Disney could learn a thing or five from the Anime experts. Dark Horse being one of them.
Right now Disney is sitting on top of a lot of prose Kingdom Hearts, book upon book of material from the Kingdom Hearts franchise that has only seen the light of day in Japan (or possibly the internet though I have no idea if that is true or not). This is wrong. After all Kingdom Hearts has a large following on the English reading side of the world, who are looking for their next fix of the series. This is something Disney could take advantage of, and yet they do not. However groups like Dark Horse are not ignorant of their fanbase, and have been filling in all the blanks in their fans’ needs by supplying not only mangas of series like GITS but the prose novels like GITS : SAC’s Lost Memory, a novel for both the fan of GITS : SAC, the worlds of Shirow Masamune, and fans of a well written piece of sci-fi with bite.

Say good morning to the Good Morning Terrorists. And no, despite the name it’s NOT a terrorist group who worships the comedic stylings of Robin Williams.
This unpredictible terrorist group does not work like other groups. They work “off the radar” so to speak by taking over the cyberminds of young people, using them to carry out their strange terrorist campaign against the establishment with shocking and violent results.

Simple enough, right? Well this case is enough to give Homeland Security nightmares as it all involves the young, has a lot of cyberbrain jargon and Law & Order detectivework strewned into the case, and has a most unexpected connection that binds all these youths together into a plot that seemingly ties into a violent incident years ago which seemingly set the stage for what is happening now, and what is to come.

A finely written little work that keeps you turning the pages from start to end.
A nice tight read of a book, if I do say so myself, and you should find yourself hooked on it once you start really getting into the story that unfolds here (which is done well, and is well written from top to bottom).
As far as novels go you should find a desire to read this if you are either a fan of the series (GITS : SAC), a fan of the worlds of Masamune (though of course whether or not that extends to being a fan of the writings of Masamune may be something else entirely since he’s not penning this as it’s writer), or a fan of well written mature sci-fi worth reading. Breakdown should merit that out.

GITS : SAC Lost Breakdown
What’s Hot?
I haven’t absorbed a great amount of novels yet for review, this being my second review post my original Vampire Hunter D novel review, but I am liking what I’ve read so far.
Writing is solid, the book is nicely done, and if you are a fan of the series you should consider picking this up for your collection. Really. Novels are just as good as mangas, after all look at how many people learned to love novels again after being (re)exposed to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter franchise books.

Now if only Disney would learn this lesson from Dark Horse and embraced their novels based on their big franchise, Kingdom Hearts.

What’s Not?
I can’t think of a thing that is bad about this release.

Moments to Remember?
I don’t want to spoil it’s moments for you… hmm… but just so you know I did check it out…
I know, Major Motoko Kusanagi vs. the “Dwarf“… yeah, that’s some weird fight.

What to Ignore?
I can’t think of a thing worth ignoring here.

Overall?
Once you get ahold of this you might start adding a new prose novel series to your reading list.
Dark Horse does us proud by getting ahold of the print novels of the GITS : SAC series, now it’s our turn to do Dark Horse proud by picking them up, reading them, and asking for more… please, sir, I’d like more… really. More, please, more… stop calling me an urchin, not funny… uh, oh, nuff said. (Now go pick it up.)