Yes it’s list time again.

I am a constant reader and have been since high school. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t reading at least one book. It’s terribly nerdy I know and on the great pyramid of geekness I probably slot in only a few levels above cosplayers and fuzzies (no disrespect intended my fancy dress obsessed and anthropomorphic animal fantasising cousins). But if one of my hobbies or interests was ever on the chopping block, I’d give up gaming before I gave up reading for pleasure.

Naturally I'm at a loss to explain why books aren't mined as a resource for gaming ideas as much as movies and comics clearly are. There have been so many times when I'm reading a book that I have thought to myself, ‘I could play this, this could translate into a brilliant game world’. So I’ve compiled a rather list of ten books that I think could make for some good games. This list was originally going as far as twenty five but I decidedly to wittle it down to books with more recent releases.

Books turned into games aren’t new of course, Dune and Enders Game have both been made into games and more recently Polish fantasy series the Witcher has become a very successful PC game. But it definitely seems like an underused resource and as we seem to almost constantly have the same themes and ideas cropping up in games all the time, perhaps developers should be looking else where.

I’ve tried to list books that might not be familiar or obvious choices but I heartily recommend all these titles for plain old reading as well.

Legend

David Gemmell

The first and arguably best book by heroic fantasy master David Gemmell and one of my favourite books of all time, Legend is perfect fodder for a game. Gemmell didn’t much like most fantasy and left magical elements in his stories in the background and focused on the rough, violent and flawed characters that were his heroes. If Guy Ritchie wrote fantasy instead of made crime movies they would be pretty similar to the works of David Gemmell.

Legend tells the story of a battle at a city called Dros Delnoch. Located in a narrow pass and protected by six huge walls, Dros Delnoch is the final defence of the European like Drenai nations against the invading forces of the Nadir, Mongol like tribes of warriors united under a war chief. There are plenty of memorable heroes and characters on both sides of the battle but the central character is undoubtedly Druss the Legend.

Imagine Santa Claus, with the build of a pro wrestler, dressed in black armour and wielding a gigantic double headed battleaxe. That gives you an idea of the image of Druss. He's an iconic character that leaps of the page, axe in hand and lodges in your imagination for life. The structure of the battle, the outnumbered Drenai forces holding back the Nadir as long as they can at each wall before falling back to the next wall, just seems a natural fit for a third person action game. Coop play allowing friends to take the role of the other heroes of the Dros would be sweet gravy. Druss with his grandfatherly manner and knack for separating limbs from bodies could easily become a video game character icon.

Old Mans War

John Scalzi

The first of four books, Old Mans War has one of the best opening lines of any book I’ve ever read:

I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.

Come on, tell me you wouldn’t want to read the rest of this book after reading that line. I’ve convinced almost all my less geeky friends to read Old Man’s War and all have raved about it and with good reason. Scalzi is a master of the written word and his books are both action packed and laugh out loud funny. Not to mention the depth and diversity of his characters, I'm not sure if you've noticed but the fast majority of our game characters seem to fall into a particular age bracket (not to mention race and gender), would not be interesting to play a game as a character pushing eighty, better yet go to war against aliens as a character pushing eighty? Doesn't that intrigue you?

While translating the humour and charm of Scalzi's books into a game might be a bit challenging it’s a pretty amazing universe he's created full of interesting technology and gadgets. In fact it’s not really until you read some good science fiction that you realise how short changed we gamers are when it comes to good science fiction in games. In your average game the aliens usually boil down to funny looking people and the weapons to funny looking guns that shoot colours instead of bullets. Star Wars in other words. The weapons in Old Mans War are the type of weapons you can actually picture the human race of the future using to fight alien menaces.

Without giving too much away the general plot revolves around humanities attempts to expand and colonise other planets. Unfortunately the various other alien races around the universe have similar expansionist agenda and even worse are the aliens who have discovered that humans are delicious. There are numerous alien races that treat humans like cattle to be butchered, then there’s the Corfu, bug like aliens that love us and want to help us baptise our colony planets, with our blood. Spectacular space battles, vicious aliens, amazing gadgets. Are these not things we want in our games?

Illium

Dan Simmons

Many, many authors use the Trojan war as a setting, the aforementioned David Gemmell was two thirds of the way through an epic retelling of the Trojan war story when he died of a heart attack, where his wife found him face down on his keyboard (I hope to go the same way) but few authors have taken as unique a take on history’s most famous battle as Dan Simmons.

