Grand Theft Auto Creator Dan Houser Has Published His First Novel, A Better Paradise

Dan Houser has added a new hat to his bag of tricks; book author.

He has published his first book with Simon & Shuster, as well as under his current company Absurd Ventures.

While Absurd Ventures Press is bringing the ebook version to Kindle and other platforms, the physical retail version will be handled by Simon & Shuster.

The book is a written adaptation of his audio podcast series A Better Paradise: Volume One (An Aftermath). The publisher provided this description of the story:

A Better Paradise takes place in the near future (2041) and revolves around Daisy’s Ark, an advanced video game world developed by tech startup Tyburn Industria.

Conceived by visionary psychologist Mark Tyburn, Daisy’s Ark was eventually canceled following a pattern of “unexpected and disturbing results.”

A decade later, their creation refuses to remain buried, haunting those who were connected to its development.

A Better Paradise has multiple first-person narrators, including Kurt Fischer, a key former employee of Tyburn Industria, Daisy Tyburn, Mark’s daughter and the namesake of the video game world, and an artificial intelligence named NigelDave.

There’s Something Weird About This Book Release

As you can see from Spotify, A Better Paradise stands as a 12 episode podcast series. Each episode lasts at an average of over 40 minutes.

This podcast plays out like a radio drama. It features a full voice cast, as well as music and SFX. It’s been produced in such a way that it’s almost like a TV show without visuals.

Absurd Ventures is also publishing an Audible version of the book. This seems to be a reading of the book itself and not the podcast. Ray Porter is credited as the sole reading voice for the Audible version.

Is it worth it to still get the Audible version? It kind of is. Houser expands the story in the novel version, with new details that are not in the podcast.

It will also be a different experience to have a spoken word monologue describing things and places, instead of leaving it to your imagination. But we would understand if some fans would rather not bother going through both.

In which case, we would say that the original audio podcast is the more bombastic radio drama experience, while the Audible will provide a more comfortable experience.

And of course, you can read it as a book, ebook and physical book alike. However you choose to enjoy A Better Paradise, it will be an interesting mix between a semiautobiographical account of working in the video game industry, and some wild science fiction.