I felt the emotion between the men involved – even from Andrew Ryan. It was only half way through the novel that I realised why I recognised his name – and with the knowledge of his grizzly fate in my mind, I continued sadly to watch this character’s demise. Watching him grow as a character was amazing – he started off awkward and mistrusting, grew to respect Ryan for the chances that he gave him, fell in love and created a family so subtly through the text that I felt as though I had really known him for years, and eventually stopped denying that Rapture was failing and stood up to Ryan. Starting off as the British plumber trying to earn a living the honest way in 1940s New York City, Bill is introduced to us through his first meeting with Andrew Ryan – he proves his ingenuity with plumbing by giving some honest advice that he, at the time, doesn’t realise will help bring Rapture to life. For me, he was the best in terms of character development. My favourite character in the novel was Bill McDonagh. With the game fresh in my mind, I had an idea of how characters would evolve or devolve and watching that process happen so smoothly was fantastic. There was a steady build in character development that I have rarely seen in novels I’ve read in the past couple of years. The way that Shirley wrote the characters, though a little awkward at times when he tried to write in their ‘nationality’, felt genuine. The novel was very well written, nothing seemed out of place – everything felt relevant. You can tell that there is a bond between the two men despite there being a clear class divide between them – Sullivan was the sweaty underling and Ryan was the larger than life billionaire genius. The first meeting with Ryan is told during the introduction of another main character – Sullivan, his most trusted companion and head of security. He felt linear but the novel gave him a greater depth – there was an obvious method to his method, and despite knowing how everything would turn out in the end, I found myself routing for him to succeed. He’s a very interesting character to read about because he seemed so cold and calculating in the video game.
You get to see what his life was like whilst he was forming the idea of Rapture, learning about his past and how he fled from his home country. The novel begins by introducing the main antagonist of the video game, Andrew Ryan, during a time where he was still living on land.
It’s a very insightful read for fans of the game who have the patience to read through this hefty read – at nearly 500 pages, it’s the largest video game tie in novel that I own. First published in 2011, Bioshock: Rapture is the official prequel to the video game series Bioshock, taking place before the game and explaining the events that led up to Jack’s return to the sunken city.
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