<cite>Assassin's Creed</cite> Novels Axed After Protests From Assassins' Descendants

Author Steven Barnes reveals on hisblog that the planned trilogy of Assassin's Creed novels has been canned, after members of the Ismaeli sect--descendants of the original assassins--expressed their displeasure. Led by the Agha Khan in India, they suggested to Ubisoft that the game should show their ancestors a bit more respect:

Next thing we knew, they wanted to remove all religious references from the book. I guess the Crusades were about shoe size or something. Then they hired an expert to vet the book. Curious that they hadn't thought about that before, eh? And finally, they wanted to send the book to the Agha Khan's people for their suggestions. By this time, Marco [Palmieri at Pocket Books] was thoroughly disenchanted. The book was turning into puree of bat shit, and I was no longer amused. The whole three-book project died.

"Puree of bat shit," indeed. Still, of all the reasons a project could get canceled, not wanting to piss off a sect of ancient assassins is pretty hard to argue with. At least Barnes got paid for the first book.

Why Even Care? [Dar Kush, via Kotaku]