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Trooper - The Quartz Massacre
Rogue Trooper -
The Quartz Massacre
Rebecca
Levene
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What to Expect:
The book of the game...
Review by Richmond
Clements
6
April 06
I’ve been
trying to put my finger on what it is about this book, and its predecessor Dredd
Vs Death that doesn’t do it for me. I think it is that these books suffer
from the same problem as movies that are adapted from games. At the end of the
day, there isn’t enough meat in a game, even one with a strong story, like
this one seems to have, to fill a book.
This is not to
say that Levene does not make a good go of it. The strongest narrative strand
in the book is one I’m sure will not appear in the game. The novel starts
with the infamous Quartz Zone massacre, and there we are introduced to a young
recruit, newly joined to the Kazan Legion. Throughout the book, Levene returns
to this character, and his arc, as he gradually becomes a soldier and accepts
who he is, is easily the best thing in the book. Though it is also part and parcel
with one of the more annoying things: Nort helmets are described repeatedly as
‘insect like’. Yes, that they may be, but a bit more judicious editing
might have figured out they’d been described as such ten or more times already,
and perhaps a different description might be needed.
As I mentioned,
the story begins with the massacre, or rather just before it, as we’re given
a potted history of the Genetic Infantry. It’s well enough written, but
nothing that we haven’t read before, covering as it does ground already
travelled in ‘Milli-Com Memories’.
This is the biggest
problem with the book. The story is basically a retelling of the first episodes
of Rogue Trooper, but different. There are characters here that are out of place,
in that they didn’t turn up this early in the Rogue story: like Venus Bluegenes
or Bland and Brass. The nurse Sister Sledge even turns up, at one point rather
pointlessly to give Rogue a med pack and then wander off again. I’m guessing
this is because some, if not all of these characters are in the game, so they
have to appear here. But by doing this, the book falls between two stools. On
the one hand, it’s not going to appeal to the casual gamer who enjoyed the
game, as they will know the story because they’ve already played it. On
the other, fans of the comic will be irritated or annoyed by the changes to the
continuity.
Nice touches abound
though. Bagman can manufacture weapons from any battlefield scrap Rogue can feed
him, with nicely explains why he always has enough ammo.
Would I recommend
this book? On balance… probably. If you read and enjoyed Rennie’s
DvsD adaptation, then you will most likely be happy with this too, as in both
cases, the writers do their best with the limited material they have to work with.
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