Beast in the Shadows

A mask I wore as I approached, I was what I am not.

And though the pattern was unclear, its meaning could be bought... 

"Sins of the Fathers"

I can't say that the cover is really attractive...

In Sins of the Fathers, author and bookshop owner Gabriel Knight learned about his heritage as the last in the line of Ritters and his destiny as a Schattenjäger, a shadow hunter who fights supernatural evil. After his first adventure, Gabriel moved to his ancestral home in Germany: Schloss Ritter, a castle overseeing the town of Rittersberg. A year later, a series of brutal murders around Munchen bring him out of the castle. While the news and police seem to think the murders are the work of a pair of escaped wolves, one witness to the murder of her daughter says it was a werewolf, which means that is work for the new Schattenjäger, even if Gabriel still hasn't gotten the hang of his new job as supernatural hunter yet. Several clues eventually lead Gabriel to an exclusive men's club, which seems to hold the key to the case. Meanwhile, Gabriel's shop owner Grace Nakimura (the Japanologist in me wants to correct the name to Nakamura!) has flown over from the US and is helping Gabriel out with historical research on werewolves, which has a surprising link with Ludwig II of Bavaria. The connection between the 'mad king' and the current murders is the main mystery of Jane Jensen's The Beast Within (1998).

The Gabriel Knight series is a beloved horror-mystery adventure game series that started out on the PC. The first game, Sins of the Fathers, was a wonderful mystery story with a Voodoo background and some supernatural elements. The novelization, which was released four year later and penned by the designer of the game herself, was a bit too close to the source material, I remarked two weeks ago. While the base story was still based on an excellent mix between fiction and history, the inclusion of pretty much all of the in-game puzzles in the narrative made Sins of the Fathers feel like a glorified walkthrough at times.

The sequel to the first game was released in 1995 with the title The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery. As shown above, it sported a completely different graphic style (real-life actors and full motion video instead of animated sprites) and has been met with varying opinions, mostly regarding the acting and the interactive elements of the game. Personally, I quite enjoyed the game (the first Gabriel Knight game I played actually) and the story in particular I find very memorable. This second game was also novelized by Jane Jensen in 1998, released under the same title.

The Gabriel Knight series has always featured supernatural elements in its universe: the concept of Schattenjäger is not just a title and you can be assured that at the end of the mystery, Gabriel isn't going to pull a werewolf mask of someone's face who grumbles he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for Gabriel's meddling. Yet the stories are also genuine mysteries and I absolutely love the story of The Beast Within. Gabriel's werewolf hunting starts with some 'normal' sleuthing, like you see in any detective story and there's nothing supernatural or unfair about that. But the story starts for great heights when Grace appears on the scene and attempts to find out more about werewolves and their link to Ludwig II. Sins of the Fathers was a good example of mixing good historical research with fiction, but The Beast Within surpasses even that story in that aspect. Gabriel and Grace's storylines slowly work towards an intersection, as they hunt for the werewolf in both present and past and the conclusion is a great spectacle. This is a great example of how to use historical research to present an entertaining mystery story.

I wrote a bit about literary detection in my review of Helen McCloy's Two-Thirds of a Ghost. Grace's storyline in particular is a great example of that. In the original game, this meant you had to listen for a long time to passages of documents being read by the actress, but reading the many documents on werewolves and Ludwig II yourself as a part of the narrative is much natural in the novel. It made me appreciate more how this was set-up, as many crucial clues are spread across the documents you read over the course of the story and work great a both hints and foreshadowing. Also, it's more streamlined than in the game, so no more hours of wandering in Schloss Neuschwanstein!

My biggest complaint about the novelization of Sins of the Fathers was that it was too faithful to the original game it was based on. All of the puzzles made its way in the narrative, which was unnatural. This is luckily resolved in the novelization of The Beast Within. This is partly because the original game featured fewer puzzles anyway. The game was filmed with real life actors and puzzles would just mean more filming. Instead, an emphasis was placed on literary detection, which as I pointed out above, works great for a novelization. But Jane Jensen was also wise enough to not include all of the few puzzles that do appear in the game. People who have played the original game may for example be relieved to hear that Gabriel doesn't buy a Cookoo clock to serve as the worst distraction ruse ever in the novel.

All in all, the novelization of The Beast Within is a great supernatural mystery with good historical resarch gone into it. It is also much more enjoyable as a book than Sins of the Fathers and feels much less like a novelization of a videogame (if at all). It is true that the original story was much more suited for novelization than Sins of the Fathers though. Anyway, a great substitute for those who don't want to play the game for whatever reason (too old, not into games), but still interested in its themes.

