Game Book Review: Mass Effect: Revelation

For those who like to read book adaptions or new stories set within video game universes you can’t really go wrong with the Mass Effect series. A video game trilogy (for now but soon to have a 4th edition) that is considering a pinnacle of modern gaming even if THAT ending disappointed just about everyone.

The Mass Effect universe is the perfect place for expansive stories to be told, threads to be pulled & history to be re-visited (for example, how cool would a book set during the Geth uprising be? Or one based around the Genophage?).

Revelation chooses not to explore any of the Mass Effect side stories though, instead it serves as a prequel to the events of the series. This might be something to worry about if it was written by the lead writer of the Mass Effect series, Drew Karpyshyn.

This book is a lot of filling in the blanks, adding more depth to the anti-AI stance that exists in the universe, fleshing out the Alliance & David Anderson but most importantly allowing us to see just where it started to go wrong for Saren.

The story is based around a top-secret Alliance base that is attacked. Everyone is killed except Kahlee Sanders who is suspected of being involved. David Anderson, as a young Alliance lieutenant is tasked with finding her before the Turian spectre, Saren does.

Saren is uncompromising, brutal but very good at his job. His interest in the attack goes way beyond finding out who is to blame & as he begins to pull the thread he discovers something that he may be able to use to conquer all enemies that stand in his path.

Excitingly Saren’s discovery is kept in the dark until the final moments of the book (there are a few hints regarding a new kind of AI discovered deep in Geth space territory) so when the realisation drops that he has found out about Sovereign it blows the book wide open only for it…to end.

That’s not a complaint; this book is all about leading into the first game so we really don’t need lots of detail about what happened between Saren & Sovereign. We already know what the end result all of this is anyway!

Revelation is a book for fans only; if you don’t know anything about the Mass Effect world you’re not likely to enjoy much of this. The story that surrounds Anderson & Sanders is nothing special, filler really as most of the interesting parts come whenever Saren or the Citadel Council are involved.

As the first novel set in the Mass Effect universe it’s a good read for fans wanting to learn just a little more about events only hinted at in the games. The rest? Probably start by playing the games…