Former SAS op Chris Ryan handling Medal of Honor prequel novel

EA has tapped British author Chris Ryan to write a prequel novel to Medal of Honor, which will use in-game missions as the basis for "an authentic and respectful account of an elite soldier fighting in Afghanistan." Ryan is the author two bestselling novels, in addition to The One That Got Away, a narrative account of his time as a Special Forces operative on the Bravo Two Zero patrol in Iraq. Presumably he'll use both his combat experience and storytelling prowess to do the game franchise right. Hopefully his first line will be better than the one we came up with: "They loaded their guns carefully, knowing that soon, they'd be shooting a lot of people."

The creatively named Medal of Honor: The Book will be offered as a bonus with preorders of the game from UK retailer HMV, but we're not sure if it will be available for sale elsewhere -- we've contacted EA for comment and will update if we hear more. We sure hope it sees print in the US, if only to find out what a former British operative thinks of the Medal of Honor, a uniquely American military decoration.