I was genuinely surprised by the quality of the book, I've never finished a video game related novel before, let alone read it in two sittings like i did with this book.

This book was great - I read it on vacation in Hawaii.

Yea I loved it, very exciting book and it had a grat cast of characters.

I did not. However there's a new one coming out on the 29th I might read.It's called "Ascension"I think, and it supposedly deals with the Quarians.So I might read that one.

it was a decent book

I read it and found it to be alright. It wasn't the best book I've ever read, but decent for a game-related novel and it did give me some backstory. I really only read it for the backstory, but I was surprised that it was actually pretty good and I'm looking forward to the next book...and hopefully some news on Mass Effect 2.

Read half of it after I beat the game, but then I got interuppted and haven't gotten back to it.

I read it, i can't wait to read the second one(already got it pre-ordered).

Seeing that Saren gets so little screen time in the game i found the book helped me understand his character better.  I'd still like to see an audio version released narated by Keith David cause that would AWSOME!

I got this book not long ago, only half way through. Its been ok so far.

Have read it and is now reading Mass effect ascencsion and so far it is really good

I read it during a skiing vacation and I really liked it. Can't wait to get my hands on Ascension!

I read it before the game came out, really nice read...definitely works as a nice precursor to the game story.

"I read it before the game came out, really nice read...definitely works as a nice precursor to the game story.
"

great book, i picked up ascencsion last night. 

Really great book. I read it in like two days.

yeah I read that last year..it was a good book. Gives a lot of backstory

I've heard about it... it is worth a read?

I have finished Ascension now, and it was a good, quick read as well. The only thing I would complain about is that it had to refer to the events of the Mass Effect game generically. For example, most people are aware that there is a decision you make near the end of the game that affects what ending you get. While the book refers to the battle at the Citadel and Captain Anderson, it does not commit to or detail one ending or the other as being the 'real' one. I know this is so that the book will 'fit' with a player's experience, but it feel a little insubstantial in the end. And Shepard is only referred to generically, as everyone's Shepard is different....still it was worth it for a nice read, and there are some recurring characters from Revelation, and it gives more details of life in the Quarian Migrant Fleet....

I was convinced all novels based on video games sucked... intil I read this one.

I read it before the game came out. The prose had that kind of sophomoric, D&D-novel feel to it, but the story was exciting enough.

More importantly though, it was entirely successful at establishing the ME universe and making me really excited to see the locations and characters from the book brought to life in the game. So as a marketing tool, it was very well done.

Yeah, I read it after playing the game, which I think worked out better because it was easier to picture what each species looked/acted/sounded like and made the back story a little clearer.  I think the universe created in this series is great and I'm looking forward to reading the second book and of course the second game.  Just don't over do it, small doses are working well.

I read it before playing the game, therefore when i got into the game , i had a better understanding of it as a whole.
The book was an enriching read, i think that i enjoyed the game more because of it.
Can't wait to read Ascension

People need to stop making books based off of games. If you have more story to tell, make another game. If it costs too much, then you FAIL, because you've spent too much money on making your first game.

I remember the book allowed me to not have to pick the left-hand options as much because I knew a lot of the history. The descriptions weren't so great (I had no earthly idea what the Salarians or Batarians looked like until I saw them in-game) but the dialogue was solid and the plot was pretty good too, so I was content since it was a cheap book. Anyone read Ascension? How does it compare?

Necro post. I thought the first book was absolutely terrible and only read it because it tied into the story of the game. Awful dialogue, like it was written by 15-year old who got all his ideas on human interaction from TV. Just incredibly insipid. It didn't do anything meaningful for ME's story either except for telling how Saren got in touch with Sovereign, which is a super minor element. It does not give us more understanding of Saren, as he is just depicted as a ruthless bastard with no depth other than I AM SO RUTHLESS AND COLD.

And I am not a literature snob at all. I read all the Warcraft books, for god's sake, and even those are much better than this book, by and large. Is the sequel any better? Is the story meaningful enough that it's worth reading?

I don't wanna be the dissenting opinion for the sake of it, this is just my take on it.

I thought the first book was decent. However I like to know as much as possible about great games so I like to read the books to get more insight. I thought the book managed to do a decent job of introducing you to the universe. When I played Mass Effect there were a lot of moments where I recognized things that were in the book like the long elevator ride to the council. It also made captain Andersen (was that his name?) more interesting because I knew more about his past.

What I don't like is that a new book can come out and I don't even know about it. Should not game sites tell us about these things? They had the author of some of the Halo novels on On the Spot to talk about one of his books before, but that's pretty much it. They discuss so many things on the bombcast might as well take a minute to mention any books and such that is coming out relating to video games. You might say books are not video games, but a book based on a video game is a lot more relevant than sports (like they like to talk about on The Hotspot) or drinks (bombcast).

"I thought the first book was decent. However I like to know as much as possible about great games so I like to read the books to get more insight. I thought the book managed to do a decent job of introducing you to the universe. When I played Mass Effect there were a lot of moments where I recognized things that were in the book like the long elevator ride to the council. It also made captain Andersen (was that his name?) more interesting because I knew more about his past.

What I don't like is that a new book can come out and I don't even know about it. Should not game sites tell us about these things? They had the author of some of the Halo novels on On the Spot to talk about one of his books before, but that's pretty much it. They discuss so many things on the bombcast might as well take a minute to mention any books and such that is coming out relating to video games. You might say books are not video games, but a book based on a video game is a lot more relevant than sports (like they like to talk about on The Hotspot) or drinks (bombcast)."

The book was pretty well-written even when judged as a sci-fi novel. It had enough grip over it's plot and the characters especially those of Saren and Anderson were interesting enough. As a video-game based novel, Revelation was a winner through and through. It more than did enough to arouse interest in the even better game.

Not much of a reader, but I made the exception for this. Wasn't too bad. I actually semi-enjoyed it.

It was written by the main writer of the game itself.

I agree it was kind of insipid and pithy, but insipid and pithy in a fairly entertaining way.

Yeah, it was entertaining. There were some real rough spots in the writing; Karpyshyn's editor really should have emphasized "show, don't tell." I can understand that there simply wasn't a graceful way to drop in some of the exposition about the universe, but the characters could have been handled a lot better.

Having played the game first, I was also really disappointed to find nothing redeeming about Saren. The picture I had of him from the game, as negative as it was, was still more sympathetic than the utter bastard he's shown to be in the book. Saren in the game has some room for benefit of the doubt since you don't know his past, how he may have changed; in the book, it's clear he's little more than a killer, and all that probably pushed him into the ranks of the Spectres is his willingness to do just about anything.

Still, it does help fill in the universe. I did like some of the characterization of the Council. And I suppose the biggest part of that may be Saren himself. It seems fairly clear the Council must realize just what sort of Spectre they have in Saren - someone to whom they could assign the really dirty work - and the only real miscalculation on their part was regarding his loyalty.

Yeah, it was a surprisingly good book.
I love how horribly descriptive and violent the fight scenes were.