Ezio Auditore De Firenze, probably the most well known character and face of the global hit video game series Assassin’s Creed.
This game & novel were, as far as I know, his last hurrah in the franchise.
But is this story a good conclusion for the Italian Assassino and his part in the overall story of Assassin’s Creed?
Gather round, gang, and let’s find out.
As always, good readers, this is your big bad and super official ***SPOILER ALERT***
Now I must say this upfront, I completely fuckin’ adore the games and previous novels in the series, as well as the overall franchise.
Meaning I really dug the movie, I thought the short film set before ACII was badass, I’ve read a couple of the comics and loved them too.
I remember seeing those early trailers and that first footage from the very first game and being blown away by it all.
So to make a long story short, I’m just fully in the bag for this franchise.
Now with that out of the way, I also want to say this: I played the first 4 games in the series, but this one specifically I didn’t get to finish.
I vaguely remember getting roughly a quarter or more into it when my PS3 took a big, fat, steaming shit.
So, while I love the games, I got to experience the ending of this story in my favorite medium first, and that was odd for me because I honestly feel like that made it, and specifically the ending, far more impactful for me than watching it play out on a screen with a controller in hand.
Ezio is getting up there in age, nearing 50, and still in the Assassin game.
But you can see the cracks starting to form in both his skills and his dedication to the various causes and concerns of the brotherhood due to age creeping close.
All the while he is in the hunt for some elusive hidden knowledge that one of his greatest predecessors had secreted away in a vault beneath the former home of the Assassins Brotherhood.
That hunt has led him to the grand city of Constantinople, where he learns some new tricks, uncovers long hidden secrets, and finds a lovely bookstore owner from Venice to help him in his life long crusade against the Templar Knights and his life after he gives up the cause to the new generation.
So ends the tale of Ezio Auditore.
Here’s what I think is so great about this franchise, the thing that makes it so easy to love, though semi-contadictory, is two fold.
1. The historical fiction aspect is so goddamn carefully crafted and tightly woven.
It’s so well written and the reigns are held so tightly that it is damn near impossible to see where the line is between the fact and fiction, making it a good peek at the past.
2. Whether in game or novel form, it’s not just a boring ass text book recounting of history.
There’s a signature Sci-Fi/Fantasy bent in this series that is so delicately balanced and tweaks events enough to make things feel a bit off kilter and less predictable if you actually know the real world history and outcomes.
While the games have a good amount of brutality, as one should expect from the name, these novels have a classy flair in that Oliver Bowden (the pseudonym of author Anton Gill) implies a lot of the violence instead of bogging the story down in gory details of combat that can quickly get repetitive.
Another thing I feel he does well (and given the fact that he’s written nine of the ten of these AC novels, I think somebody at Ubisoft must agree) is that he knows when to speed past the boring running around shit that the player would do.
Now this may seem like a no brainer and something that should be obvious, but some game novelists really do like to explain the fascinating act of a character walking through a town, at length.
The restraint is most appreciated.
This novel is almost 500 pages, and while that may sound a bit indulgent, it just zips right on by.
It is paced well, faithful to it’s source material without being paint by numbers, and just plain fun.
And the glossary of terms in other languages makes it incredibly helpful to begin the process of learning another language, I know I’ve picked up a fair amount of Italian by reading the Ezio trilogy.
As I made my way through the story I was constantly reminded why I love the franchise, as well as sad that this is the final novel in the series I was able to get.
Because, without a doubt, I’m certainly itching to read the other 6.
And I hope you’ll be interested in them as well.
Let us know what you think of this review in the comments below or share this post on Twitter with the Hashtag #TNBBookReview.
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And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
