‘Minecraft: The Island’ Blurs the Line Between Fiction and Gaming
When Mojang asked if he would be interested in writing a Minecraft novel, Mr. Brooks was so enthusiastic
that he wrote a full draft before his contract was even completed.
“My biggest fear was that somebody tries to play out my book and finds out it won’t work.”
In the process, he may have also created a strange new entertainment category, one
that hovers somewhere between fan fiction, role-playing games and literature — a novel set in a game, that can itself be played within the game.
Mr. Brooks — a cheerful, enthusiastic paranoiac who is obsessed with survival strategies, zombies, apocalyptic scenarios
and plagues — wrote the story as a first-person, Robinson Crusoe-esque narrative, featuring an initially hapless character who is stranded on a strange island and has to build shelter, find food and fight off zombies and giant spiders, all features that exist in the game.
Del Rey is promoting the novel within the game’s platform, with a digital replica of the island Mr. Brooks created, which players can explore.