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returner424's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
alfieparsons13's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
fivemack's review
4.0
I know nothing about the Mass Effect games, but I would read anything Cat Valente writes, and so with this.
It doesn't at all feel as if it's squeezed to fit into the shape of a franchise; it's a tale of cooperating to survive aboard a malfunctioning ark-ship, with occasional hilarity (the children's microscope with in-built drill-sergeant personality, which tells you a great deal about what the child's species must be like in half a paragraph) and quite a lot of pathos.
It doesn't at all feel as if it's squeezed to fit into the shape of a franchise; it's a tale of cooperating to survive aboard a malfunctioning ark-ship, with occasional hilarity (the children's microscope with in-built drill-sergeant personality, which tells you a great deal about what the child's species must be like in half a paragraph) and quite a lot of pathos.
graff_fuller's review
4.0
This was really good. Sad, but really good. I did not see the ending coming (it works), but it got me...really well.
Reading this story during a global pandemic is maybe not the best, but in other ways...it makes the depths of this story hit harder.
Out of the stories in this Andromeda trilogy, this was the one that I liked the most. I do wish they had more interconnectiveness than they did, but it is what it is.
I will be reading the Drew Karpyshyn trilogy as time persists...which I do hope is one continuious story.
The Mass Effect universe is interesting. I like the diverse races and unique beliefs.
Reading this story during a global pandemic is maybe not the best, but in other ways...it makes the depths of this story hit harder.
Out of the stories in this Andromeda trilogy, this was the one that I liked the most. I do wish they had more interconnectiveness than they did, but it is what it is.
I will be reading the Drew Karpyshyn trilogy as time persists...which I do hope is one continuious story.
The Mass Effect universe is interesting. I like the diverse races and unique beliefs.
onceuponarachel's review
5.0
If you're one of the many womens I work with and love, pass me by. I'm going through some things.
Lyds: as the only one who might actually read this, I'm going in with the assumption that anyone who picked up this book finished Andromeda, so everything that is marked as a spoiler is a spoiler for the game. Thus, this should be safe for you if you want to read it. If not, thanks for accepting my existential crises texts. YOU WERE RIGHT
Anyways. Hello, anyone out in this desolate wasteland that is the Andromeda fandom in 2021.
I'm someone who plays Mass Effect games for
1. Character story arcs
1a. Dialogue
1b. Aggressive women
2. Plot
3. The opportunity to punch jerks
and also, I genuinely loved Andromeda. Until I got to the end. And realized everyone else's collective hissy fit is the reason
Listen. Listen. I needed to know. I would have taken a 10 minute podcast. I would have taken a 3-page PDF. So when I realized there was a book?? Written by a woman?? Take my money and give me closure, Catherynne!!!
That being said, it would have taken very little to satisfy me. So I was delighted that this book was so delightful. And when I say delightful, I mean this book oscillated between sitcom hijinks and absolutely fked up in 3 minutes time. It's hilarious & tender-hearted, dark & brutal, and kills characters you love in the blink of an eye - basically, it's mass effect.
Now, I love Shepard and her increasingly-traumatized Justice League, and I love Ryder and her clown car full of horny millennials, but my heart's desire is for a game centered on a B-team of bumbling aliens, not a super human in sight. And if you were really granting wishes, oh magic genie over at bioware, those aliens would be the inversed gender of what we typically worked with in the franchise.
And this book is exactly that.
ENTER
- a big squish male quarian who loves VI
- an emotionally manipulative female (!!!) drell (!!!) detective i'd probably let murder me who said that
- an elcor named Yorrik who has the absolute best lines by a mile
- a zealous hanar who literally doesn't fear death
- a female (omg guys) batarian crime lord
- a ferocious female (I'm crying) volus (openly weeping) with a dirty mouth and a loaded shotgun
add in:
- approximately One braincell
- a heaping spoonful of prejudice
- some pretty fair questions about why this band of misfits are all considered second-class species
and you've got this delightful murder mystery in deep space.
The greatest tragedy is that we'll never get to play this storyline. It would be incredible. The same psychos who developed Overlord could have definitely developed this. But tbh Ryder would have gotten killed immediately
Catherynne excelled at razor-sharp dialogue, openly hostile women, punching jerks, and - oh yeah, told me And it was MESSED UP. Where were you when they were writing
Anyway here's a dump of lines that made me laugh out loud on a plane:
"Enthusiastically: Greetings. Greetings. It is a beautiful morning. Don't you think it's a beautiful morning? With Overwhelming Joy: What horrible thing do you think has happened?"
