Reviews

The writing is a little on the juvenile side, but I found the idea to be thoroughly compelling. I kept thinking as I read that this book is a great example of Ayn Rand-ian principles put to practice. Overall an enjoyable read!

goobdiddy's review against another edition

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3.0

Some interesting back story for people who've played Bioshock 1 & 2. There is really no point in reading it if you haven't played the game. It made me nostalgic enough that I started playing the game again!

alkione's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

chloewiart's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

jaycie_90's review against another edition

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3.0

Andrew Ryan envisions a utopia free of government. He then starts building Rapture, a city in the ocean with a free market and no censorship. Along the way, Andrew makes loyal followers, including Bill McDonagh, who shares his vision.

This is a prologue to BioShock. Coming from someone who has never played BioShock and knows less than the basic information about this world, I thought it could have been better. The plot was fascinating, but the information dumping brought the book down; I understand it was necessary, but I sometimes just wanted the story to get on with it. That said, I am very interested in what I've missed in the BioShock fandom; what goes on in this game?! This book has sparked my interest as someone who doesn't play games too often. I recommend it to anyone who likes horror, gore, politics, and a mature audience.

cindytheskull's review against another edition

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2.0

Had there never been a Bioshock Game, this book would be quite enjoyable.
But since it needs to put up with the story line and evolution of the plot in the game, and fails badly at it due to multiple reasons, I did not enjoy reading it.

First and foremost, there is way too much detail and dialog which do NOT give the main game story any depth.
If a Bioshock fan wants to read a book based on its story, it would expect more character description and development of Tenenbaum, Suchong, Lamb, Steinman etc.
You don't get any of it here, but instead, you can read pages and pages about how a room looks like or how two splicers attack each other.

Furthermore, the writing style is not really fluid or enjoyable, and the desperate attempt to give some characters an accent ended up in mere stereotype (it is not enough to replace "my" with "me" to make an Irish character sound Irish).

The third and last point is the complete lack of scientific explanations about how ADAM and EVE really work and where the side effects came from. Why does someone loose control of the power of the plasmids so quickly? Why do they go insane?

I found the book rather disappointing and would not recommend it to someone who really wants an event description through the eyes of the characters.

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