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Ever since my teen years, I have more or less avoided gaming fiction which, apart from some fond memories of Dragonlance, has never struck me as worth reading. Despite that, I was quick in line to purchase Greg Stolze’s “Godwalker”, his self-published Unknown Armies novel. My main reasons to do so (beyond my appreciation of the aforementioned game) were the generally good writing in most UA products and Greg’s track record as a ‘thousand cool ideas a minute’ designer, as witnessed through UA and Everway products.

I have also never reviewed a novel, which means I don’t quite know how to begin.

“Godwalker” is a short novel set in the heart of America, a small town in Minnessota that becomes the focus points of an occult war, the purpose of which is to determine who will Ascend to one of the 333 positions of cosmic power called Avatars or, more familiarly, Godwalkers, hence the title of the novel.

There are a lot of plot twists and unexpected surprises along the way, so I won’t even give a basic pitch, except to mention that switched babies, transsexuality, guns, crooked ex-cops, baffled current cops and a foetus in a jar play important parts. The backdrop to about half the books is diners and motels, which won’t surprise anyone who enjoys the post-modern feel of Unknown Armies. The plot is clever and not entirely predictable, I was still wondering how the hell it would end, with only twenty pages to read. There’s a lot of action, probably more than I expected, but there’s a lot of manipulation, weirdness and (of course) magick as well, which are all key ingredients of the UA recipe.

The novel makes for good reading, it’s well written, the characters are nicely fleshed out and, on the whole, endearing. In fact, the book is very much in keeping with the spirit of the game which is that occultists may wield great powers, but man is still ultimately responsible for whatever happens to him. The motivations and state of mind of all the important characters are well described and it helps you emphasize with the plight of each, despite often antagonistic positions.

Physically, the book is of reasonably good quality for a paperback, and the layout is sober but legible which is, really what it’s all about. There are rather more typos than I would have liked, and I guess the book could have done with one more proofreading. There’s also a glaring mistake in the one single sentence in French, but that’s unfortunately in keeping with a long tradition in the RPG writing community.

I guess one thing that could be expected of an RPG-tied novel is that it eases you into the setting. In that respect, Godwalker doesn’t entirely perform: although most of the concepts are explained as you go along, I suspect the complete newbie would find it too much to take in. On the other hand, the novel as it is is very much in the spirit of the game and includes some of the ‘hard-core’ elements that have made UA such a hit. I’m not sure that both objectives could be achieved in the same book.

Finally, even though this may be obvious from reading the above, this is not a novel for the squeamish : there’s sex, blood, profanity, yucky magicks, blood and sweat, and even though they are never used for their shock value alone, they may not be to everyone’s taste. In other words, if the very name of James Ellroy gets you fleeing in terror, don’t bother.

I find it tricky to rate a novel following the standard rpg.net grid, so let’s assume that in this instance, Style covers both the physical aspects of the book and the writing and that Substance covers the plot, characters and contents of the novel.

Following this grid I would rate the book

Style 4 : good writing but a slight let down on the proofreading.

Substance 4 : good plot, great characters, lots of cool ideas, but it’s not the greatest work in western literature either, and not quite on par with professed UA influences like Ellroy or Powers.

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