Let me attempt to explain as best I can. Firstly we have the Trojan War with all the heroes of legend playing out events very close to how they transpire in Homer’s poem the Illiad, we also have a scholar from the twentieth century, who has been recreated from his DNA by the Greek gods and is watching proceedings to report back to them as to whether or not they are proceeding as they should. Greek gods incidentally who actually live far in the future on Mars as super evolved humans travelling through time and space through wormholes. The Greek gods step in and use their advanced skills in quantum physics and nanotechnology to give the ancient Greek and Trojan warriors the super human abilities required to sway the battle. Meanwhile we have a race of sentient robots who explore the outer planets of the solar system and are alarmed by all the weirdness that seems to be occurring around Mars (base of the Greek Gods) and send two delegates to investigate. Two little robots who absolutely beat the hell out C3P0 and R2D2 to be the best robot duo of all time.

Then we have the ‘regular’ humans on earth (in the future) who are automatically resurrected whenever they die through an orbiting automated cloning facility that they aren’t even aware off and spend all their time having grand parties and lots of sex and not doing much else. Their illiterate utopia sustained by a technology they don’t know about. Also, for reasons I won’t even begin to explain, Odysseus is hanging around on this future earth along with dinosaurs and a giant brain that feeds on evil.

So, unless you’re fixated on the sex and partying utopia where you never die part, you’re probably wondering how the hell I could imagine this would make a good game, or how the hell its even possible to imagine that whole scenario full stop. Well it just so happens that there are moments in these books when all these forces come together, ancient Greek heroes allied with robot soldiers fighting super powered gods. It’s the kind of battle it takes a special kind of imagination to even conceive off. But when I read about a probability field protected Achilles hacking at a giant Zeus while robots with lazers back him up all I can think is ‘damn I wish I could play this as a game’.

Court of the Air

Stephen Hunt

Much like the above mentioned Illium the steampunk epic Court of the Air begs a mention by virtue of the staggering scope of its battles and wild characters. The story is set in the fictional nation of Jackals, a version of England set millennia after an ice age has pushed civilisation back to the stone age. In the novel mankind has clawed its way back to the Victorian, or possibly Georgian, era but things are… a little different from what they were.

For a start there’s a fell mist to the north of Jackals and anyone exposed to it dies or mutates, either into a misshapen monster or someone with super human abilities. The monsters are thrown in a prison and the super humans are put in the army after being affixed with torque collars treated with spells that will explode if they misbehave. It’s like having the British Royal Guard made up of the X-men.  Then there’s the Steam Men, a race of robots who have their own civilisation, a government controlled organisation of wizards who need to imbue a drug constantly to use the abilities they draw from the earth, a race of crab people and the Court of the Air themselves, the government organisation responsible for spying and assassinations who live in zeppelins above the clouds and monitor everything with heavily drugged ‘watchers’ who never sleep.

There’s really too much to go into, but in brief it’s about two orphans, a girl with ‘cogs in her blood’ (genetic nanotechnology it seems) and a boy who was exposed to the fell mist but has shown no signs of mutating. The two become instrumental in fighting back a plot against Jackals by the communist forces arrayed against it who are in fact being manipulated by demons, yes there's also demons. In reviews it’s been described as ‘Charles Dickens meets Bladerunner’ and that’s a pretty fair description. Plus it’s just the first book in a planned six book series of self contained stories in the same universe.

Steampunk has had a fairer shake in video games than it has had in most other mediums and the characters and settings of Court of the Air and the other Jackelian novels would roll into a cracking RPG game, a real time strategy game, adventure game hell there are dozens of options. I can just imagine choosing my class for a Jackelian MMO, Steam Man, Witch Finder, Guardsman. There’s gaming gold to be found there.

The Way of Shadows

Brent Weeks

So there’s a good chance you played Assassin’s Creed right? Enjoyed it? Well The Way of Shadows is like Assassin’s Creed on speed. The three book Night Angel series, of which Way of Shadows is the first, tells the story of Azoth, a street urchin trying to scratch by a living as part of a thieving guild with other street kids. He catches the attention of the infamous Durzo Blint, a Wetboy, magical assassins, and becomes his apprentice. I’ll try not to go into spoilers because its one of those stories spoilers would just ruin but eventually Azoth, who changes his name to Kylar Stern, receives the ka’kakari, a symbiotic sentient magical force that bonds with him allowing him all sorts of powers as long as he continues to feed it his victim’s magical powers.

