Bioshock: Rapture

Written by John Shirley based on the two first Bioshock games, Bioshock: Rapture is a science fiction novel that intends to tell a story that complements the great original material. It puts its focus on the game’s setting – the underwater city of Rapture –, and the philosophy behind it, but fails to add anything new to the game’s story, failing to develop it properly.

The story initially follows two main characters: the plumber Bill Mcdonagh and the scammer Frank Gorland. Mcdonagh has always dreamed of becoming an engineer and, one day, is indeed offered the chance to make his dream come true by an eccentric tycoon. The plumber sees his value finally recognized, as he’s placed as one of those responsible for repairing and maintaining the foundations of a city on the bottom of the sea, to where he sets off immediately with his family. Gorland, on the other hand, sees in Rapture’s propaganda (the unwavering defense of the free market) a perfect business opportunity.

By putting these two characters to clash in Rapture, the narrative establishes two opposing visions operating within the same setting: that of a serious and honest worker, and that of a profiteer who never misses a single opportunity to exploit the person next to him. The author treats Mcdonagh and Gorland like rats in a lab experiment: he puts both of them in an isolated society with minimal regulation, which values free competition above all else, to see which one becomes more successful in the end.

The universe of Rapture is fascinating: an isolated society on the ocean floor that has as its basic principle the belief that humanity, when not regulated and limited by the State, can only thrive. The city presented in the game, however, has fallen into chaos, being the typical setting of a horror story, where people have lost any trace of civility, turning into hungry animalistic creatures. The thesis that Rapture’s failure represents is pretty clear: humans, when left unchecked, don’t thrive but kill each other.

It’s is important to notice the role of technology in the construction of this universe. Andrew Ryan, the founder of the city, believes that science is limited by morality and so removes it from the values that govern his society: in Rapture, scientists can do whatever they want without fear of retaliation. Technology consequently advances absurdly to the point of framing Rapture in the field of science fiction. But, at the same time, this unethical advance of science provides a stimulus to the downfall of humanity: if people already have a strong tendency to violence, technology only facilitates it. In the book, humans are described as individuals at a boiling point, needing just a push to let chaos reign.

Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine which of the two main characters Shirley already puts as a winner early on in the story. McDonagh has no chance with his hard work mentality and honesty, being quickly swallowed up by the hostility of Rapture. Gorland, on the other hand, profits from violence, which he encourages to increase his earnings. If Gorland is seen as a survivor, he is also treated as the villain of the story: it is because of people like him, whose only goal is profit, that Rapture falls.

In Bioshock Rapture, however, all these ideas are wasted by an undercooked narrative, marred by poor writing, which fails to develop its characters and themes in an original and engaging way. It’s understandable that the author reuses some of the game’s characters and scenes, for example, but Shirley manages to copy entire dialogues. In Bioshock, the player finds recordings that serve to paint how Rapture was before its downfall. What the reader finds in the book are precisely the scenes in which those same characters record those same reflections and confessions.

The attempts to show the origins of some of the city’s most striking landmarks are just redundant since the explanations are shallow and inconsequential. Why did Andrew Ryan put the song La Mer to play at the lighthouse? Because he found it would fit the ambiance. Why did he have a huge banner hang at the same lighthouse with the saying ‘NOT GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MEN’? Because he thought it would give “personality” to the statue that holds it. The author takes unnecessary questions and offers answers so poor, so random, and so foolish, that they can generate only sighs of weariness from the reader.

The author’s prose also misses the mark. In a strategy that works contrary to the dark and heavy tone of the book, Shirley uses comparisons and metaphors involving water that, by serving only to refer to Rapture’s location, end up being just cringeworthy: “Bill McDonagh was riding an elevator up to the top of the Andrew Ryan Arms—but he felt like he was sinking under the sea.”/ “I’m diving in at the deep end, Mr. Ryan…”

Dialogues don’t fare better. Many suffer from the same redundancy as the rest of the narrative, such as the “Drunks!“ that Ryan mutters after spotting a group of… drunk people. Others are simply stupid: one scientist, for example, claims to have invented a weapon that “projects cold”, making a basic mistake that not even high school students should make. Finally, one of the chapters ends with a character asking, “How badly could it go wrong?” which is simply amazing.

Character development lacks subtlety to the point that Mcdonagh has to sum up his own personality to make things very, very clear to those in the back: “I’m all loyalty, me. That’s Bill McDonagh—straight through.” There is no character more badly characterized than Andrew Ryan, which is a serious problem, as he is the ideological compass of the story, always being present in one way or another: his name is repeated over nine hundred times during the novel. It is with his speech that the book opens:

“I am Andrew Ryan and I’m here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow? No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose … Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by Petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

It’s not difficult to realize that the above speech – took straight from the game’s opening – has a propagandistic purpose. Its exalted and affected tone intends to seduce the audience and make them share Ryan’s dream. Shirley, however, instead of realizing that in the game these features are found in Ryan’s recordings and posters because these objects are meant to sell the idea of what his city represents, he applies them directly to the man himself. In other words, instead of being a multifaceted character in the book, Ryan comes across as a caricature of his own image, speaking in the exact same way as his propaganda: “Look at it, rising like an orchestral climax! Rapture is a miracle, Bill—the only kind of miracle that matters! The kind a real man creates with his own two hands. And it should be celebrated every day.” In addition, the narrative often contradicts itself when it comes to how Ryan is described and how he is indeed presented. It is repeated a few times, for example, that he carefully handpicks who he invites to Rapture, although there is a scene in which Ryan appears interviewing a scientist without even knowing the theme of her thesis.

Bioshock: Rapture sets up an interesting premise that is eventually ruined by mediocre writing. The city of Rapture is undoubtedly the novel’s strongest point, but its construction is the merit of the game’s developers, not John Shirley’s. As a result, his novel ends up being redundant, offering nothing to fans and to newcomers alike.

November 11, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on July 11, 2016.