes this all very believable, and enjoyably creepy. He recently had a brush with death when a flesh-eating virus attempted to eat his leg, and some of that vulnerability is reflected here. There is also a worthy effort to fill in the plot holes inherent to the premise he was asked to work with, and the alien-invasion genre in general. I especially liked where he went with the origin of the invaders, observing that we very likely wouldn't stand a chance in a full-on fight against a race of creatures that have the ability to traverse the stars. So he comes up with a more complicated explanation, doses it throughout the 300 pages, and for the most part it works.

Unfortunately the majority of the book boils down to colorful depictions of action and betrayal repeated ad-nauseum. I had a hard time connecting with the hero, who is basically a common grunt with a running dialogue in his head, and although the author does his best to keep things interesting I couldn't help but feel like trying the game instead, or reading through the Rifters trilogy a second time. But if you're like me and you are on a mission to read everything Watts has written, you'll be happy to know that it is at least well put together. He is good at hiding his jokes and some clever references, including subliminal nods to video-games, wise-crack observations by Alcatraz, and pokes at the video-gamer mentality. There are also those weird moments of familiar Mr. Watts, those deep brooding rants that walk the line of familiar science and science-fiction, philosophy and actuality, that just make it all feel very real.

Enjoy your skin-crawlies!

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best video game novelization that has ever been written.

So I'll bash out some bullet points about the book itself, then talk about the really interesting things about the game/book/production and the rest:

- This is Watts-lite, it retreads a lot of his familiar themes (consciousness, its constituent components, technology so advanced it can start poking about with the grey matter, aliens) in easier to digest, often repeated, chunks for those who aren't familiar with harder sci-fi.

- This is the closest he's come to writing pulse-pounding Tom-Clancy action scenes, and while his footing isn't Abercrombie sure, there's a running battle sequence with a "Pinger" that was truly superb. Didn't know a 48 year old marine biologist had it in him, so hats off.

- "This is the best video game novelization that has ever been written" is damnation by praise more faint than a Mills & Boon female lead. So: it's a cracking book in it's own right, and almost convinced me to buy the game itself. Worth a read if you enjoy Watts, Sci-fi or Crysis (I'd imagine, I've only played some of the first one).

*REVIEW ENDS* - unrelated talk of the games industry and a semi-blog post follow. My apologies.

So, speculation abounds as to why he actually took the job, whilst "Money" was almost certainly a factor, the game was scripted by another sci-fi author of some worth: Richard Morgan (he of the Takeshi Kovacs novels, and a chap cut from the same cynical cloth), and Watts consulted on the technology and dialogue during development. Pete hasn't commented himself, so that's as far as I'm willing to speculate, but it sounds like Crytek are actually trying to push writing as well as visuals forward. Unfortunately, I think their game design is abysmal BUT: This is a phenomenally positive development, and I hope it sells like hot cakes to encourage other studios to pick up people who understand how to tell a story.

Anyone who's ever played a game (and is older than 20) knows that 99% of them are just toilet. The gameplay varies from game to game, and you can have a lot of fun playing Super Punch Quest IV when the characters aren't blurting out moronic waffle, but the Universal constant is that the script, voice acting and, frankly, entire tone of most games are so abysmal that you are forced to turn it off out of sheer embarrassment (most recent example: Killzone 3. A military game in which no one seemed to understand chain of command. This was probably the least of its sins, but I just couldn't get past the fact that a Sergeant kept committing mutiny. During a war. And they just mumbled about a "court martial later").

When the average cost of making a current generation game is supposedly running a company somewhere between $20-30million, and quite a few well over (God of War 3 - $44million), why on earth would you not pay someone who can write characters and scenarios 100k (at most 0.5% of your budget) to ensure the writing isn't horrible? Writers of monumental quality are -relatively speaking- so fucking cheap. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a Wolpaw, or an Avelone, or a Levine, on staff, so hire somebody freelance who knows how to put words together and doesn't use crayon.

[Rex Galore · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always Peter Watts delivers!
He takes something as pulp as a video game novel and actually turns it into something worth reading.

