Mobile Suit Gundam: Awakening, Escalation, Confrontation

I'm a long-time fan of the Gundam series even if I believe it's been about ten years and five series too many since they had anything new to say. Then again, that's the nature of all fandom for continuously operating decades-old franchises. For those unfamiliar with it, Gundam is a mecha anime based around the titular brand of mecha which is a portmanteau of the words "Gun" and "Freedom." The rough premise of (almost) every Gundam is that there's a central conflict between two factions, usually Earth and her space colonies, which are beating the crud out of one another with little regard for civilian casualties. Then the titular mecha, almost always an advanced prototype more powerful than anything else on the battlefield, falls into the hand into an outside observer. This character chooses to fight on the side of the slightly-or-more-than-slightly-less-heinous of the two sides while learning harsh lessons on war. The series carry harsh lessons about the cost of fighting which are undercut by the fact the audience is here to see mechas blow each other to pieces. I'm particularly fond of the Mobile Suit Gundam movies, Zeta Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, Gundam 00, and the Universal Century mini-series (08th MS Team, IGLOO, War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory, Char's Counterattack). Which should tell you, despite my lackluster description, I really like the franchise. But what would be a good place to really read about what Gundam is about? That would be this collection of novels. Written by Gundam's creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and translated into English, these are about as close to his original vision for the series as you're going to get. A vision uncorrupted by the need to draw out the series longer than necessary, bow to television sensibilities of the late seventies, and the need to sell as many toys as humanly possible. Is it great? Not quite. Tomino is a television writer more than a novelist and the prose is a bit on the beige side, lacking descriptive flourishes which would bring the world alive to masterpiece levels. I've read it three times, though, so there must be something good there. It roughly follows the premise of the original Mobile Suit Gundam but with some differences in terms of time compression, where characters start, and being more adult in content. The premise is Federation military cadet Amuro Ray is one of the few survivors of an attack on neutral space colony Side-7 when he and his friends load themselves up on an experimental warship, White Base, and head down to planet Earth with both the Gundam and data on how to produce them. Side-7 violated its treaty with the Principality of Zeon in order to produce these weapons and now its survivors are being hunted by ace pilot Char Aznable in order to prevent them from being used to turn the tide of the war. The three novels are notable for the fact the Gundam is not treated as an invincible war machine but simply a very advanced piece of military hardware. Despite its power, it's not capable of turning the tide of the war on its own and can be both damaged as well as destroyed. Indeed, as the war progresses, the Gundam's advantages get less and less powerful as the Principality fields better mecha. A great deal more world-building is inserted into the narrative than was present in the original series. This includes describing the events of the One Year War before the arrival of the Gundam, General Revel's famous "Zeon is Exhausted" speech, what Minovsky particles do, the nature of Newtypes, and background for the Principality of Zeon as well as its greviances. The series is more adult as well with issues of sex amongst soldiers dealt with frankly as well as the memorable issue of talismans. Amuro Ray is a great protagonist in this adaptation of his character, being akin to Starship Troopers' Rico in that he's a novice who is introduced to the realities of war only to have him come to almost polar opposite conclusions as Rico. Char Aznable is less an obsessed rival for our hero as in the anime than a character who wandered in from another story, a Game of Thrones-style epic about feuding nobles, who is trying to take down the Zabi family. His conflict with Amuro is almost irrelevant to his actual goals. I'm also fond of Sayla Mass, who is a character who received far less attention in the original series than she deserved but shines here as the first female Gundam pilot. The conflict in the book gets extremely dark, which should come as no surprise given Tomino is known as "Kill Em All" in certain quarters. This is a war and no one is safe. Both sides are humanized and the staggering wastefulness of it all is well-done. Sadly, the book is unavailable in Kindle or electronic format, but only paperback. As it is published by a Japanese company and decades ago, I doubt this is going to change any time soon. Still, I recommend it for fans of war stories and mecha.10/10

