Assassin's Creed: The Golden City

Thank you to NetGalley and Aconyte for early access to the book for an honest review.
I went into this book not really expecting much from it and came out pleasantly surprised. The Golden City is surprisingly self-contained for a tie in novel that revolves around characters within the games, which I really appreciate, since it means that the book actually manages to feel like a complete story, while still setting up the events of the game that it's tied to. That being said, if you don't have much knowledge on Assassin's Creed, I would recommend against the book, since I don't think there's much here for you.

Having more intimate knowledge of the series, I found myself reading this quite compulsively, finishing it in just 3 days, while also reading other books. Seeing the little hints at plot points for the game this is a prequel to (Valhalla) was really engaging, and the hints towards Mirage's plot were also really enticing, and have me very excited to experience the game now.

The plot was alright. It was set up as a potentially interesting political plot, but had the depth of a burst kiddie pool, with no real twists or turns put into the story. Almost every revelation was something extremely obvious, even without any foreshadowing. Hytham would regularly guess something that was treated as a big reveal, yet was constantly portrayed as fairly inept when it came to running an investigation.

The actually engaging part of the plot was Hytham trying to understand what Basim's goals were. Seeing him try to parse everything Basim said or did for hidden meanings was really engaging, however, I have to point out that this isn't where you're going to get any answers to that mystery. For that you need to play a game, so in the long run, I can see this being a negative for people who haven't played Valhalla. Since I've completed Valhalla, it enhanced my experience though, so I really appreciated it.

As a PoV, Hytham is pretty good, but is definitely held back by the lack of anything going on in the story, since there's no points where he really gets to shine as a character due to the extremely obvious story beats that go on. I feel like if there had been a bit of a murkier air to the investigation, he would have had more opportunity to shine, however for the most part he just fucks up and eventually stumbles to the correct conclusion. Where he shines is in his interpersonal relationships.
You can't help but like Hytham, because he cares a lot about the people around him. Of particular note is Leo, the young emperor that he's tasked to defend with his life. The father/son relationship the pair have is genuinely very cute, and you get to see both of them grow together throughout the story. Watching how that clashed against his oaths was a super compelling aspect of the book, especially with Basim's bits of advice about forming attachments riddled throughout (if YKYK)

The combat scenes are also awesome. The hidden blade is something that will always be fun to have included in combat scenes, since it's such a rare type of weapon in books, but the swordfights are also of note, since the author does a really good job of making you feel like you're experiencing the fights, with really vivid descriptions of not just combat, but how the opponent moves, the noise they make etc. It transports you to the fights every time.

The big criticism I have is that Constantinople is pretty boring in the book, which is a shame, since the Byzantine empire is really cool. This is definitely caused in part by the lack of mystery around the assassination attempts. It doesn't allow the setting to grow any form of atmosphere that's unique to itself, instead the city would be entirely interchangeable if not for the story's reliance on the historical figures of Basil I and Leo.

The pacing of the book is a bit off as well in my opinion, as there are really long stretches where very little happens, with short bursts of progress for the story. This isn't too much of a problem, since the book is relatively short, but it's still of note in my opinion.

All in all, I had a pretty decent time with this book, but it won't be at the top of my list of recommendations for people. I'd wholeheartedly recommend this for people who enjoyed AC Valhalla, as it enhances that game by no end. It's a solid 3.5 stars, you could do far worse for video game tie ins.