Mass Effect: Ascension

**MINOR NONSPECIFIC SPOILERS** Drew Karpyshyn, author of Baldur's Gate II: The Throne Of Bhaal, and contributing author to a number of Bioware games has given us his second 'prequil' novel with Mass Effect: Ascension. This book has definitely highlighted his growing strength as an author, and while it strongly supports fans of the Mass Effect games, it really stands alone well, even more so than Mass Effect: Revelation. This book is a fantastic sci-fi read with action, adventure, romance, and with a psychological twist or two to satisfy nearly every sci-fi need. Well, come to think of it, I do have some sci-fi needs left unsatisfied... but this book was very good. Ascension derives its goodness in part from building on the universe created for the Bioware series of games, Mass Effect. Two things stand out developmentally wise: species and element development. As far as species development is concerned, the Quarians receive a little fleshing out in this tale. Tali, a prime Quarian character in the first video game, has gained a rather substantial following, and the mysteries of her race leave a lot of intriguing questions. A few of those questions are answered in the telling of this tale, and this ads a lot to the flavor. Secondly, biotics, an element introduced as a foundation of the Mass Effect universe, finds development in some unusual ways. We get a chance to ponder, what makes a biotic powerful? Can genetic tampering enhance the natural biotic ability? Can the true potential of biotics only be tapped through training? How does the psychology of the subject come into play? Ad in some elements of autism and drug abuse for flavor and you get the story. Intriguing, poignant, and exciting. This story continues the tale of characters from the first prequil, introduces some new characters, and introduces one of the major characters in Mass Effect 2. The story itself is really good, and I found the book hard to put down from beginning to end. Suffice it to say, anyone familiar with the mass effect universe will like this story, and those who are not will get great enjoyment from it too. Highly recommended.

I love the Mass Effect universe, anyone reading this review most likely shares that sentiment! That being said, Ascension is a great segue into a new story arc concerning Kahlee Sanders (one of the main characters from the series' first installment, Revelation). Without giving away the details of the story, my favorite detail about this particular book is the Quarians. This book fills in many details about the Quarian race that you might otherwise not find in the Mass Effect series of games. The Quarians are an interesting and complex race that have faced many trials and tribulations in their past. Finding out how they have come this far, and how they deal with their past actions makes for a very interesting and thrilling read. That being said, the details outlined in this book about the Quarian race are but a side benefit to the story being told. Ascension takes you on a gripping chase through space as the main characters struggle to steal away a young girl being sought after by the infamous Cerberus. Their path leads to many landmarks you will recognize from the Mass Effect series of games. Highly recommended!

