Customer Review(s)
Customer Rating: 
Summary: OK, but not on par with Revelation or other TOR books.
Comment: Mass Effect: Ascension
Let me preface this by saying that I read revelation, and played parts of the videogame on Xbox360. I was very drawn into the first book, and rushed out to play the game. I wasn't that into the game, and gave up after a few chapters/worlds.
This book, Ascension, was a decent book, but it didn't follow any recognizable story line established by the first book, or what I'd seen in the game. That aside, the book just didn't seem to flow very well. It started off very slow and hard to get into, but quickly picked up into one of the "I can't put this down it's so good!" books, but dropped from that terrace approx. 1/2 through the book, and never got that feeling again until the last few pages.
Overall, I'm left more confused about the Mass Effect story arcs than I was before hand.
Customer Rating: Summary: Book two begins after the game ends.
Comment: It has been twelve years since scientist Kahlee Sanders survived the Sidon massacre. And it was thirteen years ago that a toxic disaster exposed thousands of pregnant human females and their unborn children to a deadly cloud of element zero on the Yandoa colony. Some of the human children were born with biotic abilities. All of them are now at the Jon Grissom Academy, orbiting the planet Elysium. Sanders works with these kids in the Ascension Project. She helps them adjust to and harness their extraordinary powers.
Twelve-year-old Gillian "Gigi" Grayson is borderline autistic. Her mental condition makes her emotionally distant, yet she is still the program's most promising student. She has also become the favorite of Hendel Mitra's, chief of security. But unknown to Sanders and Hendel is that Gigi's father is part of Cerberus, a radical pro-human terrorist group led by one known only as the Illusive Man. When Grayson visits Gigi, it is to help Cerberus perform illegal experiments on her.
When the Cerberus plot is revealed, Grayson takes Gigi away. Sanders and Hendel convinces Grayson to take them with Gigi. Cerberus is hot on their trail as the trio search for a way to save Gigi. Help comes from a totally unexpected source.
**** If you are playing the MASS EFFECT computer game, know that this story takes place AFTER the game ends. If you have not played the game as yet, but plan to, wait until you finish the game before you begin reading this story. This story reveals spoilers by mentioning things that happen in the game.
You do not have to read the first book, REVELATION, to fully enjoy this story. Both seem to be stand-alone tales. Even though the main character, Kahlee Sanders, was a big part of the first story, the events have little, if anything, to do with this story's plot. You will never feel lost or confused. The author only mentions things new readers need to know, so you will not be bogged down with a lot of catching up narratives. From the beginning until the ending, this entire story oozes with danger and intrigue. Drama, drama, drama! ****
Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.
Customer Rating: Summary: Not as good as the first, but a decent follow-up
Comment: 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.
