Worlds of Power

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The complete Worlds of Power series.
The complete Worlds of Power series.

The Worlds of Power books are a series of novelizations of video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The books are characterized by the fact that they often retcon their source material, usually include game hints written upside down at the end of chapters (some also had a tear-out "trading card" in the middle with a tip in mirror writing on the back) and are written in a simplistic, easy-to-read style. The middle portions of some books, such as Bionic Commando and Blaster Master, are breezed over. Books in the series consist of novelizations of

Junior Edition Books


Of all of these titles, only the Blaster Master book is considered canon (see Blaster Master for background information on this).


One thing of interest about the Worlds of Power books is that all novels are written based on titles from third-party developers/publishers (e.g. Bionic Commando was from Capcom, Blaster Master was from Sunsoft (company), and so on), and the titles are written under the pen name 'F.X. Nine' (a pseudonym employed by author Seth Godin) by various authors. One author, Peter Lerangis, revealed he used the pen name "A.L. Singer" (which is clearly an anagram of his last name).


Despite including books based on games like Blaster Master, Bionic Commando and Metal Gear, the books were usually written under a policy of no lethal violence against living things. Human enemies would only be shot with tranquilizer darts or otherwise knocked unconscious (although the climax of Bionic Commando sees a string of human deaths), bosses in Blaster Master were said to be holograms, scorpions were made robotic in Metal Gear, and weapons were airbrushed from the cover art of the books.

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