Video Game Tie-In Books

There are lots of books out there written as promotional tie-ins with video games. Warcraft, HALO, and Dragon Age come to mind. In some video games the backstory is highly detailed and complex; those who enjoy the game might find the expanded stories interesting (I, for one, am tempted by the Dragon Age books, as I'm fond of the setting).

The quality of these books is usually pretty suspect, however (and that's one reason why I haven't read the Dragon Age novels). Sometimes it's hilariously suspect, like in Elemental: Destiny's Embers by Brad Wardell, reviewed by Unamommer here:

Now generally when you introduce an important character to the audience for the first time, you want to give a strong impression of that character, be it through personality or physical traits. This is what we get when pretty, pretty Princess Angenica is first introduced.

She was wearing a long cloak. Underneath it, he saw, was a dress.

The dress is actually my favorite character in the book. A few short pages later she is accosted by bad guys and they have a conversation about the dress. Her thoughts reveal to us the backstory and political importance of the dress. After she is rescued from the bad guys by the clever orphan boy she has a crush on and a handsome knight, she flings herself into her father’s arms while sobbing and he stops to notice the dress before noticing the knife wound on her neck. That’s how badass the dress is. Later in the story other dresses get introduced. The author even makes the mistake of trying to make them more attractive than the dress.

Yes, she had been wearing dresses those last few months at the Keep, but this was different. This was a gown. This was silk or something.

Silk or something can never stand up to the awesomeness of the dress and shame on the author for trying to steal its spotlight.

...Wow. Silk! Or something! I kind of want to read the book now.