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Assassin's Creed books cancelled
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 2nd November 2007
Just like this poor chap, the Assassin's Creed books have come to an unfortunate end..
The books were to be penned by Steve Barnes, a best-selling author and screenwriter. Seems book tie-ins are more popular than ever at the moment as well, with Halo and Mass Effect notably getting prequel novels for fans to read more about the game universe in.
Barnes claims in his blog that the books were coming along fine and that the first title was pretty much done until problems arose when the descendants of the actual assassins group featured in the game and book got in touch. The group is now part of the Ismaeli sect and is led by the Agha Khan in India. More importantly, they weren't very happy with Barnes or Ubisoft.
Kush says that threats were made - though he isn't specific on what threats they were - and that the book had to be changed dramatically in order to keep the group happy.
Independent experts were brought in and the title was radically rewritten to more fully reflect the actual events. The copy then had to be sent to the Agha Khan for approval, but by then it was too late. The publisher was annoyed, Ubisoft wasn't happy and the entire lot was scrapped.
It raises the question of whether or not the descendants can make a legitimate claim that they are being slighted. What do you think? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (23)
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But it was fictional...
If someone's ancestors got pissed of whenever something was written about an ancient culture we'd not have a vast majority of films and books we have today.
On the other hand, I seriously doubt that anyone is going to read the books and have false impressions of what the real assassins group were like, especially as most works of fiction clearly state so, and I expect as the author is a best seller, he would have the sense to have a disclaimer somewhere in the book, as with most almost-real situations written about/filmed/animated.
I expect a copy will be 'accidentally' leaked onto the net at some point, until then I guess it's all speculation as to what's actually in them.. Can't be far off the game world, though :D
Stabby murder, sneaky murder and freerunning :B
I don't think anyone tried to get 300 (referring to the graphic novel) to adhere to the actual events.
Not sure many people can claim to be descendants, though :B
What are you on about? 300 was perfectly accurate! Everyone knows in ancient Greece leather speedos was mandatory wear!
Silly assassins. Grow up.
But then they'd never get any media attention!
Even though that seems to be the point of an assassin...
Maybe they're liars too
Cowboys ain`t assassins though? This is set in the middle east, I don`t think they had any cowboys there 1000 or so years ago. If cowboys could assassinate people then ubisoft would have a problem, they would probably have run in fright and cancelled the book if they complained too.
would you want to piss off a bunch of assassins though?
As an aside, I don't think it's a big loss as video game books are spotty at best. The Mass effect one was pretty decent. I tried the Hellgate novel, and although the story/setting was interesting the writing (by an accomplished writer) was pretty rough. Cringe worthy at some points.
Aggies
I suppose I could use Pocahontas as a better example. Sure it's a Disney film, but the same argument could apply.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/05
:)