Gamertell

Tom Clancy is a man who can pride himself on spinning a taut tale of political intrigue from real-world international tensions. With Rainbow Six he brought his incredibly accurate, technically correct style for writing about military, paramilitary and espionage groups to video games.

Reversing that trend, books based on various Tom Clancy video games have been published since 2004. Ghost Recon is now following the trend that was set by Splinter Cell and Endwar with the currently available novel titled Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon ($9.99, Berkley Publishing) . David Michaels, the author who brought Splinter Cell and Endwar from games to books, has just put out the first of what may be many Ghost Recon novels.

First thing we have to address is that David Michaels is a pseudonym for the two authors that have brought about novels based on Tom Clancy games. The first is Raymond Benson, writer of the first two Splinter Cell novels who has also written James Bond novels as well as novelizations of Metal Gear Solid. The second is Grant Blackwood, the current writer for novels based on Tom Clancy games.

The upcoming book is a bit interesting since it starts with the back story of one of the major characters, Captain Scott Mitchell, before going into the standard time of the story. Back story doesn’t mean that it goes all that far back in time, it just goes back to when he was a Master Sergeant on one of his very first live missions as a Special Forces operator.

Most books like this only tend to refer to the past of its characters. This starts off with the ties that would otherwise be thrown in later in the story for the purpose of character development.

The premise of the story will have the “Ghosts” going into a province of China to combat a small group of renegade Chinese military leaders known as the Spring Tiger Group. Their enemy’s mission is to try seize Taiwan and cause conflict for power in the Pacific. The conflict could incite World War III and when intelligence points to the Spring Tiger Group being assisted by a nemesis of Capt. Mitchell’s the potential war becomes personal for Mitchell. This is according to the synopsis on the back of the book.

Ghost Recon is a great tactical shooter that deserves a good game. The games lend themselves incredibly well to novelizations. There’s only one question that pops into my mind is, “What took so long for this to happen?”

Either way, if Michaels/Blackwood’s previous attempts to translate games to novel are any indication, Ghost Recon could birth a good series of novels. It could also be an indication for a new installment in the game franchise.

Read [Amazon] Also Read [Goodreads] Also Read [Powell’s Books]