Settlers of Catan: The Novel (with exclusive book trailer)

[Video Link] Here's the book trailer for the new novelization of the game Settlers of Catan. The 620-page novel was written by Rebecca Gable and is published by Amazon. I just started reading an advance copy (got sidetracked by the Jobs biography) but have enjoyed the small amount I've read so far!

The year is 850. In the seas of northern Europe, the small coastal village of Elasund falls prey to marauding neighbors. Their food stores pillaged, women and children stolen, livestock destroyed, the villagers are left to barely survive the harsh winter — and contemplate a drastic solution to their recurring hardships: leaving the only village they have ever known. Foster brothers Candamir and Osmund lead their people on an epic quest to a mythic island home, but without knowledge of exactly where the island is, they must trust the gods to deliver them safely. Lost at sea and set adrift, an extraordinarily violent storm washes them ashore the island famed in pagan lore: Catan. They quickly set about building a new society but old grudges, animosities, and social orders lead to fraternal strife. As the ideals of Candamir’s Christian slave spread throughout the village and conflict with pagan law, the two belief systems clash. When both Osmund and Candamir fall in love with Siglind, the mysterious queen of the Cold Islands, things come to a head.
Based on the wildly popular board game of the same name designed by Klaus Teuber, Rebecca Gable’s The Settlers of Catan is a must-read adventure rich in detail and rippling with intensity.

Read an excerpt Buy The Settlers of Catan on Amazon.com

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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xzzy

Books get trailers now?

I must be getting old.
Guest

I’ve got wood for your yarn.
http://www.paradea.org/notes/ Teirhan

I’m not sure how I feel about this.

Since when did Settlers of Catan have a narrative? Or is this what I get for never reading the rule booklet?
Lobster

They take a boardgame about resource management and turn it into a conflict between Christianity and pagan religions? Who exactly is this book for?
alephxero

The summary actually sounds a lot like the new Battlestar Galactica.
eruditeogre

Wait, what? Catan means “land of starlight?” And there’s religious conflict? And it’s all the fault of the faeries? Dude, I just want Longest Road!
http://twitter.com/moripapa100k モりやま

カタンの開拓者たちノベライズかあ
http://www.facebook.com/HyperionToASatyr Jack Holmes

Hey, they can’t be using boats in this trailer! They need the Seafarers expansion for that!
singingdragon

Sorry, Settlers of Catan: the Novel. The two point Wackiest Idea card still belongs to Settlers of Zarahemla.
Stephen Wark

What a positively wretched idea. Go novelize Scrabble.
- mistwolf
  
  I believe they call that a ‘dictionary’. And there are several ‘official’ Scrabble ones. ;)
http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker

Next up: Oregon Trail, the novel, in which a band of 8-year-old pioneers slaughter every buffalo they lay eyes on and leave a trail of gravestones with “fart” written on them. It’s a lot like “Lord of the Flies” , really.
- Lobster
  
  I made it through Oregon Trail with nothing but bacon. Find something useful on the side of the road? Trade it for bacon. Horse broke a leg? Bacon. Broke a wagon wheel? Bacon! Dysenta- BACON!
  
  There is nothing it cannot do. I have proven it.
Annika

Even though the idea of writing a novel about a board game is a bit strange, this book is absolutely great. I’ve read it in the German original years ago and it has great characters, an interesting story and sound historical research. You should definitely check out Rebecca Gablé’s other books; I think her series about late-medieval England is being released in the states as well. She’s one of my absolute favorite authors and I think it’s great that people outside of Germany and Austria can enjoy her work as well now. I almost envy you for getting to read it all for the first time…
- Jonathan Badger
  
  Sometimes tie-ins can be better than one would expect. Haven’t read this, but about 25 years ago the late lamented George Alec Effinger wrote a series of novels based on Infocom adventure games that were surprisingly readable.
Mike Baker

One man’s struggle to trade some of his crap-load of wood for some ore before the robber moves.
http://twitter.com/devlindonnelly Devlin Donnelly

Price: 1 sheep and 2 wood or best offer.
http://twitter.com/morrna N Morrison

I also read this book in German several years ago and liked it. A few things to point out: Other than explaining certain character types in the game like “settlers” and “thieves” and sharing a similar fictional setting, the novel has little to do with the game at all. Also, religious differences do show up in the book, but Christianity plays a minority part, and in the end as I recall the story promotes religious tolerance. The novel is great historical fiction, and does a good job of depicting life in pre-Christian Europe.
Iscah

Do you suppose anyone could convince the narrator to settle on a pronunciation of ‘Odin’ for two minutes?

Also, that sounded… awful. I can believe it might not be, but it sounded pretty terrible.
Adam S.

Don’t you fucking know? I’m Rob fucking Ford, the mayor of this city, and I got wheat to trade!You bitches!
http://www.aculei.net/~eredien/ CP-S

Next: Occupy movements collaborate on a novelization for Monopoly.
http://twitter.com/neojaponisme Néojaponisme

http://neojaponisme.com/2006/07/10/settlers-of-catan-the-short-story/

We somehow parodied this concept before it was even a concept.