The first thing I can say is that his prose is as wonderful as always. He has a way with words that makes me read with a smile on my face. And his dark sense of humor just adds to the great experience.

The second thing is that he manages to take a pretty basic video game story (though one might argue that the story is not so basic owing to the fact that it's actually written by Richard Morgan. A really good author in his own right) and infuses it with an interesting theme. A theme that readers of Watts' other stories should be very familiar with and one that I really find intriguing.

[Letande D'Argon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crysis video games never had interesting plots. But as John Carmack said once, “Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.” So, it’s not like plots that tried to show off without having enough depth were a big problem for games. Unfortunately, greedy publishers decided to milk Crysis franchise a bit more and we’ve got this. An official novelization of Crysis 2 video game. And well, it’s exactly what you can expect from the novel that was based on video game. It feels cheap, there’s literally nothing interesting about it and it’s terribly written. You know, gentlemanly set of this kind of the novels. Only this one is especially bad. If you want me to compare it with something, I think that it’ll be OK to compare it with Uwe Boll’s movies. Because it’s that cheap and ugly. But unlike Mr. Boll’s “masterpieces”, this novel isn’t only trying to make a quick money from popular game, it provides exactly nothing new. And it’s a huge problem.

Why? Well, because in video game it’s fun to just run and shoot. That’s what the game is all about - running around and shooting stuff. That’s the fun. But when it’s about the novel, you want more details, more depth. And you won’t find anything like that here. ⅔ of the novel is exactly that - running and shooting. Author just described the gameplay. Almost 1:1. Level by level. Now may I ask what’s the fun? I mean, I was there, seen that, played through the whole thing, had some fun. Why should I waste my time and read about the same exact thing? Reading about how Prophet / Alcatraz shooting CELL members and Ceph again and again without an end is extremely boring to say the least. And author was too lazy to add something new.

Well, it’s not like there’s nothing new at all, but it only makes things worse. You don’t need glasses to see that a lot of text was added just to make adaptation big enough to be called the novel. It’s like a poor short story was filled with random stuff (for example, author added those letters you was supposed to collect in the game) just to waste our time (it's really hard to force yourself to keep reading through the whole 320 pages), while all in all, this novel is exactly what any middle school kid will write after playing the game. No style, no charm, no depth, nothing to keep your attention. Just bare retelling of the video game events. With no reason. Also, it’s just amazing how somebody with no writing talent at all was allowed to write a book. I mean, yes, the author tried to make a hero to act like “your regular low ranking soldier” on purpose, but he failed. And failed oh so hard. Because it looks like in author’s opinion the only two things that soldiers are all about are shooting and swearing. Nothing else. Remember Harry Harrison's “Bill, the Galactic Hero”? Nothing like that here. Not even close. Just shooting and swearing.

As I already said, the whole thing is written on “middle school kid” level. And it’s actually fun how you can see middle school kid here all over the whole text. Like author had some weird obsession with aliens’ genitals and returned to them again and again like he has teenager hypersexuality. Exactly something that you’ll expect from middle school kid's fan fiction. Fan fiction feeling is so strong that it’s hard to believe that you’re reading the official novelization and not something you downloaded from net forums, or DeviantArt.

So, let’s just say that I don’t recommend to waste your money and time on this one, unless you’re a hopeless geek like me and ready to read anything that was based on video game. Novels that were based on video games are often bad, but this one is just terrible. It just combined all possible bad things together and sold them for the price of the proper thing. If you’ve finished the game, you already knows everything. Reading the poor retelling of gameplay process is incredibly boring, while text itself has outrageous lack of talent and skill.

[Igor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Watts is a great writer (I read Blindsight and The Island and was blown away both times, the Rifters trilogy is high on my to-read list). But even that can't raise the rating above 'it was OK' since he's still shackled to novelizing a video game's plot - which is meant to be experienced in a completely different storytelling medium (I should stress here that I am not disparaging video games, I'm simply stating that what works in one medium cannot work as well in another).

Don't get me wrong, this is miles ahead of your average video game novelization - after all this is Peter frickin' Watts we're talking about, that Hugo he won was well earned and the novel displays his trademark penchant for detailed and believable technology, both human and alien and good characterization. I also liked the way he framed the main story and especially the various chapter breaks in the form of background expansion via snippets of various reports and documents.

