ReviewAssassin’s Creed: the novel of the movie of the game is silly but fun

Assassin’s Creed: The Official Tie-In
by Christie Golden
Penguin

Before reading Christie Golden’s novelisation of the Assassin’s Creed movie, I knew three things about the massively successful, multi-format franchise. First, it’s a video game invented, essentially, by creative corporation Ubisoft. Second, there’s a pirate character called James Kidd (actually Mary Read in disguise). Third, Assassin’s Creed rivals Star Wars for spin-offs. This is Christie Golden’s second addition to the series pub­lished in December alone. The Dan Brownish plot essentially retraces the relationship between gamer and on-screen pixels – 21st-century human Callum Lynch was, in a past life, Aguilar de Nerha, a de facto member of the Assassin’s brother­hood. The high concept is that by witnessing Aguilar fight the dastardly Templar Order, Callum develops the skills (or possibly the delusion) to confront their modern-day incarnation: Abstergo Industries. It is very silly, but worth it for Golden’s grandiose prose which I decided was a parody of knightly excess.