The whole time I read about the adventures of Azoth/Kylar across all three books I could always see Altair in the corner of my eye. Obviously the book covers also bare more than a passing likeness to Altair as well. But the book would translate so well into a third person adventure game (maybe by Ubisoft?), especially when you read about each of the powers that Kylar learns to use as his ability with the Ka'kakari grows, like turning invisible, or running at insane speeds and leaping huge distances, tell me that doesn't sound like unlockable abilities in an action game. The book follows Azoth as he tries to balance his responsibilities to his master and as a Wetboy against the friends he makes growing up. Things don’t go super well and the following two books follow Kylar as he tries increasingly to do something about the seriously effed up world that has come about as the result of his actions. Kylar is exactly the type of nuanced and conflicted character that makes for a great game character and for good measure he’s a super powered bad ass with powers that improve and evolve over time.

Temeraire (or His Majesties Dragon)

Naomi Novik

Okay, so we had a dragon flight game, it was called Lair, it wasn’t very good. In fact it was so not very good that the developer sent out pretty press packs explaining (begging) reviewers to analyse the game from a different angle. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try again right? We just need to get back on the horse, or dragon, and give it another shot. We just need the right source material. In her best selling debut Temeraire Naomi Novik provides the right source material.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, except in this case dragons are common place and are even used extensively in warfare, a British Naval Officer named Will Laurence is involved in a raid on a French vessel. After capturing the ship they discover an egg in the cargo hold that hatches to reveal a dragon. The animal, who is able to speak almost immediately, bonds itself to Will and he finds himself reluctantly taken from his honourable role as Royal Navy Officer and foisted into the far less honourable role of an Aviator.

The dragons in Temeraire come in all shapes and sizes from small messenger dragons to huge battle dragons that actually have a crew trained to climb around the harnesses attached to the dragon in battle. Several of the dragons have the ability to spit flames or acid as an offensive power as well. We deserve a cool dragon fighting game, we really do and one complete with a crew of aviators to command as you steer your dragon, cool doesn't do the idea justice. Using Temeraire as a basis for a game with its Napoleonic setting complete with gunpowder warfare would be perfect.

Guards Guards

Terry Pratchett

Games used to be funny, really funny, in fact the best games back in the day all seemed to have comedic elements. I’m not going to go into a list within a list but anyone over the age of twenty five should know what I’m talking about… Guybrush Threepwood, he he. Of late games have been more about satisfying our cravings for violence or scaring us stupid or both. One game that made more than a decent attempt at tickling my funny bone lately was Overlord, a great but flawed third person adventure game that had you commanding a band of goblins in a faux fantasy setting. There are definite echoes of the the Discworld universe in Overlord and no surprise then that the scribe for Overlord was Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of legendary Discworld creator Terry Pratchett.

A few games based on the Discworld series have been released all ready, PC released point and click adventures featuring Rincewind, the worlds worst wizard who knows only one spell. My personal favourite set of Discworld characters were always the City Watch and given how often the cross over into other Discworld books I imagine they’re probably Terry Pratchett’s favourite as well. Led by Sam Vimes, sort of a drunk surly Sherlock Holmes, the watch is made up of seriously odd and disturbed members who are charged with fighting crime in Ankh Morpork, a city that basically runs on crime. The Watch have been the stars of nine Discworld books (including ‘Where’s my Cow?’) so far and have created something of a subgenre for themselves the fantasy/comedy/police procedural.  You’ve got Watchmen like Captain Carrot basically a walking action figure who has a too literal interpretation of the law, on his first day he arrests the leader of the thieves guild, Constable Nobb’s who has to carry a certificate to prove he’s human and his best made Constable Colon, who, as his namesake, is constantly full of shit. That’s just the human watchmen as well (although legally Carrot is a six foot five dwarf) there are werewolves, trolls, dwarves, gargoyles, vampires, golems, gnomes, just to name a few, who make up the City Watch in Ankh Morpork. An adventure game starring these characters and featuring equal parts action and police work is a game I would buy on its day of release.

Orcs

Stan Nicholls

Squad based games are nothing new with Ubisoft cornering the market with Rainbow 6 and Ghost Recon. But they almost always focus on para military teams. How about a squad based game with a fantasy setting, or better yet how about a squad based game with a fantasy setting playing as the bad guys? Best of all there’s all ready an excellent piece of source material in Stan Nicholls Orcs series.

Running over three books the series follows the violent and elite unit of Orcs known as the Wolverine’s and their leader Stryke. Like many other of the ‘ancient races’ the Wolverines are under the control of Jennesta, an extremely nasty Queen, whose currently at war with the ‘new race’ of humans who have recently appeared through some magical portal. After recovering an ancient artefact for Jennesta Stryke discovers she intends to kill his whole unit when they return and goes on the run. Over the course of the novels the Orcs try and recover four other artefacts called Instrumentalities of which the first is only a part. The world of Maras Dantia that Stryke and friends occupy is well realised with lots of classic fantasy tropes and ideas but with a heavy focus on action and violence. It’s like the Lord of the Rings meets The Dirty Dozen.