"Six hundred years of Sleepwalker files. With her."
"I'll be gentle."
"Why aren't you panicking?"
"With Panic: I am panicking."
And this gem that I hope someone says about me at my funeral:
"Ryncol tastes like lighting all your mistakes on fire in a glass barrel and then eating the barrel. Mouthfeel like a tactical nuke."
anyway bury me in the deep vacuum of space. I have some semblance of closure. Despite my hope that legendary revives at least one (1) androm DLC.
Lyds: as the only one who might actually read this, I'm going in with the assumption that anyone who picked up this book finished Andromeda, so everything that is marked as a spoiler is a spoiler for the game. Thus, this should be safe for you if you want to read it. If not, thanks for accepting my existential crises texts. YOU WERE RIGHT
Anyways. Hello, anyone out in this desolate wasteland that is the Andromeda fandom in 2021.
I'm someone who plays Mass Effect games for
1. Character story arcs
1a. Dialogue
1b. Aggressive women
2. Plot
3. The opportunity to punch jerks
and also, I genuinely loved Andromeda. Until I got to the end. And realized everyone else's collective hissy fit is the reason
Spoiler
I'm never going to get to rescue the doggone Quarian Ark.Listen. Listen. I needed to know. I would have taken a 10 minute podcast. I would have taken a 3-page PDF. So when I realized there was a book?? Written by a woman?? Take my money and give me closure, Catherynne!!!
That being said, it would have taken very little to satisfy me. So I was delighted that this book was so delightful. And when I say delightful, I mean this book oscillated between sitcom hijinks and absolutely fked up in 3 minutes time. It's hilarious & tender-hearted, dark & brutal, and kills characters you love in the blink of an eye - basically, it's mass effect.
Now, I love Shepard and her increasingly-traumatized Justice League, and I love Ryder and her clown car full of horny millennials, but my heart's desire is for a game centered on a B-team of bumbling aliens, not a super human in sight. And if you were really granting wishes, oh magic genie over at bioware, those aliens would be the inversed gender of what we typically worked with in the franchise.
And this book is exactly that.
ENTER
- a big squish male quarian who loves VI
- an emotionally manipulative female (!!!) drell (!!!) detective i'd probably let murder me who said that
- an elcor named Yorrik who has the absolute best lines by a mile
- a zealous hanar who literally doesn't fear death
- a female (omg guys) batarian crime lord
Spoiler
who definitely made me FEEL SOME THINGS about that me2 finale this isn't an androm spoiler but lyds idk if you're here yet- a ferocious female (I'm crying) volus (openly weeping) with a dirty mouth and a loaded shotgun
add in:
- approximately One braincell
- a heaping spoonful of prejudice
- some pretty fair questions about why this band of misfits are all considered second-class species
and you've got this delightful murder mystery in deep space.
The greatest tragedy is that we'll never get to play this storyline. It would be incredible. The same psychos who developed Overlord could have definitely developed this. But tbh Ryder would have gotten killed immediately
Spoiler
but what else is new.Catherynne excelled at razor-sharp dialogue, openly hostile women, punching jerks, and - oh yeah, told me
Spoiler
what the hell happened to the quarian ark.Spoiler
the dumpster fire that was Cora's character arc? You could have saved her, Catherynne!! She deserved better than womp womp and roses.Anyway here's a dump of lines that made me laugh out loud on a plane:
"Enthusiastically: Greetings. Greetings. It is a beautiful morning. Don't you think it's a beautiful morning? With Overwhelming Joy: What horrible thing do you think has happened?"
"Six hundred years of Sleepwalker files. With her."
"I'll be gentle."
"Why aren't you panicking?"
"With Panic: I am panicking."
And this gem that I hope someone says about me at my funeral:
"Ryncol tastes like lighting all your mistakes on fire in a glass barrel and then eating the barrel. Mouthfeel like a tactical nuke."
anyway bury me in the deep vacuum of space. I have some semblance of closure. Despite my hope that legendary revives at least one (1) androm DLC.
caprica's review
5.0
To start: I love Mass Effect and I love Catherynne Valente, and when she announced she was writing a Mass Effect novel, I was very happy. I am very pleased to report that this book is a delight: it is thoroughly grounded in the Mass Effect universe but is nevertheless obviously a Valente novel, and I mean those both in the best senses.
