There’s been a book in the works for a while now from author John Shirley (with an intro chapter by Ken Levine). The book is called BioShock: Rapture, and it was originally planned to be released around the time that BioShock 2, the follow-up to the instant video game classic from 2K Games, hit stores.

Unfortunately the book disappeared for a while, but according to Amazon, it now has a release date and can be pre-ordered right now! And with a visit to Tor Books, the publisher behind the novel, confirmation was discovered: BioShock: Rapture will hit book stores on March 1, 2011. If you want to pre-order the book, you can do so at Amazon (Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle) and get ready to discover the origins of Rapture.

For the most part, novels that present stories set in existing popular video game worlds don’t always do so well. But there have been occasions where a title does really well, such as in the case of Halo, which has seen some popular books follow the various game releases. That said, this particular book sounds like a can’t-miss for fans of BioShock.

You can read a full synopsis of BioShock: Rapture below.