Lets be honest, most of the best games let you dally with the dark side, Tie Fighter was loads better than X-Wing and playing as the Predator in AvP was much better than being a crappy marine. The Orcs world takes these poor saps out from under the boot heel of some handsome adventurer/ranger/king in hiding and puts them on centre stage in all their brutish, angry, violent glory.

Amtrak Wars

Patrick Tilley

The Amtrak Wars is a series of six novels I read almost twenty years ago now but were so vivid and exciting they easily stand out as one of the best science fiction series of all time for me. The novels are set in the US centuries after a nuclear war has eradicated most of the world. There are three factions angling for the scraps of land that are left. There’s the Amtrak Federation, a society created by people who survived the war in underground bunkers. They’re ruled over by the First Family and every element of culture is strictly controlled, even procreation, every woman in the Amtrak Federation is artificially inseminated from the sperm of the President. Basically the Amtrak Federation is an army and everyone is trained from birth to work in some capacity to fight against the Mutes. The Mutes are the people on the surface who survived and have developed into a society not dissimilar to Native American tribes.

The Mutes usually have three fingers and a thumb, odd lumps in their skulls and skin pigment that has become a natural camouflage although every once in a while a ‘clean skin’ is born who looks like a normal human. Some mutes are born with powerful abilities, such as controlling the weather or mind reading and mind control, which helps them fight back against the advanced technology of the Amtrak Federation. Lastly there’s the Iron Masters, or the Nation of Ne-issan, Japanese boat people who have recreated feudal period Japan on the west coast of the US and trade with the Mutes. That’s just the tip of the iceberg as well, there are so many factions within factions and characters coming and going from the series that it’ll make your head spin.

The author goes into a lot of detail in the way his world works and functions right down to the minutiae of the technology used by the Amtrak Federation. So much so that half way through the series a limited edition illustrated guide to the Amtrak Wars called Dark Visions was released, copies of which now run up to $150 second hand (and yes I have one because I am a huge nerd). The plot focuses on Steve Brickman, a pilot with the Amtrak Federation who is captured by the Mutes on his first mission and discovers that a lot of his ideas about the enemy is pure propaganda concocted by the First Family. If you do decide to read this series (and you should) be prepared for the fact that it ends in a shocking manner. No spoilers, but Patrick Tilley has frequently mentioned in interviews that he would like to return to the world of the Amtrak Wars and finally wrap things up, but now that he’s pushing 80 it seems unlikely.

So, perfect fertile territory for a game to continue the story. It’s not hard to imagine a real time strategy or an adventure game based around or following the events of The Amtrak Wars. We’ve got an original setting, we’ve got clear cut powers and abilities on both sides, we’ve got detailed information on geography, technology, appearance. Heck the Amtrak Wars is made for a game of some description.

Area 7

Matthew Reilly

Last but certainly not least is Australian author Matthew Reilly and his book Area 7. If you're familiar with his novels you won't be surprised to see his name on the list, he is to writers what Michel Bay is to directors and his novels are wall to wall action sequences, heavy on the explosions and gadgets and light on the character development. While he gets criticised for this exact reason by some, he's generated a huge fan base for the exact reasons he's criticised and his books are so fast paced it's hard to put them down. Area 7 in particular is the type of rollicking action sequence most blockbuster movies wish they could be. You've got two special forces teams locking horns at a secret air force base, you've got serial killers running loose, man eating komodo dragons, crazy air force generals and the president being held hostage, not to mention an elaborate plot to blow the whole world up with a nuclear fail safe device.

If you enjoy Call of Duty or any of the Tom Clancy games you will fall hopelessly in love with characters like Mother and Scarecrow in the Reilly books. The first time you read about the Scarecrow's Maghook gun you'll be subconsciously mapping it to your controller the way I was. I only picked Area 7as its the one I most recently read but as I said before, any of Matthew Reilly's books are made for game land, Ice Station with its multinational arctic conflict, Seven Ancient Wonders with its globe trotting Uncharted style adventuring, Hell Island and its gorilla super soldiers. If you like games you'll love Matthew Reilly.

So that’s my quick and dirty list of books I think would make for good games. Clearly my tastes run to genre fiction but if you had anything you thought would be worth a mention please make your own suggestions at the official discussion on our forums.