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Chris Cornell's unexpected death is, in a beautiful but understandably tragic way, partially responsible for my wife and me connecting and finding love. We bonded over the sadness of his passing and celebrated his ridiculously talented legacy of music. So I dove into this book with what's admittedly some bias, some enthusiasm, and some emotional connections to the material.

My wife read the Croatian version of this book last year, so I knew going in that author Corbin Reiff had been severely roadblocked by various legal issues surrounding Chris's death and estate. In fact, Reiff admits as much in the introduction and isn't shy about expressing his disappointment over seeing so many promising interview opportunities -- some months in the making -- vanish practically overnight.

Despite this changing the scope of the biography, it opens with so much promise. Reiff paints a brief but powerful picture of Chris "liberating" a collection of Beatles records from a neighbor's wet attic, and spending months isolated in his bedroom, just listening to the band with fascination and reverence.

Similarly, the Soundgarden origin story is meticulously documented. As someone who lived through and was obsessed with the grunge era, so many of these facts and insights were new to me and I enjoyed the hell out of these early chapters.

Then the monotony sets in. Certainly a symptom of the "interview blockade" that Reiff had to deal with, but it still results in a bit of a slog.

The bulk of the book devolves into less an exploration of Chris Cornell, and instead becomes an unnecessarily detailed chronicle of all the various tour stops and album release cycles. It's dizzying trying to keep track of his solo tours, Audioslave tours, Soundgarden tours, Temple of the Dog shows, more solo tours, album production, various promotional events...

You get the idea. It starts to read like a novelization of 30 years' worth of Wikipedia entries. Don't misunderstand; it is interesting, but it's also disappointing how the magic of the opening chapters is lost to a timeline of Cornell's musical and live output.

To his credit, Reiff does shed light on Chris Cornell's approach to and philosophy behind songwriting, and I relished all of that.

If you're a diehard fan of Chris or Soundgarden, I do recommend reading this. But just know going in that it resembles more of a nicely packaged history of Chris Cornell's music output and collaborations, than a true biography.

Know this going in: All Your Base Are Belong To Us resembles a collection of passionately written, diligently researched, loosely tied together essays, rather than being a true exploration of the video game industry's impact on pop culture. It's alluded to repeatedly, but not explored as deeply as I expected.

And Goldberg's occasional reconstruction of the historical dialogue that transpired (based on his 200+ interviews) sounds stilted, not natural.

Still, it's packed with fascinating facts concerning the origin stories of the pioneers and creatives who paved the way. As someone who's been loving video games since Pong, and covered the industry for more than a decade, Goldberg still managed to unearth a ton of tidbits that surprised me.

Beyond that, I have a new appreciation for the early days of PopCap, Rockstar, and Sierra among many others.

It's an easy-reading page-turner for true video game enthusiasts. Come for the origin stories, the history lessons, and the insights gained from Goldberg's treasure chest of interviews (I'd love to see the unedited transcripts of these), just don't expect a deep analysis of gaming's conquest of pop culture.

GREAT COMPANION BOOK: Console Wars by Blake Harris.

Most characters in a story have a redemption arc. Tragically, that can't be said for Noel Monk's account of Roth-era Van Halen.

What starts as a beautiful origin story about a super-talented band briefly evolves into a success story, but then just as quickly devolves into a sordid narrative of betrayal, frustration, depression, and severe drug and alcohol abuse that makes you simultaneously feel sadness and contempt for the members of the band.

Except for Michael. No one could ever hate Michael.

Seriously though, this painted my impressions of Van Halen a slightly darker color, and like Monk towards the end of his tale, I feel like removing them from heavy rotation on my Spotify playlists. At least for a little while.

Maybe some Van Hagar as a palate cleanser...

At any rate, it's an easily readable page-turner and contains a wealth of "inside baseball" stories (some that are delightful, more that are downright revolting) proving the rock star touring life isn't as glorious as you think. Neither are the rock stars themselves.