All in all, Watts took Richard Morgan's story and did the best he could with it. If anything, this made me want to read more military SF from the guy - now if only he'd get to writing some :D

[Iain Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a novelisation of a computer game this is amazing. Constant fast-paced action combined with a subtext of the meaning of consciousness and the future of warfare, specifically when the lines between AI and humans become blurred.

[melancholinary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll admit I’d never played Crysis—nor was I particularly familiar with it—until I discovered the series through Peter Watts, who is, to my mind, the most exciting science-fiction writer working today. Before reading his tie-in novel, I tried the first Crysis game and found it surprisingly enjoyable, even if its plot and world-building felt rather Hollywood-style modern-military SF. Still, before attempting Crysis 2, I decided to read Watts’s novelisation—and, frankly, because it’s written by him, it proved an absolute delight.

The book’s emphasis on the technology behind the nanosuit is superb: the way it synthesises with Alcatraz—blending biology and nanotechnology, consciousness and AI (a Watts forte), environmental degradation and future warfare (another Watts forte)—pushes the story into convincingly serious, if not full-blown hard-SF territory. Admittedly, the basic narrative spine isn’t especially compelling, yet the scientific digressions and technological background elevate the material far beyond what I encountered while playing the first game (and, by most accounts, beyond what the second game—Watts’s source text, though penned by Richard Morgan—delivers). The expanded back-stories also give the characters more nuance, rescuing them from the rather flat characterisation of the games and lending the ostensibly straightforward storyline welcome depth.

If Peter Watts can transform what is, at heart, fairly thin source material into something this engaging, then his standing as a top-tier hard-SF writer is surely unassailable.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Watts is a great writer, but the strategy for tackling this game novel was not the best. Crysis depicts visuals and action much better than Watts can convey them in writing, but where Watts shines is in the backstory and characterisaztions. Understanding the motivations of the characters and factions brings the whole story to life, and the backstory ties together what was basically a strong story confusingly told. Unfortunately about 90% of the book is descriptive of gameplay, which starts off fresh, but rapidly begins to feel recycled and recycled and recycled. I lost count of the number of rebars and I-beams I read about in the endless descriptions of destruction.

It's tough. I'm not sure how Watts could have done a better job. I just don't think first person game stories work well in the written medium. He has a good crack at it, and he does a much better job of conveying how it actually feels to be inside a nanosuit than the game does. But in the end, the 300 pages describing the game action as Peter experienced it in his play-through are not all that interesting. Read the book if you loved the game and want to understand what it was all about, but skip the action retelling and focus on the original writing that Peter added as glue.

[Michael Rosenbloom · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, for a videogame tie-in novel, for a videogame that didn't really have that compelling a story, it wasn't bad. It felt a little bit tied to the game's narrative, which did drag it down a little bit. The combat was probably the low point for me, but it worked well enough -- the world-building and the semi-Lovecraftian theorizing was what drew me in. Watts used the ability of books to flesh out inner thoughts and ideas to make the most of Crysis 2's plotholes, and actually created a nice, coherent, and at times gripping story. I had pretty low expectations coming into this, and was pleasantly surprised.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much much much better than I'd expect from a novelization. As a sci-fi novel, I really enjoyed it. A very dark and (mostly) internally consistent world and adventure. My biggest problem is that Alcatraz is always outclassed but always struggling onward. Alas, Alcatraz's power to restart time from a save point doesn't fit in the story, but perhaps someday a work of fiction will acknowledge this part of its own underlying fabric.

The world, nanosuit, aliens, and history are all interesting. In my brief check, the game doesn't live up to the novelization. ;)

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

ends up getting better as it goes but still pretty weak overall. peter watts is an extremely good author and he does his best but a smathering of interesting ideas cant obfuscate the mangled structure underneath everything that is the crysis 2 story. i mostly want to know if they handed him a plot outline (and if they did what that even looked like) or just had him play a build of the game before writing this.

