I watched the Assassin's Creed film shortly after it came out last year (you can read that review here). Amazed, I bought other Assassin's Creed media, such as the first game and the first movie's novelization. After reading the latter, I'm off the opinion that the movie is an adaptation of the book instead of the other way around because it provides the kind of context and character information that is typically excluded from movies that are made from books by nature of the medium. Whether this is a good point on the book or a bad point on the movie I'm not sure. Perhaps it's both. In any case, this is a great book.
It provides a great deal of backstory to the characters that would have been difficult to put in the movie for reasons of pacing and length. Sofia Rikkin, for instance, is apparently a Friend To All Living Things as she has flashbacks to how she adopted an utterly filthy and flea-ridden stray dog and takes great care of it and also tried to befriend a squirrel by sitting outside with nuts in her hand for a prolonged period of time. This feds into and validates the compassion she shows to the "patients" at the Abstergo Rehabilitation Facility; she sincerely believes that they are patients and not "prisoners". She is not the only one to get this treatment and this adds a good deal of emotional heft to the storyline.
There are a number of viewpoints in this novelization, rather than focusing on Cal/Aguilar's point of view like the movie does. I typically don't like this technique because it leads to a bloated narrative and less development, but in this case it works. Why? Because everyone is in the same location and everyone is viewing the same events. This has a concentrating effect. It also helps to flesh out other characters because they get the sympathetic POV and internal narration. Moussa, for instance, has this scene where he messes with a guard using a shell game that provides info on him and the state of the proto-Assassin Cell inside the Abstergo Facility, and what he intends to do about the new "pioneer".
Another thing that I like about this novelization is that it fills a vexing narrative hole that the film doesn't address. While it doesn't provide many details, it confirms how many allies and resources Cal has going into the final scene which implies why he took the action he does.
Also, there are bonus chapters at the end of the book. Each one focuses on one of the other Assassins and their ancestor, framed as one of their Animus regressions that took place before Cal arrived. All of them fill in information from characters that were introduced in the games. For instance, Nathan's ancestor is Ducan Wapole, an Assassin turncoat from "Black Flag" and it shows the moment where he decided to become a turncoat. It is a nice treat.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Assassin's Creed (novelization" an A+
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Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
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