Either Wired News has a very high tolerance
for crappy novels or books based on video games are not as universally horrible as movies based on games. We're not
sure which, but our gut tells us that the bar has been lowered.
Writes Clive Thompson, "... I was surprised how engrossed I became in some of these books" despite the indication that some of them had been "hacked out in a single weekend."
We suspect that appetite for such pulp is directly related to the extent to which one has fallen in love with the game that serves as the novel's subject. Or, to put it more cynically, perhaps game playing deadens literary taste.
Reader-reviewer comments on Amazon provide anecdotal support for both theories. Writes one reader: "I've gone on record in the past of having disliked the first book in this series. I take it back. After having played the original Halo through to the end more than 10 times now, I now find these books irresistable." Q.E.D.