It is worth noting up-front that Valente herself is a huge Mass Effect fan. This is obvious if you follow her on Twitter or elsewhere, but would be obvious even if you only read this book, because it is well-grounded in Mass Effect lore and replete with charming easter eggs. This makes the text even more satisfying: this doesn't feel like fan-service, so much as someone with an abiding respect for the universe who has made a wonderful addition to it. (I mean, easter eggs are fan service in a way, but I found them fun and enjoyable, rather than intrusive.)
This text is a tie-in novel to Mass Effect: Andromeda, the much-anticipated and poorly received follow-up to the original Mass Effect trilogy. This is, however, a prequel to Andromeda itself, and deals with the Quarian ark. There is a lot of nonsense surrounding Andromeda, its reception by fans, whether or not it deserved that reception, and so on, hardly any of which has anything to do with this book. However, I mention it here because I did see plenty of fans who seemed to think Valente had something to do with... any of that. And, as she noted in her Reddit AMA on this book, she didn't. (I mean, duh? Come on, folks.) I really hope that folks can disentangle the Andromeda-related drama from this book, because the only thing they share is the setting, and skipping this book because of that would be a mistake.
Valente adds a lot of flavor to the Mass Effect universe, and she does it through her explorations of the non-Council races. If you'd told me before I read this that I'd come away from it with a batarian and an elcor as my favorite characters I probably would've looked at you extremely askance, but here we are. Aside from her wonderful characterization, this allows us to see a side of the Mass Effect universe that we don't see much of, and it's worth reading for that alone.
Her prose her is still recognizably herself, though I think it's a little less "purple" (whatever that means") than in some of her other works. I am extremely partial to her prose style as it usually is, but it might've felt a little at odds with the Mass Effect aesthetic. Here, though, I didn't feel that at all- it seemed she struck a good balance between that aesthetic and hers, producing something identifiably of both camps.
I enjoyed this book from start to finish, and would recommend it unreservedly to Mass Effect fans. It is honestly hard for me to tell whether or not it is a good read for fans unfamiliar with the series, though; as a long-time fan I'm very steeped in the lore and atmosphere, so I had no difficulty with it. I suspect non-fans may miss out on some of the nuances, but in all I think this is a self-contained story that ought to be appealing beyond just the Mass Effect fandom (and I hope it is, because Valente is - here, as everywhere - a wonderful author).
It is worth noting up-front that Valente herself is a huge Mass Effect fan. This is obvious if you follow her on Twitter or elsewhere, but would be obvious even if you only read this book, because it is well-grounded in Mass Effect lore and replete with charming easter eggs. This makes the text even more satisfying: this doesn't feel like fan-service, so much as someone with an abiding respect for the universe who has made a wonderful addition to it. (I mean, easter eggs are fan service in a way, but I found them fun and enjoyable, rather than intrusive.)
This text is a tie-in novel to Mass Effect: Andromeda, the much-anticipated and poorly received follow-up to the original Mass Effect trilogy. This is, however, a prequel to Andromeda itself, and deals with the Quarian ark. There is a lot of nonsense surrounding Andromeda, its reception by fans, whether or not it deserved that reception, and so on, hardly any of which has anything to do with this book. However, I mention it here because I did see plenty of fans who seemed to think Valente had something to do with... any of that. And, as she noted in her Reddit AMA on this book, she didn't. (I mean, duh? Come on, folks.) I really hope that folks can disentangle the Andromeda-related drama from this book, because the only thing they share is the setting, and skipping this book because of that would be a mistake.
Valente adds a lot of flavor to the Mass Effect universe, and she does it through her explorations of the non-Council races. If you'd told me before I read this that I'd come away from it with a batarian and an elcor as my favorite characters I probably would've looked at you extremely askance, but here we are. Aside from her wonderful characterization, this allows us to see a side of the Mass Effect universe that we don't see much of, and it's worth reading for that alone.
Her prose her is still recognizably herself, though I think it's a little less "purple" (whatever that means") than in some of her other works. I am extremely partial to her prose style as it usually is, but it might've felt a little at odds with the Mass Effect aesthetic. Here, though, I didn't feel that at all- it seemed she struck a good balance between that aesthetic and hers, producing something identifiably of both camps.
