For my latest Wired video-game column, I wrote about a new booming cottage industry: Novels based on popular games. To quote:

Here are some details about Sam Fisher you probably didn’t know: He’s 47 years old, and his hottie martial-arts instructor has a major crush on him. He lives alone in a condo and struggles to figure out how to deal with his college-age daughter. His favorite pastime is gourmet cooking. He thinks the Iraq war is a bad idea.

Sam Fisher is, of course, the hero of the Splinter Cell video game. I’ve spent countless hours using my Xbox controller to sneak him past armed guards, scale walls and club enemies unconscious. But I didn’t know much about his personal life until I wandered into an airport bookstore recently and encountered Splinter Cell — the novel.

You can read the rest of the piece online here for free!