[D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might just be the only writer who could convince me to pick up a game novelization and like it. He did a fantastic job of drawing out a character with a separate personality and history from the standard tabula rasa we've come to expect from first-person shooters. The narrator's dry, crackling sense of humor under grim circumstances kept me engrossed well past my subway stop.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew nothing about the video game on which this novel was based until after I read it, because I came to this book as a Watts fan, rather than as a fan or player of the game. Having read the Wikipedia entry on the game after finishing the book, I find that the plot is essentially identical--which perhaps explains why the action here seems rather more programmatic than I would expect of Watts, who is usually very innovative. On the other hand, that programmatic element does also kind of fit with one of Watts's prevalent themes, evident here (though I have no idea whether Watts brought this in, or it is in the game too): the problematic existence (or non-existence, more likely) of free will. Alcatraz, our protagonist, being literally reprogrammed by the tech suit he is wearing, is very much a Wattsian protagonist. Other key Watts interests, such as religion, environmental degradation, and the general shittiness of the human species, are also strongly in evidence here--either imported by Watts, or, perhaps, game elements that simply lent themselves well to his own literary interests. From the plot synopsis I read, I would also guess that Watts's treatment of the "alien" antagonists as mere tools rather than sentient creatures (he compares them to garden implements, or to a Roomba--machines designed simply for cleaning up messes--said mess in this instance being us). The plot itself is far less interesting than Watts's prose, both in the first-person narrative by Alcatraz (recounting his adventures in some sort of post-mortem debriefing), as well as samples of various other "records" pertaining to the event (including some quite amusing satire of advertising jargon applied to bodysuit weapons). There were some moments at which I wondered whether I had missed something, and indeed the game summary suggests that knowledge of the game would provide valuable contextualization (notably for the ending). Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable, is rather formulaic war against aliens yarn, with a couple of interesting variations on the well-worn theme. Watts fans will not, I think, find that this measures up to his own work, but it is worthwhile as a novel on its own merits.

[Dare Talvitie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video game novel adaptations and tie-ins - are there any good ones? I'm trying to find out.

I've never played Crysis II. Peter Watts is one of my favourite authors. Maybe that was the best possible angle to come at this book. Also, Peter Watts was probably the best possible person to write this novel.

Crysis: Legion is about nanotechnology, the nature of consciousness, free will, biology and all other things typical of Mr. Watts, wrapped in a relentless grunt's-eye view story of an alien invasion. You can see the bones of a (linear and silly?) first person shooter in the narrative, but the prose here is simply beautiful. The care and intelligence put into a story that might be really damn stupid blows your mind.

After reading the book, I feel I need to play Crysis II, just in case it's half as impressive as this novel. So, mission accomplished, I guess. Also, the question of whether there are good video game novel adaptations has received a definite answer. There is at least one.

[Anna Adler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A game review by Zero Punctuation got me thinking that Crysis 2 seems like a game I might enjoy, and boy was I right. I loved Crysis 2 so much that once I got my hands on it, I quickly lost count of how many times I replayed it. The soundtrack became my new writing music, and I even had fun action dreams about wearing the nanosuit and hunting Ceph. When I learned there’s a novel version of the game story, of course I had to read it.

My thoughts on Crysis: Legion? Pure candy. Absolute freaking delight from beginning to end. As much as I enjoyed Alcatraz as a silent protagonist in the game, it was great to be inside his head in the novel and learn his thoughts on the whole mess. I particularly loved all the science talk, and how the nanosuit was actually a heck of a lot creepier than how it appeared in the game. No sane person should ever put that thing on, but Alcatraz didn’t get a choice in the matter.

The writing is clear, smooth, and easy to read, and I breezed through the book. Now I need to check out other works by this author!

[Colby Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very, very good sci-fi book - especially for a video game adaptation. Better than Escalation by a long shot.

Also, I find a disturbing amount of reviewers have never played Crysis 2. *You need to play Crysis 2 before you can truly understand and appreciate this book!* Going into this expecting a generic sci-fi novel that holds your hand through the entire thing is not good, because you will come out of it underwhelmed. Important plot items and other such things are skipped over, because they are explained in the game and you will be expected to have finished the game before reading this. You will know none of the characters, locations or technology. Finishing Crysis 2 before picking up the book will improve your experience by 200x.

