Fanfiction is hit or miss: sometimes it’s amazing, sometimes
it’s tripe, and, of course, more than often, it’s full of graphic sex between
characters that should not be having graphic sex. Seriously. They should not be
having sex… But anyways, what was I saying? Oh yes, sometimes fanfiction is
amazing and I can tell you now, Tomb
Raider: The Lost Cult is just such a fanfiction!
After destroying years of his research on the ancient Méne
cult, archaeologist Professor Frys is murdered by an unknown assassin. Lara
Croft knows her colleague must have stumbled upon a dangerous secret–and
someone took his life to ensure it would remain in the shadows. She jets around
the world and quickly discovers that what’s happening is much bigger than she
could have ever imagined as an ancient and deadly cult hopes to bring about the
end of the world.
E. E. Knight grew up in Minnesota
but now lives in Oak Park, Illinois. He tried journalism, photography,
retail jobs, and software development before discovering he could get paid to
make up stories and put them down on paper. Aside from The Lost Cult he is also the author of the Vampire Earth series.
The characters of the piece are Borg, an incredibly buff and
famous mountain climber that lost his arms in an accident but continues to
climb with the aid of two very high-tech prosthetic arms. Ajay, Lara’s former
friend and failed protégé now turned evil cult activist. And–of course–Lara
Croft, infamous archaeologists/tomb raider and all-round gun wielding, ass
kicking, bitchingly awesome woman!
Ajay and Borg are very well-rounded original characters and
seem very fleshed out within the piece. The backgrounds of the two characters
are believable and realistic: maybe even more than Lara Croft’s own background.
You will never see Ajay and Borg in another piece of Tomb Raider work (be it comics, videogames, books, etc.) but within
The Lost Cult they fit with the plot
well and interact with Lara like they’ve been with her since the very
beginning.
As for Lara herself she’s done amazingly well. When you look
at the videogames that the books draw her character from you really do realize
how little you learn about Lara within them. Honestly, within the first game she
just felt very cookie-cutter character: like, this is what we know about badass
characters now let’s add tits and now they’re female. She’s evolved mightily
since then within the videogame world, but for authors to write books about her
from those first few games is very impressive. In The Lost Cult you’re immediately presented with a Lara Croft that
is not only intelligent and knows how to kick ass, but has regrets about her
past and actual human emotions surrounding things like loss and betrayal; she even
shows sexuality beyond just having big tits as she develops ‘crush’ like
feelings for Borg and often finds herself thinking how she’d like to get to
know him beyond working with him. E.E. Knight took a character that was cold as
ice and made them into a human: even more than that, Knight was able to explain
why in other instances Lara needs to come off as cold as ice.
All in all The Lost
Cult is a seriously amazing book. The story is compelling and exciting as
Lara runs around the world to protect it from a cult hoping to raise primordial
gods–I mean, what’s not to like there? Knight more or less pits Lara against Cthulhu
and that’s awesome! Plus he’s managed to create new characters that fit within
the Tomb Raider universe really well:
so well that characters that are brand new will seem like they’ve belonged to
the Tomb Raider franchise for years.
Even more than that though, Knight took a character that’s already been
developed and delved even further into her with whole new angles to look at
Lara from and be creating compelling reasons as to why she would act this way
given what we’ve seen of her in the videogames!
My final thoughts on Tomb
Raider: The Lost Cult are that it’s amazing considering how it’s literally
just a fanfiction about a videogame franchise! The author pulled off something
really remarkable and really just went above and beyond what I expected,
especially with his portrayal of the characters. Honestly, it’s an amazing
piece of fiction and fans of Lara Croft’s exciting exploits should not miss out
on this book!
No comments:
Post a Comment