EVE-Mag.com

Empyrean Age, the Novel: A Review

Published on 14. Sep, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss, Tags: Reviews

by Sam Guss …

Last month I attended GenCon, the best four days in gaming convention in Indianapolis. While I was there, I stopped by the CCP booth on a couple of occasions and on one of those, bought my copy of Eve: Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales. He was even nice enough to sign it for me.

Now, I am an avid reader anyway, especially in the speculative fiction genre (which includes but not limited to science fiction, fantasy, apocalypse, horror and related genres) so getting my hands on a copy of this book was important to me for a variety of reasons; not the least of which being a fan of Eve. Books tied to games though, I have to admit usually fall pretty short of my attention span and in many cases expectations as a reader. I am happy to say, not so with this book.

As you know, the Empyrean Age in Eve brought us Faction Warfare, which to sum up in a sentence is universe-wide conflict between the four main races of Eve: the Caldari, Minmatar, Gallente and the Ammar. In news on the Eve site and in-game we’ve followed events for months before, during and after the Empyrean Age expansion and even caught glimpses of it in the Eve TV commercials and Empyrean Age trailers. They hinted at troubles and events that shook the various races and in the end brought upon all this great conflict we are enjoying now in-game.

The book, is the first of a trilogy planned and captures a snapshot of time in New Eden when things come to a head in the various governments of Eve and lead everyone into conflict: Caldari vs. Gallante; Minmatar vs. Ammar. It follows some key players in these conflicts from each of the races standpoints and various other characters that play a part in it as well. For the first time, in this book you will see the how and why of Alexander’s collision into the station; the birth of the doomsday device; the riots in Caldari space; the Thukker and Republic involvement about threatening the CONCORD station. Each of these are just snapshots you have seen in the game, come to life with Tony’s prose and story telling.

No doubt about it either, Tony is a great story teller who keeps the reader enthralled as you turn the pages, jumping effortlessly from character to character spanning hundreds of systems – much as you do while jump cloning in the game. The hard part about a book based on a game is finding the balance that keeps game mechanics “real” to the gamer and storyline for every reader – both gamer and non-gamer. Tony excels at this and as a fan of Eve the game, felt right at home with the mechanics in the book, the explanations of “how” and “why” something worked the way they did. Meanwhile as a reader, I appreciated that the mechanics didn’t get in the way of the story and I am fairly positive that even without my knowledge of the game, I would have had no trouble following along with the story.

The book also did another thing for me in a wondrous way: it brought home my place in the Eve universe as a capsular and the dangers that abound in our universe, both seen and unseen. Thanks to Tony for bringing such a great work of fiction to us and other readers. If, you haven’t picked up his book, be sure to stop by the Eve online store and order your copy today. It truly is a great read and I would recommend it to not just fans of Eve, but fans of science fiction in general as well.