Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: No Guts, No Glory

This is a great prequel story to the game. I don't want to give anything away. I'm not a great words smith with reviews anyway. But if you are a fan of GotG, have played the game, want to play the game, or you just want to read the book and never play the game. You won't be disappointed.

Felt like I was watching the movies again.

Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy: No Guts, No Glory by M.K. England is a video game tie-in prequel novel based on the 2021 singleplayer action adventure game “Marvel’s Guardians Of the Galaxy”.The Novel hops back and forth from present day Peter Quill AKA Star Lord, who is already alongside all of the Guardians, and then goes back twelve years prior to Mercury where Peter fought alongside Ko-Rel. It was paced well enough to keep me reading and it was surprisingly a pretty quick read at that.The story involving Peter and Ko-Rel on Mercury is definitely the better plot in my opinion however jumping back and forth between time periods does hurt any tension the battle on Mercury tries to have. (Granted it’s a prequel novel to a game that came out before it, so the two are going to make it out.) Which I suppose is fine since the battle on Mercury isn’t really about a final last stand against an overwhelming chitauri anyway, it’s more of a we have a traitor among us mystery which eventually ties into the current day Guardian’s adventure. The relationship between Peter and Ko-Rel is written well enough, you can understand the need they had for each other in face of the situation they find themselves, but it’s definitely not the most well paced romance ever, it’s super fast which can be said about most of the events in the book.Jumping to the current day Peter with the Guardians, they are hired to go back to Mercury because apparently someone is squatting inside the old resistance base reactivating the place. The weakest parts of the novel is when the Guardians are at the base. It kind of turns into a three stooges act between the boys just to have Gamora shake her head at whatever dumb things they do as they wander around the Base. I won’t go on about the plot much more after this but the big reveal and everything building up to this point is very mediocre. The author tries to compel some kind of ptsd with the twist but it honestly falls flat which is difficult to describe without spoilers. I won’t be nitpicking at it to much other then It just hurts Ko-Rel’s character as apparently she decided to say screw it and leave all these loose ends with the traitor, knowing that this traitor was responsible for the deaths of the people and friends under her command. (Who most aren’t as mentally disciplined, dictated by their actions and comments, as what you would except from a space military.)There isn’t a lot of action in it and the few scenes we get are almost offensively small compared to the adventure game it’s based on. We don’t get to really visit any incredible alien worlds or meet any weird species, like the game or MCU movies. humor between the group isn’t a strong point either as I don’t remember any of the jokes landing with me as much as the game’s did. Being a prequel I can assume this is the reason that the Guardians, other then Peter, didn’t really get fleshed out as much but they did meld nicely into the team we meet at the beginning of the game, although Drax is criminally underutilized in this book.If you want more Ko-Rel and Peter for whatever reason or you need something casual to read it might be more towards your liking but if you’re reading this for more of the team or another grand Guardian adventure (yes I know the game is suppose to be the adventure that puts them on the map) then it honestly isn’t going to offer much to you. Maybe it would have worked out much better if it just focused on the events of Mercury or maybe an origin story for how the Guardians actually met up.Overall, It’s a solid 2 and a half stars out of 5. While I enjoyed it for what it was, in the grand scheme of all things it didn’t add to much to the stellar video game, so one can skip it entirely.

Guardians of the Galaxy: No Guts, No Glory is the prequel novel to the recently released video game. Going in the first thing you should know is that while similar these aren’t exactly the same Guardians of the Galaxy as those you many know from the movies. Same characters but they have different backstories than the MCU Guardians. That being said, the fun chemistry between the characters witnessed in the movies is alive and well here. After completing a poorly negotiated mission that ends with a less than impressive payday, the Guardians are desperate for an actual paying job and reluctantly agree to take on a mission that will take Peter on a trip down memory lane. The story takes place on a base on Mercury, jumping back and forth between present day and 12 years earlier when Peter was helping Ko-Rel (a member of the Nova Corps) defend the base during a war with the Chitauri. While the constant jumping back and forth in time has never been my favorite story telling device, it works fairly well here. As a fan of both the movies and the comics, I liked that the book includes some characters not seen in the movies. There is even a tiny cameo by Richard Rider aka Nova (who I hope will get introduced into the MCU soon) though sadly we don’t get to see him in action. Both storylines are compelling, with the past storyline being more serious and giving us a in-depth look into Peter’s characters, while the present day story shows us the witty and carefree Guardians we know and love. Austin Rising does a solid job bringing the entire team to life but he really shines with his rendition of Rocket. I’d like to thank Marvel and NetGalley for the chance to listen to an advanced copy of the Guardians of the Galaxy No Guts, No Glory audiobook. And now that I’ve finished it I’ll be jumping into the video game!

It took me longer than I wanted to finish this book.I liked the story, the characters and the interaction between the characters.Unfortunately, the narrator didn’t land with me very well. There was just something about his tone and lack of skill with voices that I didn’t care for.Not that it was completely bad. He did do some characters nicely, but overall, I think it would have been a better listening experience with a different narrator.

Prompt service just as described - thank you