Greg Rucka’s A Gentleman’s Game is a novel that follows the first 31 issues - this includes a mini-series - of his ongoing comic-book series, Queen and Country. Despite this, the novel stands on its own, and can be fully enjoyed without having read any of the preceding comics. Still, as someone who has read Queen and Country, and admires its accomplishments in the comic book genre, I approached A Gentleman’s Game with a few definite questions in mind: 1) how does the story fare in prose? and 2) does this transition in medium add anything new to the story?
The answer to the first question is positive. Rucka brings his characters into prose intact, and substitutes visual content with a concise description of actions and events. His use of dialogue is also a near-exact replica of that found in the series, with its unabashed use of unexplained acronyms, natural language, and brisk delivery. In fact, I was downright impressed by how smooth the transition to prose was. Once Tara Chace enters the story, and returns to the Pit, it feels like the same kind of narrative as that found in Q&C.
Unfortunately, the answer to the second question is more negative than positive. In comparing A Gentleman’s Game with Q&C, there is one notable difference, and that is how much time Rucka is able to spend with secondary characters. In A Gentleman’s Game he stretches the narrative to include the actions of the major antagonists, and those of a few intelligence agents from another country. But rather than add to the depth of the story, this merely offers bits of foreshadowing for the impending conflict between the good guys and the bad guys. Otherwise, these secondary characters remain flat, and uninteresting.
The antagonists, in particular, are unrealized as characters with real motivations. In A Gentleman’s Game, this role is filled by fundamentalist Muslim terrorists, and Rucka’s treatment of their motivations never reaches beyond the cliché. He describes their repugnance of Western culture, and shows them reacting strongly against pornography, excessive consumerism, and the independence of Western women. Yet he never reaches into the psychology that forms this kind of mindset, nor does he plumb the aspects of Islam that drive them.
The very act of strapping a bomb to one’s body, walking into a crowd of innocents, and detonating the bomb to kill both yourself, and them, is by nature hard to understand. Nor could any explanation of a suicide-bomber’s motivations ever excuse their actions. Yet some exploration into their psychology would only add depth to any narrative that dealt with these actions, and elevate it past a cliché portrayal of good vs. evil. Such character studies have been made by other writers, such as Joseph Conrad, who does an excellent job of this in his short, grim little novel, The Secret Agent.
Unfortunately, Rucka offers no such analysis in A Gentleman’s Game. Instead, he takes a very real threat that exists in the world today, and translates it into a two-dimensional caricature motivated by a simple logic. The antagonists hate the Western world, and thus want to undermine it through terrorism. For Rucka, this explanation seems to be sufficient for the needs of the narrative, providing both conflict, and an easy target for his heroic characters to pursue.
I belabor this lack of characterization because, not only is it a major weakness in the novel, but it also undermines the earnest sense of realism that permeates the narrative. A Gentleman’s Game is full of information about the British Secret Service and its politics, various terrorist movements, and other tidbits that are definitely impressive. Yet the novel relies on too much cliche to be considered an accurate representation of today’s world and its politics. Rucka may be trying to offer a spy thriller that hits topical subjects while it entertains, but in this respect, he is only moderately successful.
The novel does entertain, however, especially in its short, brutal action sequences. Tara Chace’s latest assignments are dangerous to the point of lunacy, and finding out how she fulfills her missions is half the fun in this novel. The ensuing action sequences are well-described in terse prose, with brutal bits of gore that add a lot of impact to events. Witnessing Tara Chace do her job is nothing less than thrilling, and definitely one of the main reasons for reading this novel.
In fact, A Gentleman’s Game is ultimately about Tara Chace, and this is where Rucka’s writing is at its strongest. The politics that he gets into flirts with the unbelievable; and the secondary characters are mere cut-outs; but all of these are really accessories to a narrative that is primarily concerned with its hero. And because Tara Chace is such a damn good hero - in comics or in prose - A Gentleman’s Game is overall a successful effort.
If you read and adore Queen and Country, well, then you’ve probably already read this novel. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of spy thrillers, this is a decidedly mediocre novel that features an extraordinary heroine. Consider it an adventure novel, set in today’s world, where politics are wicked but necessary; evil is real, and one-dimensional; and heroes beat the odds with grit, blood, and, in one mission, a rolled up newspaper.
