Customer Reviews

Mutant Chronicles

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ya know, there must be a good reason why people are not reviewing this book.

The new trailer for the movie alone was more interesting than this whole novel. Sorry Matt Forbeck, but you obviously make a better games designer than a writer. I really, really wanted to like this novel - especially after seeing the movie trailor some months ago.

Basically it is this: A dark future where Earth looks basically like a sci-fi-ish WWI filled with trench soldiers and muties. A throw in some bible thumper boredom fest characters. By chapter #3, I was dying for something to happen, and it dragged on.

I truly hope the movie is better than this. And that Philip Eisner's screenplay is better written, and that Simon Hunter's directing job is top-notch. Some movies come off better than the books.

But that is far and few.

Perhaps if this book had a better action/adventure writer it would have been way better. Forbeck has no details of what his world, his characters, nor their weapons, which makes a dull and colorless read.

I'm hoping with solid actors like Ron Pearlman, Thomas Jane, and John Malcovich this cool looking movie will be a solid B-movie-like success story. Unfortunately, the book is flat.

Bear with me, I'm going to give you an explanation as to why I'm going to give this novel the rating that it got. Back in the early seventies I went to a local flea market and local used book legend Doug Smith had a small box of pulps for sale for twenty dollars. What a deal, I bought the pulps and at home I really went through them, and they had some real classics there. "Super Science Stories", "Planet Stories", "Marvel Tales", "Startling Stories", "Thrilling Wonder Stories", and even an issue of the only flying saucer pulp in existence "Flying Saucers From Other Worlds".

And the authors included Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury, Frank Belknap Long, Jack Vance, Phillip José Farmer, etc. I was able to take some trips to some wonderful planets. There were wonders printed there, even if some of those wonders were borderline horror stories. Unfortunately, the science fiction short form starting in the late sixties and continuing until now has mostly become so full of themselves that a banal pedestrian dullness has ossified them. This may be why one of the reasons why video games and movies/tv shows are so popular. They are still not afraid to take an impossible idea and try to make it work.

"Mutant Chronicles" is a novelization of a movie script that was based on a game in which some very impossible, and impractical monsters (mutants) have erupted from someplace in the inner planet, and are now trying to destroy Dark Eden (Earth), not that people ain't doing a bad job of doing this themselves.

I've never played the game and can only go with both the movie and its novelization, both of which I liked. Here the novel, as did the movie, starts out in the middle of a corporate battle as Bauhaus Captain Nathan Rooker and his sergeant Mitch Hunter are just trying to keep their soldiers alive in a battle with Capital forces during the Third Corporate War. While watching the movie you get the impression that this is all taking place during an alternate reality World War I, with trenches, and uniforms, but also with some form of airships, spaceships, and tanks. In reality, what is made clear in the book, and not the movie, is that this is the future and mankind's civilization has cyclically collapsed and is now again being rebuilt. Rooker and Hunter are then caught in a vice and find themselves going into a trench and finding the corpses of both Bauhaus and Capitol forces, and both have been horribly torn apart. During this event Rooker and Hunter's forces are attacked by Capitol soldiers, and both sides find themselves, in the novelization as in the movie, being attacked by the mutants who are damn near unstoppable and nearly superhuman.

In this new battle, the Bauhaus and the Capitals are separated, and then Rooker is overrun giving cover to Hunter and his men as they make a break for a transport airship.

Everything starts going to Hell then, the cities are being overrun, the corporate states are starting to collapse, and those that can are evacuating the planet. During this chaos Brother Samuel of the Brotherhood puts together a squad of soldiers that will go into the heart of the Dark Symmetry's invasion and destroy the machine that is creating the monsters. Yes, this is war novel in the manner of "The Dirty Dozen/The Magnificent Seven" in which a bunch of misfits from all four corporate nations and the Brotherhood must go on a suicide mission for the greater good.

If you've seen the movie then a lot of what happens during the movie is here, but there are some differences. First of all, the book is gorier than the movie, although the movie may be more violent, and the movie's action scenes are a little more thrilling. On the other hand, there is more character and scene development in the novelization than there is in the movie, although most of the main characters still rely more on "types" than being fully developed characters. Still, a good example of how Forbeck understands his job as a novelist is by often giving minor characters names and quick backstories that help flesh out this story. There are also scenes that are either expanded on in the novelization or are not included in the movie itself.

People who are purists for the game, like those who play "Resident Evil" or "Doom" will hate this. So be it. One movie or book can't do it all. I've never played the game, and probably never will, so, in the end, the reason that I liked this book (and movie), is that it brought back memories of my youth when I would read stories about far away places, dangerous situations, tragically doomed heroes, and impossible monsters. I don't like all of these types of movies and books, but this time, this one struck just the right notes at just the right time for me. Others will call this novelization clichéd and a time-waster. As for me, let's just call it a personal prejudice. Still, if you liked the movie, you will probably like this fast-paced pulp companion piece.

I hoped this book would be interesting like the warhammer 40,000 series but it isn't. Calling the characters cardboard like would be a compliment. And the plot explains nothing. Skip it

Matt Forbeck know MC's universe like no one, and his love for this universe show through all the pages of this work.
If in the movie there are only necromutants, Matt puts in this novel all the creatures that we know from MC's universe, and much more, creating a sort of continuity with the background known by the fans that in the film it misses!

I read Mutant Chronicles because I have not been able to see the movie yet. I'm still hoping it will be released in the US. In the mean time, this book was a great, descriptive read, to hold me over until I can see the story on the big screen. My understanding is that there are parts of the book that are taken directly from the RPG, but will not be in the film. That's okay with me. Forbeck does a great job describing scenes and the motivations behind the main characters. I've seen a few captured pics from the film online, and can tell immediately what part of the story they are from. There is a great deal of swearing throughout the book, as well as graphic descriptions of violence. If you're familiar with Mutant Chronicles at all, I'm guessing this does not come as a surprise to you.
This is a science fiction/fantasy story in many ways. Not hard science fiction. It's not a story you sit around thinking about as if it could actually happen in reality. It's just a fun ride about a futuristic, steam-powered, military team fighting to save what's left of earth from an alien evil. No deep thoughts here. But the last fifty pages or so, I couldn't put the book down. I had to see it to the end.