The book could be said to concern the battle between science and religion, with diversions into fanaticism, American slavery and the darker aspects of psychology. Mind in Revolt does require a small amount of familiarity with BioShock: Infinite's concept, but that can be summarised as 'a city seceded from the United States of America at the start of the 20th Century, and its people both are ruled by and worship a man who preaches religion, purity and racial intolerance.' That this might evoke certain parts and mindsets of present-day America is unlikely to be an accident. Columbia's sky-borne nature isn't even mentioned, if I recall correctly. There's no science fiction or anything fantastical in there, aside from an alteration of historical events. The most impressive aspect of Joe Fielder's short story is that it is relatively self-contained and could function as a standalone tale. Reflecting this is newly-released ebook novella Mind In Revolt, by Irrational's Joe Fielder with assistance from Ken Levine, which could technically be described as a prequel but seems more designed to flesh out the social pressures bubbling under Columbia's utopian surface in the way that the rollercoaster ride of an action videogame might not.Īpproximately 30 pages long and requiring 20 minutes to read, it's appropriately if perhaps slightly excessively-priced at a couple of quid - but is it useful and/or rewarding? Or is it hype-fluff with unnecessarily grand aspirations?īit of both, I'd say.
Where BioShock's undersea city of Rapture was, in hindsight, much more of a concept than a functioning place, BioShock Infinite's floating metropolis Columbia seems to be striving harder to have an explicable and finely-sketched society.
While Irrational's original had to grab attention from a machinegun-crazed mass audience, their next one comes with built-in renown, potentially affording the studio more opportunity and freedom to indulge themselves in other aspects of the game. Matters are rather different for the third BioShock game than they were for the first.
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