After reading the first novel and playing the video game, I was pretty excited to see they were going to continue with the novels. I'm kind of hoping that Mass Effect will branch out to a much larger universe because there is simply so much potential! By that I mean, I hope Mass Effect will garner interest from other writers instead of just having Drew Karpyshyn writing everything. I'm certainly not saying that Drew is a poor author, but I wouldn't want his ideas to burn out and there is simply too much to write about for one man! Mass Effect is a huge universe to explore and I personally want to see as much of it as possible, after all, I love exploration. Okay onto the review. "Ascension" picks up where the video game ends, but unlike the first novel, it doesn't use any characters from the game. They merely mention the events and how the current characters feel about such things, so if you're expecting the novel to tie directly into events from the video game like the first novel you'll be disappointed. Personally, I'm elated, I like seeing Mass Effect branch out to new territory in the universe. That way the game can focus on the game story lines and the novels can deal with those repercussions and write about something else. "Ascension" sees the return of Kahlee Sanders whom we met in "Revelation". She's pretty much our main character in this novel. Since her last work in AI research she has decided to go into the field of studying biotics and their amp technology. Needless to say this novel centers around biotics, humans that have been exposed to something called Element Zero and can now display telekinetic powers. While "Ascension" doesn't go into exact detail of how their powers work we do get to see how they are trained to use their powers and such. Kahlee is one of the lead scientists at the Grissom Academy where the children biotics have been brought. There's a special student among them named Gillian who happens to be autistic and requires a lot of extra care, but there's something special about her biotic powers as well. Little did they know that the eyes of a secret organization called Cerberus have been studying them as well and things go wrong concerning Gillian's special case. Kahlee with a few others need to flee the installation with Gillian to try and get to a safe location! I don't want to give too much away, but the involvement of Cerberus isn't kept a secret from the reader, in fact it's mentioned in the prologue, so I don't feel I am ruining the story for anyone. You get to visit a couple other interesting locations in this novel aside from the Academy. You get to visit a chaotic world with all kinds of variant aliens called Omega. The place is virtually lawless and there is constant fighting between species, as you can tell a lot of conflicts take place here. The other place we get to visit, that was definitely the highlight of the novel for me, is the Quarians' Migrant Fleet. As you can expect there is a healthy dose of Quarian characters, but that's what made it really fascinating for me. We get to learn a good amount about their culture and politics amidst all the intrigue and action. This is the first time we get to see real insight into their culture and I'm hoping that this is the first in a long string of novels that develop the various races. I would especially like to read a book dealing with Turian history and their home world! Now I didn't rate this five stars like the first book so there must be a negative side to it. It was sort of a big one for me, but the Migrant Fleet kind of made up for it in the end. Basically I don't like the way this novel is organized. When the underground organization Cerberus enters the picture you know who all the double agents are right away. You don't find out as Kahlee finds out, you know well before hand. This is sort of frustrating because characters like Kahlee and Hendel act like they don't know anything about it and the reader knows why, but it's frustrating to go through the motions. It's just incredibly annoying when you have to read about a character suspecting something about the agent when you know for a fact their suspicions are true. You know for a fact they will eventually find out, you just intuitively know this because Kahlee is star and so far Drew hasn't really shown that he'll kill off a main character in a novel that quickly. Anyway, this makes for a sort of frustrating read in the beginning until the characters catch up with the readers knowledge, then it gets really good. I can see how this could be a huge turn off for some people, but the story was interesting enough for me to overlook these factors and keep reading. The worlds are just so fascinating that it does keep my interest. I loved reading about the academy and Omega enough to keep me engaged. Other than that one negative side I thought this was a fun novel. I tore through this pretty quickly for me, and I'm usually kind of a slow reader. Once the action sequence kicks in, things go a lot faster and then you sort of forget about the negative flaw. If you liked the first book and the video game I would still recommend this. It's not as heavily dependent on the video game like the first novel, so you could easily read it stand alone right now. Even though Kahlee is a main character in "Revelation" the aspects of that story aren't as required, except for maybe knowing who her father is. Other than that it's a pretty descent science fiction read.

Exactly as described, my son was very happy.

I ordered this book (And Revelation) shortly after playing through Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 a couple of times. I was familiar with the backstory to the ME paraverse; the basic what-what, etc. Having said that though, while this book is clearly primarily targeted at Mass Effect players, it does a lot to keep things accessible to those unfamiliar with the video game with its various references and sideline comments to clarify certain things. The book is masterfully written and well-paced, tested to by the action which never seems to wander off for very long but interrupted by continual bouts of suspense and various interludes that show the more emotional side of the characters and gives the storyline a little breadth. I went in with mediocre expectations, thinking that this was going to be a passable attempt at a novel whose primary objective was to wring a few pennies from those who are in love with the growing Mass Effect universe, and I was genuinely surprised. Love this book, and would definitely buy any additional books by this author.

El libro llegó en perfectas condiciones y nuevo, pese al bajo precio. Qué decir del libro en sí? Si eres un fan de la saga y el primero te gustó este tampoco te decepcionará pues sigue la misma línea y estilo aunque es una historia distinta. Que lo disfrutes

Un livre au scénario bien ficelé avec une intrigue prenante. A lire d'urgence si vous êtes fan de Mass Effect.

Got these books(1st and 2nd of Mass Effect) for my husband who is a huge fan of Mass Effect and he couldn’t be more grateful for the gifts. Read the first one in just a couple of days. So glad I took two books instead of just one👍🏼