Death Game by Jo Graham
Death Game
by Jo Graham
I was volunteering and saw this on the shelf. Fancy that! It's how all my reviews have started lately, isn't it? Oh, library, you really are good at supporting my geekness :-)
This was an interesting book. I enjoyed how the characters paired off and had to handle a completely alien planet in new ways. Rodney had to fix the gate all on his own and use it to bring back help. John and Teyla spend the entire book badly hurt and insisting that one stops to take it easy because of injury when the other is clearly just as badly injured, if not more. Ronan and Zelenka and the most unlikely pair, needing to band together with their combined smarts and strength to survive.
The situation on the planet is actually pretty clever as well--kind of a mix of a bunch of different elements. There's the Wraith, tributes sent into a labyrinth for some potentially deadly game, and tons of backstory. It's the backstory that was a little strange for me to read, actually. I am so used tor reading fanfiction that takes some characters and explores parts of their backgrounds or reactions to situations we didn't get to see on the show. So to see it in a licensed tie-in novel, I wasn't sure how to feel. It was strange to get all this new now quasi-canon info that I now have to trust. And it's not like any of it was bad or anything--it was great to see more info on each character... I am just used to tie-in novels not bringing anything of that sort to the table. Usually tie-in novels just use the characters and play around and you can come with an enjoyable experience with nothing significantly changed. Now, however, things have changed. I thought it was silly to have them sharing these stories sometimes, but I could overlook that for the sake of fun stories/flashbacks. I guess only time will tell if the info now added on to their characters will stick with me or not; I suspect that for a few of them, it will :-)
Definitely one of the better fandom tie-in novels I've read. Not amazing literature, but a lot more than just a throw-away story with characters I love.