I enjoyed this book from start to finish, and would recommend it unreservedly to Mass Effect fans. It is honestly hard for me to tell whether or not it is a good read for fans unfamiliar with the series, though; as a long-time fan I'm very steeped in the lore and atmosphere, so I had no difficulty with it. I suspect non-fans may miss out on some of the nuances, but in all I think this is a self-contained story that ought to be appealing beyond just the Mass Effect fandom (and I hope it is, because Valente is - here, as everywhere - a wonderful author).
transhaven's review
5.0
I picked this up on a whim because I saw it was written by one of my favorite authors and I was shocked at how good a book based on a video game could be. This is essentially a space murder mystery that tackles intergalatic species relationships, the problems with over-relying on technology, and even reinterpretations of Shakespeare. It is nerdy and funny and kept me engaged the whole way through. Plus it has the added bonus of explaining some of my questions after playing Andromeda.
trish204's review against another edition
5.0
I haven't (yet) played Mass Effect though I have wanted to for a long time. I have not (yet) read any of the comics or other novels in this franchise. My plan was to read them all in order. And maybe I still will. However, I couldn't resist this one because it is written by one of my favourite authors: Catherynne Valente.
Disclaimer for all those unsure: you don't need to have read any of the other books or comics and you don't need to have played any of the games to understand this story.
So what's happening? We are on a generational ship. Actually, not a generational ship exactly because the ones that boarded will also be the ones arriving at Andromeda (the destination system) thanks to cryosleep pods. Every once in a while, a team is awoken by the ship's AI to make course corrections etc.
But when the latest team wakes up, they are sick and something is wrong. Individual pods have either broken down or been contaminated with ... something ... resulting in an increasing number of deaths.
The ship only coincidentally noticed that something was off, the sensors don't see that anything's wrong. Even after more parts of the ship start malfunctioning. So the team has to figure out what is happening, how and find a way to stop it.
The problem? This is one of the ships that hosts several species and not just one. And due to the history of a number of them, tensions are very high, even among the team awoken to save them all.
As is customary for Valente, this story is driven by deep history and multi-layered characters. It was awesome to walk through the different parts of this amazing piece of technology and trying to figure out the mystery in time. Simultaneously, it was delicious to follow the characters' interactions and the complications due to the species' histories (such as the arms dealer's poignant observation that they wouldn't sell weapons and slaves if others bought rainbows and clowds instead). Equally, I very much enjoyed watching, through the characters' memories, everyone's reason to be on the ship and for hating one another (like not having a homeworld anymore).
The mystery itself was cool, too. I have a weakness for stories that take place on generational ships and if there is an added bonus of mysterious deaths and failures of the technology, I'm a happy camper. This mystery was quite clever (not always easy since almost everything has been done before already) and I loved piecing it all together. The humorous moments were the icing on the cake (I'd love to know what good old Shakespeare would say if he knew he even made it to space eventually).
The writing style is engaging and fast-paced, the world rich. Naturally, I'm not entirely sure how much is from the general franchise and how much from this author herself, but it is telling that I didn't really need the link provided by my buddy-reader, Brad, that displays all the different races because I already had a very clear image (and apparently an accurate one) in my head thanks to the author's descriptions.
Really cool book that I recommend to any scifi fan out there.
kierrang1990's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
unviincible's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.0
I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this book but ultimately enjoyed it in the end. I'm a huge mass effect fan and there were parts of it that were strong—the dialogue especially. I went in expecting it to be an okay read but found myself enjoying and trying to unravel the mystery! I read this in 2021 while we were in an on-going pandemic, so some of the writing really struck home in that sense. it felt suitably claustrophobic and scary to be stuck on a ship with a mega-virus passing between species. I cried at one point b/c of how attached I was to yorrick!
video game books seem like a difficult thing to nail because you can't make every fan of the series happy. my main gripe was some of the worldbuilding around the aliens. maybe it's just not to my taste, but one example: the idea that only quarian women wear lavender. I think there are cleverer and less restrictive ways to signify genders than cloth colour when you have an entire suit to work with? do all quarian women have to wear lavender or is it optional? and it felt like the book was trying to say something about how not to stereotype the aliens, but then created stereotypes of certain aliens, which felt intentional to a degree but wasn't quite self-aware enough?
it's too bad we won't see the dlc around this story, but I'm glad to have read the mystery and know the answer of what happened to the quarian ark
video game books seem like a difficult thing to nail because you can't make every fan of the series happy. my main gripe was some of the worldbuilding around the aliens. maybe it's just not to my taste, but one example: the idea that only quarian women wear lavender. I think there are cleverer and less restrictive ways to signify genders than cloth colour when you have an entire suit to work with? do all quarian women have to wear lavender or is it optional? and it felt like the book was trying to say something about how not to stereotype the aliens, but then created stereotypes of certain aliens, which felt intentional to a degree but wasn't quite self-aware enough?
it's too bad we won't see the dlc around this story, but I'm glad to have read the mystery and know the answer of what happened to the quarian ark
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit
Minor: Child death