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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! I’m currently reading Brendan Keogh’s The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist. It’s interesting enough that I’m only mildly pissed off about the added academic book tax. Paying the academic price is funny if you say it like paying the iron price. Although, again, not quite funny enough to soothe my awful uni flashbacks of books that cost a week’s worth of groceries each. This week, it’s writer on Tomb Raider, Mirror’s Edge, BioShock Infinite plus loads more, and host of BBC Radio’s Mythical Creatures – Rhianna Pratchett! Cheers Rhianna! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?
What are you currently reading?
Despite being a voracious reader when I was younger, I (shamefully) got out of the habit of reading physical books – despite still collecting them in vast numbers! I found I was leaning much more towards audio books, as I could do other things whilst listening to them.
In an effort to combat this, I recently joined a book club and took out a book subscription box. The subscription is to The End of the World Reading Club, which sends you a book a month in the dystopian and apocalyptic genre. Anyone following me on my socials will know about my love of survivalist games. Along with the book, you get little gifts to open at certain pages. Often these will be themed around something that’s happening in the book at the time. It also allows you to slowly build up your own personal end-of-the-world survival kit and knowledge trove. It’s a brilliant idea. And it turns out that bribery is a pretty good way to get me to read.
Through this I’m currently reading A Better World by Sarah Langan, and audio wise I’m listening to American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Enjoying both.
What did you last read?
With my book club I’ve just read This Is How We Lose The Time War. I’ve never had such an experience of starting a book and thinking that I wasn’t really getting it, and then utterly loving it by the end. The prose is verging on the purple-ish at times, but goddamn it’s beautiful. It’s one that’s going to stick with me for a long time.
What are you eyeing up next?
Juno Dawson’s Her Majesty’s Royal Coven and the follow up Queen B. I really enjoy Juno’s writing, and these seem very much in my wheelhouse.
What book do you quote from the most?
Rather than quoting from a specific book, I find myself quoting the witches from my father’s Discworld books quite a bit, especially after delving so deeply into them when working on Tiffany Aching’s Guide To Being A Witch. They teach a lot of great life lessons, such as, ‘When you break rules, break’em good and hard!’; and ‘You do the job that’s in front of you.’
What book do find yourself bothering friends to read?
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. I discovered it before it took off in a big way around the movie. Evokes the senses like no other book I’ve ever read.
What book would you like to see someone adapt to a game?
Books into games, without going the film or TV route first, haven’t been that prevalent. Possibly because, despite the popularity of games, they are still not seen as shiny as film and TV. Wrongly, in my opinion. I’d say that The Witcher games and the old Discworld games have been the ones to do it most successfully. I think there’s room in the world for an epic Discworld game one day. It’s just about finding the folks who’ll really give it the love it deserves.
Aside from that I think Justin Cornin’s trilogy The Passage, The Twelve And The City Of Mirrors could make a great post- apocalyptic-with-vampires game. The world of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files would also be ripe for a great game adaptation. I’m a fan of Mira Grant’s horror novels, and whilst her zombie-based Feed series might be a little less original in the game world, I love her Rolling In The Deep/Into the Drowning Deep killer mermaid novels. You could do a great underwater horror game based off those.
My personal favourite Terry Pratchett quote is also from the witches, being Granny Weatherwax’s observation that “things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.” Ah, but how big would a stack of books need to be to convince you it’s actually every book ever written? Too big for this column, I fear, though that won’t stop us trying to find a guest that can achieve this very secret goal. Book for now!