Book Report: Street Fighter by Todd Strasser (1994)

You know, I wouldn’t read a comic book and put it on the list here, but somehow I can read a YA adaptation of a film based on a video game (which is not a first: see here where I’ve read the novelization of a sequel of a movie based on a video game).

That said, come on, it’s a book about a military operation that incorporates the characters from the side-by-side fighter game and somehow gets Jean-Claude Van Damme in front of them. The plot is about a mad warlord in a backwater country in Southeast Asia who is using science to tip the balance in his favor on his plan to rule the world. The good guys, the AN (Allied Nations, a proxy for the UN), need to infiltrate the hidden base to free some hostages, and several non-military players get into the base to seek vengeance on the warlord.

Meanwhile, in a stunning turn of events (and the fact this is not the film version of Heavy Barrel), everyone drops their weapons and starts fighting with martial arts. Someone fires a bazooka stolen from the military, presumably a military museum. The bad guy gets his comeuppance. The book ends.

It’s a straight forward story with some back story fleshed out to the depth you’d expect. Maybe the backstories scrolled on the video game itself. But this book, like other YA adventures including those of Heinlein, really could serve as a gateway to more in depth reading. But in 1994, it probably just was a gateway to Street Fighter II.