EVE: The Empyrean Age - Tony Gonzales

Personally, I'm not really one for fan fiction. I feel this way for the same reason that I don't normally like games based on film licenses - they are normally lazy, amateurish affairs that require a knowledge and loyalty to the thing it's based on in order for you to like it.

So I started reading this with some trepidation. I was expecting it to be all plasma, explosions, and cheesy heroics. I was expecting impenetrable references to the EVE universe that only residents of the game would understand. As a fan of Phildickian Sci-Fi, where the escapism is based in the oddball minds of the characters and the alternate realities they inhabit, EVE belongs to a genre that wouldn't normally interest me (as a book, that is - I'm quite enjoying the game).

However, this surprised me. Yes, there are battles, and yes, there are numerous mentions of the word 'plasma', along with other staples of the space opera novel; but these instances fit into a well balanced and thoughtfully considered political context. Make no mistake, this is a book about war - but it's more about the build up, the negotiation, the diplomacy, and the history. It builds quite nicely to a rolling, realistically dramatic peak and then concludes quite satisfyingly in the same way you might expect from a real diplomatic situation. It's like Vietnam in space.

This has been done before, of course - my favourite example being The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974) - but while The Forever War was making a very strong political statement, EVE is an altogether more sedate, more thoughtful book on a grand scale. The story of Tibus Heth, a miner turned revolutionary turned leader, is an excellent example of how to develop what could have been a very one dimensional character. Essentially an evil man, you can find yourself sympathising and occasionally even rooting for him. Nothing is simple here, and everything feels like it has realistic roots.

And this all makes perfect sense, when you play the game. As an MMO, EVE is not so much a game as a mirror of our own society - with the focus firmly on economy, cooperation, business, and the conflict that emerges as a result. So for me, this book represents a far more desirable way of continuing a universe created by another medium - to capture the feel of the game, rather that make a thousand obscure references. It also did something rather surprising too, by taking a game mechanic designed as a throwaway explanation for how people who get blown up can come back to life and looking in depth at how this would affect us in reality.

Cloning - the issue in question - is explored in depth, asking questions about whether an exact copy of yourself is really you, or if a change of body is a change of person. In the case of this book, this is illustrated beautifully with the death of a tyrant, waking up in a new body with no memory - and how he gradually comes to hate who he previously was. There are hypothetical issues too, such as the class gap between those that have become immortal through cloning, and those who haven't.

It has its share of problems, of course. The writing can be a little rough around the edges, and it can take a while to really get going. Certain characters (such as The Broker) are so improbably powerful that you wonder just why they don't run the whole universe. But when you place qualms like these up against the thoughtful exploration of several completely different and far more realistic characters, it can be forgiven.

So I suppose was wrong to assume it would be some hokey sci-fi rubbish. It's a solid book in its own right, and Tony Gonzales does a good job of keeping the EVE brand alive as a more mature MMO alternative. Well worth a read.