Wot I Read ' X-COM UFO Defense, A Novel

News · 11-09-12, 08:30 AM

Somehow, I wasn't aware that there was an official novelisation of 1993 strategy/everything game X-COM until just last month. Given my decades-long fixation with X-COM, this was rather like discovering that there was a book about my mum that had passed me by completely.

Diane Duane's slim text X-COM: UFO Defense ' A Novel, published in 1996 by game guide firm Prima, has long been out of print (and never made it to e-print), so despite long scouring of fansites my only option was to explore the secondhand market, which in general wanted over Â£20 for this 250-page paperback. One joker's even asking Â£500 for it. Fortunately, a lucky eBay bid got it to me for a mere Â£11, and so it is that I now own this fascinating oddity: a novelisation of a strategy game, written by an author with a long history of penning books based on existent sci-fi franchises. Could it truly recreate the tension and horror of X-COM? The thoughtful trauma of the minute-to-minute decisions and the long game of base-building and troop-nurturing?
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11-09-12, 08:30 AM	#1
News Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 34,597	Wot I Read ' X-COM UFO Defense, A Novel Somehow, I wasn't aware that there was an official novelisation of 1993 strategy/everything game X-COM until just last month. Given my decades-long fixation with X-COM, this was rather like discovering that there was a book about my mum that had passed me by completely. Diane Duane's slim text X-COM: UFO Defense ' A Novel, published in 1996 by game guide firm Prima, has long been out of print (and never made it to e-print), so despite long scouring of fansites my only option was to explore the secondhand market, which in general wanted over Â£20 for this 250-page paperback. One joker's even asking Â£500 for it. Fortunately, a lucky eBay bid got it to me for a mere Â£11, and so it is that I now own this fascinating oddity: a novelisation of a strategy game, written by an author with a long history of penning books based on existent sci-fi franchises. Could it truly recreate the tension and horror of X-COM? The thoughtful trauma of the minute-to-minute decisions and the long game of base-building and troop-nurturing? (moreâ?¦) More...