Book review
Written by Alex Irvine
Titan Books paperback
Release date Out now

There's robot war on Cybertron as Autobots and Decepticons take arms…

The ongoing war between good robots (the Autobots) and their evil rivals (the Decepticons) is a subject that, on the face of it, is unlikely to make for an engaging read. The appeal of the metal giants has always been on a visceral level as they change shape and beat each other up within the visual media of comics, cartoons and movies. So that’s a ‘yes’ to twisted metal action and a basic heroes vs. villains narrative, and a big ‘no’ to introspection, discourse on the meaning of war and sensitive characterisation. Or is it?

The recent videogame, War for Cybertron, wisely avoided the franchise’s usual Earthbound setting to take us back to the distant path in a sort of ‘Transformers Begins’ origin story. Happily, Alex Irvine follows suit and, though the conclusion of the story is obvious to any self-respecting fan, the journey is hugely entertaining.

Irvine provides detailed character studies of Optimus Prime and Megatron, giving perhaps more insight as to their motivations and ideals than the franchise has offered in its near 30-year history. In fact, Irvine is so successful at these carefully written character moments that it's almost a shame when the fighting starts and the narrative veers toward the videogame approach, with goals to be overcome every so often and increasingly difficult missions to accomplish. It’s the one aspect of the book where the one-note nature of the source material shows and it weakens the narrative.

An epic tale with a well-judged sense of personal motivation and insight (you may well find yourself warming to Megatron!), this probably isn’t for the casual fan, but die-hards should lap it up with relish. Jonathan Wilkins

VERDICT: 8/10
As tie-ins go, this is one of the better examples of the genre.