I also recommend playing Crysis 1 and 3 while you’re at it - the entire trilogy is a great series, and it’s a damn shame we’ll likely never get a Crysis 4.

[Falbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a fun to read, but it's crazy to be writing novels about video games. Luckily, I've never played or even seen the game, so for me the book had to stand alone, and it did. There are some really interesting ideas about a potential alien life form and Watts does a great job of looking at various facets of it's existence, but the ending kind of left me wondering about some inconsistencies and why they weren't examined in more detail- which was right about the same time I found out that it was a book based on a game, so that makes sense. I wish he'd taken a little more creative freedom and looked at some of his better ideas in a deeper fashion, but there must be all sorts of weird pressures from the publisher if you take on this kind of project. There's definitely some great Peter Watts to be read, so I'd skip this one and find one that feeds into his talents.

[Eric Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just recently(2020!) found this book in the dustbin of older video games I had stuffed into the closet....must have tossed it in there believing it was the game considering it is the exact box art on the cover! (Can’t stand when they do that lazy sh—)
Book is a decent, fun, quick read that can better any afternoon that you don’t want to play the 9 year old game.
In short, everyone remembers the game as a graphical benchmark that broke boundaries and still can be (Crysis 3) a demanding benching tool. The book is nowhere near as game-changing but fans of the game will appreciate it for what it is, a well written fluff piece that fans should own.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than any Crysis novelisation has any right to be. I'd recommend it to to the devoted Peter Watts fan as a curiosity.

A lot of stuff that made no effect on me in the game comes across much better here. The 'zombies' and the suit are easy to brush off as generic FPS cliches but in the novel they come across as very effective body horror - classic Watts.

There are problems though. Whenever you start to think that this might be more than just a video-game novelisation you'll have to sit through extended 'action sequence' segments which just feel like he's narrating someone playing a forgotten early 2010s console shooter.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was trying to think what exactly was wrong with this Peter Watts book--then I discovered that it was a novelization of a video game, and all was explained. It had interesting science and tech--a kind of combo of Rift stuff and Echopraxia stuff. But the characters were hard to grab onto and the plot was endless military action scenes. It was as if John Ringo was on speed. 

[Lubos Elexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Už viem, prečo som poslednú knihu založenú na počítačovej hre nedočítal...a prečo sa ich väčšinou neoplatí čítať... pre toto... Rozmýšľam, či prišiel prvý dialóg po 50, či až po 100 stranách. V každom prípade to boli nudné opisy a dej ako z filmového pásu, v ktorom každé druhé okienko chýba. Kebyže som pred časom Crysis nehral, tak ani neviem, o čom tam točia. Škoda peňazí.

[Jeremiah Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book. The main character, Alcatraz, is a very believable written rendition of a Marine - this is coming from one in real life. Peter Watts is excellent at giving the game’s silent protagonist an internal monologue that’s equal parts funny, serious, and horrifying. Come for the alien killing, stay for the meditations on transhumanism.

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bylo to takové .. jalové. "Plecháč", (což je mimochodem dost podivná přezdívka pro biologickou entitu) prostě jen pobíhá sem a tam bez nějakého smyslu, nebou souvislosti s předchozím dějem a pak .. je prostě konec. Škoda.

[Spinwallah · Rating 3 out of 5]

well heres the thing, I read it cause ive read all mr watts other books and fancied squaring the circle. I don't play videogames and know nothing of crysis. well it was ok, better than id thought and now I quite fancy playing the game:)

[Björn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Som en actionfilm från 80-talet; högt tempo, lagom lite handling och det mesta går sönder. Hade den inte varit skriven av Peter Watts så hade jag aldrig läst boken. Kan inte påstå att jag ångrar beslutet.

[Bambamar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful, awful book.

[Jose Sanz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Managed to make an interesting book from a probably bland game.

[Brian Gaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK maybe a 3+ but I upped it to a 4 because it is the best adaption of a computer game ever done!

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a few years ago and really enjoyed it..it was a little step outside the usual box.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome thought provoking take on the game setting. Also, a fun read.