This article was taken from the August 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
What's a gamer to do when those hours at the computer give you RSI? Here's a novel idea: fiction based on video games.
"Novelisations can allow games to live again," says Miyuki Miyabe, the 51-year-old Japanese fantasy-book author whose English-language novelisation of PlayStation classic Ico is due next month. The game's plot, in which the titular horned boy escapes a castle fortress with the queen's daughter, so inspired Miyabe that she created a novel for it. Aware of Ico's cult status, she "made sure not to add anything that would contradict even the smallest details of the game". Other authors take different routes, by making up characters and histories. Both approaches can work, says Miyabe: "I'm sure there are times when it's good to make some drastic changes." And, with sales of the Halo series of books now in their millions, these novels are, if nothing else, putting paid to the myth that gamers don't read.
Click through our gallery to see games and their fictional formats.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
