Xander Williams’ novelization of the critically-acclaimed RPG Final Fantasy VII is an excellent case study in the creativity of the members of the fanfiction community. “The Mercenary”, the first book in The Jenova Project takes us through a through a familiar world, while surrounding us with very unfamiliar elements. This is not a novelization for purists.
One of the strongest aspects of The Jenova Project is the amount of time Williams devotes to side-characters, NPCs and even a few original characters. Entire vignettes are crafted from scratch to help flesh out that author’s unique vision of Midgar and the Slums. The book opens with the perspective of one of the unfortunate Shinra MPs at Reactor 1; Williams starts as he means to go on.
The characterization in this novelization also adds some interesting twists to our protagonists. They never feel out-of-character, but the occasional quip here or off-color comment there, particularly from Aeris, gives us a glimpse at how Williams views them. For instance, Aeris has been raised in the slums her whole life so she is a bit rough around the edges, Cloud remembers all sorts of tricks from his Shinra training, and so forth. With all this abundance of creativity and original content, the main story can be somewhat sparse in the dense narrative. There are certain elements Williams expounds upon in exorbitant detail and others that seem to be mainly a footnote. That said, the overall pacing of the novel is wonderful, even if you do end up taking a few detours.
As far as crafting a scene, Williams was clearly focused on his characters. Dialogue, internal monologue and small character interactions tend to drive the plot more than the hand of an omnipotent author. This casual style of writing makes every interaction feel very natural and well-structured, with only a few exceptions coming to mind. You truly get to know William’s characters. One particularly touching scene involves an entire chapter dedicated to Elmyra’s backstory which is a definite tear-jerker.
The last thing I would comment on is the abundance of comic elements littered throughout the book. Hilarious bits crop up all throughout and often in places you would least suspect. Such gems include Aeris’s general blasé demeanor to danger, Cloud’s dry cool action wit, and some running gags, such as a certain hilariously named dendochronologist whose identity Cloud steals. Sometimes the comedy borders on parody and that can cause some mild issues with tone, but there was never a moment where it felt too jarring.
As I stated at the beginning, “The Mercenary” is not a novel for the purist fan of Final Fantasy VII, and due to its diversions, I might not recommend it to somebody who hadn’t played the games. The ideal reader would be the casual Final Fantasy VII fan, who was very familiar with the story and wanted to experience the story through fresh eyes. And to those readers I say, William’s novel will make you fall in love with the game all over again.

I do hope you continue this. I know it's been a while, but, your story is so great and I'm addicted to your writing style!

The level of detail in this is astounding! I can't even imagine how long you spent playing through the game and capturing all these details. I really like the little bits of dialogue and thoughts you added, too. The game is hard to understand at first, and this really helps fill in the gaps. Superbly written, and thank you for putting in the tremendous amount of effort to do this!

This story is such a huge pile of garbage

This is my favorite novelization of Final Fantasy. I'm so glad you're finally reposting again. I can't get enough and I hate waiting but great job man.

I'm positive I said this already in an older review but oh well it's worth repeating.

I have to admit, I liked your original version better before this redraft. Dunno who you got to edit, but they took the ingenious scifi element out of it and turned it into...fanfiction. Now your characters aren't yours anymore, they're the video games'. They're introduced to me as if I'm already supposed to know who they are, and the fact that I do is besides the point, it breaks the illusion for me.

Look, I know who you got to help you edit this, but honestly they're a bunch of weeaboo retards who can't write their way into a children's book. I know your intention was to let people who'd never played the video game experience the story, so honestly you went about editing this all wrong. You can't get fans to edit for you, you have to get people who've never even heard of the story to edit for you in that case. Unfortunately I doubt there's many that dedicated to undertake something of this magnitude for free, so it's one of those how much do you want it go-it-alone things. My advice, scrap this. Go back to your original version, cut all adverbs, combine every other chapter, and leave your dialogue alone. This one isn't a novel, this is fanfiction, and you're better than that.

I've been meaning to review for a while now. You updated so quickly, much to my delight. I wonder what inspired the names you chose for Scarlet and the President?

Some of my favorite parts are where you add dialogue, like between Shinra and Cloud about being a mercenary.

I can already see Cloud's character development at work! ~~ thank you so much for updating and keep it up!

This is amazing. Extremely well written, and I love the way you worked in the "reminiscence" chapters! Definitely going on my favs. Please keep up the wonderful work! Looking forward to the next update greatly!

Very Good,keep it going but i wonder if you Will make it like Canon where is aerith die?i hope not pssst can you make this aerithcloudtifa,no one ever done it before aside slash/yaoi pairing for cloudwell if it no pairing then i Will follow your lead

It's been almost 11 years since you posted this story and you still update it. I'm surprised o.O
I love your writing style so keep going, ok?
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I wanted to say that I love how much you bring out in Barret and Cloud's growing friendship/comradery. You characterize them so well. There are many things to praise but I suppose I'd be repeating myself :)
Anyway, keep up the good work! I'm excited for the next chapter!

I've been a long time fan of this novelisation and can clearly remember the day that I had run out of chapters to read because I started to focus on my brothers FPS game after lamenting loudly to my mum that the best fanfic I had ever read wasn't complete!

It's stuck with me throughout the years and remained an absolute favourite to this day. I'm so excited to see that you're releasing a new version based off that original draft! I'm giddy with excitement from reading this first chapter alone! Beautful. Now I can follow and favourite properly this time 'round. Happy belated 20th anniversary of the OG by the by ;)

I'm happy you updated! I noticed that you wrote "riding" instead of "reading" the Wutai Warrior.
Other than that, I love your imagery. I'm excited for the next part. Please keep writing.

Glad this is back in action, and funny that the first chapter opened with me thinking you were penning a novel about Donald Trump lol. A great talent you have here and a pleasure to follow.

I stumbled upon this recently and I love it. I love your writing style and the way you paint a visual image for me. Your style also reminds me of my favorite authors.

I hope to see more of your story in the future. I also like how you use some of the same dialogue from the game into the fiction, and how serious the atmosphere feels when I read it.

Anyway, I hope you are encouraged to move forward and I'm really looking forward to the next chapter!