So, I want to preface this saying I got into Gundam as a teenager, first through the model kits, and later through the cartoons as Cartoon Network helped bring them to America. As a kid, I loved Gundam Wing and couldn't understand why adults didn't "get it" or weren't into it, I tried watching it again as an adult later and just found myself unable to watch all the anime tropes, unrealistic conflicts, etc. that I (personally) didn't find relatable any more, most especially the overwelling of teen angst. Later I found adaptions of the original cartoon and its sequel Zeta Gundam, and found them okay, but still not filling this desire to see this story told with characters I could find as real and relatable. I've watched many of the other UC setting shows and some are better than other, and even managed to find my way to the Origin comic series and found that to be really nice (and beautifulyl illustrated). However none of these stories were scratching that itch I had for something more akin to a western literature style scifi story.Eventually after talking about the series with my boss, he told me about this book trilogy, which I had never known existed. I picked it up and devoured it over the course of a weekend, already starting to re-read it. This is the version of Gundam for people who want smarter characters, smarter storytelling, a much more complete picture of the intent of Newtypes, and a strong but complex and realistic depiction of Char. I hope someday this version of the story makes it to the screen or to a visual medium other than just a few model kits. I really hope you buy this book and tell anyone who likes scifi and mecha to pick it up too. Tomino's vision shines like a bright light in the void here, and gives the audience a great and classic core story to Gundam that can be read more than once.As a note, I don't want to disparage the original series or their youth power fantasy. That's good to have and important to have. I however really enjoyed this book personally for where I am currently in life (29 years old and going). I grew up on mecha and moved to scifi and political fantasy/history like the Expanse series, the Saxon Tales, Song of Ice and Fire, etc. Please take that as a framework for this review.------------------------------------------------Minor spoilers below of things not in this novel that made me like it even more:-No civilian children pilots-Earth story arc skipped-Very few battles, and when they occour they make sense (obviously this couldn't happen in a TV show that needs a battle almost every episode)-Very few mobile suit chasis (no "villain of the week", more realistic R&D times)-Very consistent "scifi" tech

Clearly some differences between the original series and the novel, but the novel makes a little more sense about it and it is clear what Tomino's original vision was. Translated well, and a must for Universal Century fans.

ちゃんと届いたので、よかったです。綺麗な状態で満足しています。

If you're a fan of the Universal Century continuity of Gundam (the original Gundam continuity), this is a must read. It's an alternate retelling of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, or as fans call it, 0079. This book is based on the original idea for how Yoshiyuki Tomino wanted 0079 to go before it was cancelled, so at the time this was an alternate, more complete version of the story. Most of the book follows the TV series with some alterations (almost all the White Base crew are already members of the military before the attack on Side 7, Garma Zabi attacks White Base in space before they go down to earth, Lalah Sune is introduced much sooner etc.) but the final act is completely different and makes the events of Mobile Suit Z Gundam impossible. The book is in general very interesting for a fan because they go in to far greater detail of the universe than the TV series did. The only problem is that the translation is a bit awkward. This is a must read for a true fan.

Questo libro, anche se ovviamente di estremo interesse per chiunque sia appassionato di Gundam, è un ottimo romanzo di fantascienza e mi sento di consigliarlo a tutti gli appassionati del genere.Questa collezione di tre romanzi narra della seconda parte della guerra tra la Federazione Terrestre e la colonia ribelle costituitasi nel Principato di Zeon, segnata dalla "riscossa" della Federazione e dall'emergere di un "nuovo tipo" di essere umano, capace di contatto e comunione con gli altri esseri umani quasi paranormale.La vicenda narrata nei romanzi di Tomino si discosta abbastanza dalla serie di cartoni vista in TV, ma ovviamente consente una profondità di analisi e una complessità molto maggiori, per cui la cosa non mi ha dato fastidio. L'importante è che il lettore non si aspetti la semplice trascrizione degli episodi del cartone animato. Fortunatamente, c'è molto di più!A parte qualche breve passaggio più lento (e forse un po' pedante quando si sofferma sulla teoria dei newtype, ma probabilmente troppo va perso nella traduzione dal giapponese), i romanzi sono densi di azione bellica, intrigo e complesse vicende umane, per cui si leggono volentieri indipendentemente dal fatto di essere un "fan" di Gundam o meno.E' molto forte l'impronta idealistica pacifista, in perfetto stile giapponese, per cui i personaggi (non tutti militari per scelta o professione) sono soldati, combattono, uccidono e muoiono lealmente, anche se interiormente sono combattuti tra il dovere ineluttabile e i propri sentimenti pieni di contraddizioni.

If your a gundam fan who's only seen the TV show or read the mangas then this book is a must have becasue it brings to life the ordinal story in visoned by the creator of Gundam! Dubbed over from Japan and all three books Awakening, Escalation, Confrontation are contained in this one volume and it has a great ending, a must have for any Gundam fan. The story follows a young man call A call Amuro as he begins to discover he is a New Type of human being but its one of the darkest times in history, Earth is at War with Zion for control of space and during this war a New weapon as been created, mobile suits used by both sides to rage their war but Zion have a plan for a new weapon that could change the course of the war so get this book and find out what it is!