دانلود کتاب The Umbrella Conspiracy

This is the novelization of the original RESIDENT EVIL video game and while I haven't played the thing myself, I've been told by my gamer buddies that writer S.D. Perry does a terrific job of adapting it to prose form. She fleshes out and expands on the thru storyline of the video game. And from a non-player's perspective, RESIDENT EVIL: THE UMBRELLA CONSPIRACY stands on its own, with the writer rapidly immersing you in disturbing doings in the outskirts of Raccoon City.

The set-up goes like this: Raccoon City is struck with a wave of gristly murders, in which the victims are discovered with body parts eaten. Weeks elapse and when the police's investigations result in futility, the S.T.A.R.S. are finally called in. The local Special Tactics and Rescue Squad is comprised of faces very familiar to the gamers. Standard ops is for the less experienced S.T.A.R.S. members to be deployed on a recon mission, but when communications with the B team suddenly breaks down, the Alphas quickly gear up and fly out.

Outside the city, in the woods, the Alphas spot a deserted S.T.A.R.S. helicopter, their teammates nowhere in sight. Frantic moments later, they come upon the looming, abandoned Spencer mansion. Except that it isn't really abandoned, is it?

The premise ain't so new. The Umbrella Corporation, ostensibly a global pharmaceutical entity, instead has its scientists mucking about with unlawful genetic experiments. And, before you can say "History will teach us nothing," a virus escapes and zombies and ilk become reality. Then the cover-up begins. And, for the desperate S.T.A.R.S. unit trapped in the Spencer mansion, betrayal from within.

I always have a funny feeling regarding novelizations of movies or, in this case, video games, feeling that they're second removed from the source material and so don't seem as canonical. But S.D. Perry makes a believer out of me, and it helped back then that I didn't have a comprehensive awareness of the RESIDENT EVIL mythos. The story unfolds like new and it's plot-driven and the horror action is amped up, yeah, but S.D. Perry injects enough character development that I right away got swept into this horrifying world and invested in the members of the S.T.A.R.S. strike force - the ex-thief Jill Valentine and the 18-year-old genius biochemist Rebecca Chambers are my faves. Again, this may be a case of it being best if you're not that down with the video game. I certainly wasn't, when I read this book years ago, and so I wasn't sure who would survive by the end. There was real suspense here.

Credit, by the way, for how the video game's horror elements are so immersive that Raccoon City, a funny name for any metropolis, doesn't even remotely sound laughable. Perry easily transfers this creepy-crawly vibe on page. The adaptation does take some liberties, the most key being the inclusion in the book of the mystery man Trent who divulges to Jill Valentine relevant info concerning the Spencer mansion. Trent, apparently, was not in the original RESIDENT EVIL game. But shove that fun fact on the shelf labeled "So what?" RESIDENT EVIL: THE UMBRELLA CONSPIRACY is a really riveting read. In fact, all of Perry's RESIDENT EVIL novels - six so far - are all very much recommended.