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A review by onceuponarachel
Annihilation by Catherynne M. Valente
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.