Mamba Wamba and the Voodoo Hoodoo

I dreamt of blood upon the shore, of eyes that spoke of sin. 

The lake was smooth and deep and black, as was her scented skin...

"Sins of the Fathers"

It's been a while since I last held a normal, English-language paperback in my hands! The last few years, I've mostly been reading Japanese pockets. And as for the couple of English books I did read, most have them have been those oversized softcover POD books that all slightly differ in dimensions...

Gabriel Knight is a not very succesful horror writer and owner of the similarly not very succesful St. George's Book Shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Police detective (and childhood friend) Mosely has been giving Gabriel some inside information on a series of horrible murders that have been happening in New Orleans, under the impression that Gabriel will base his next book on him and the case. Not a lot of evidence is found at each of the crime scenes, but they are definitely all connected, as theses scenes are all colored red by the blood of the victim and other animals, strange patterns are left in flour and all of the victims are cut open and missing organs. The gruesome nature have resulted in the nomer Voodoo murders, even though the police believes the dress-up is all smoke and mirrors to confuse the investigation. As Gabriel does more background research for his book, he discovers that these murders all do show signs of real voodoo, as a name for old African religions, and that the case might be much bigger than he and Mosely had initially thought and that he and his family was be destined to solve this case in Jane Jensen's Sins of the Fathers (1997).

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a horror-mystery adventure game originally released in 1993 for the PC by Sierra On-Line. The mature storyline and characters, the horror themes and star-filled voice cast (Tim Curry and Mark Hamill among others) made it a great success and led to two sequels. A novelization of the game was released in 1997, written by Jane Jensen (designer/writer of the series). I recently played the 20th Anniversary version of the game and quite enjoyed it, so when I happened to come across the book, I didn't hesitate to pick it up. The second game, The Beast Within, is also available as a novel by the way.

The Gabriel Knight series is a horror mystery series with supernatural elements, which are also present in Sins of the Fathers. Gabriel for example is revealed to be the last in a family line of Schattenjägers (Shadow Hunters), who similarly to Hoch's Simon Ark have a born instinct to oppose the forces of evil. The latter half of each of the Gabriel Knight adventures feature such supernatural elements quite heavily, but the stories always start with 'normal' detective work, like how Sins of the Fathers starts out with an interesting search for what lies behind the Voodoo murders. I think you can compare it to the Indiana Jones films, which do feature mystical elements, but actual supernatural performances usually stay in the background until the finale.

Jane Jensen has a knack for mixing real history with her fiction, and it works great in Sins of the Fathers: the theme of Voodoo, both authentic ancient African religions as well as the New Orleans kind, is mixed expertly with her own arc on Gabriel and the murders. I don't think I have seen the Voodoo theme often in mystery novels (at least, not so prominently) and I thought that Sins of the Fathers was both amusing and educational. I always love it when history is mixed with mystery novels, but I usually only see European and Japanese history in these novels, so this book wins a lot of originality points.

I have read some spin-off novels from game franchises before and also reviewed them on this blog (Professor Layton and the Wandering Castle, Danganronpa/ZERO and Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Kagayakashii Mirai for example). But Sins of the Fathers is the first time I have read a novelization of a game, and the thing I had feared most was present in this book: it is too faithful to the source material. You could basically use this book as a walkthrough for the game, because I think practically all of the puzzles that appear in the game, also appear in the novel. Some of them work quite well (the infamous tomb code puzzle is a good example of a detective-like puzzle), but other puzzles that are overly obvious designed for games also make an appearance. A very early puzzle in the game for example, where Gabriel needs to distract a policeman with a mime so he can use the police motorbike radio sorta makes sense in the game (actually, I didn't really like it in the game either), but just sounds ridiculous in a novel. In adventure games grammar, it might be normal to pick up random items for later use, but in a novel, it just doesn't make sense to Gabriel to pick up item X for no reason, just so 60 pages later he could use it in a situation he could never have foreseen. I am all about making detective novels more like intellectual games, but this is just (not always sound) game-logic being forced into a novel. It really hurts the story, because a significant amount of the novel is taken up by these puzzles.

All in all I did enjoy Sins of the Fathers, that is, the overall story and atmosphere. As a supernatural horror-mystery, it's simply a good piece of fiction. But it bears its game-heritage too proudly and a lot of elements that might make sense for a game, are also present in this book, which makes the book appear to be nothing more than a glorified game walkthrough at times. I aree that novelizations shouldn't stray too far away from the source material, but still, not everything that works for a game works for a book and vice versa.