Mass Effect

Ascension

De: Drew Karpyshyn

Narrado por: David Colacci

It's humankind versus a race of machines bent on harvesting organic life in this second official novel based on the BioWare video game.©2008 Drew Karpyshyn (P)2008 Tantor

Pretty good

Fun intermediate story but not a lot of suspense. The performance wasn't my favorite but you can get used to it.

Adds richness to the game franchise.

Would you listen to another book narrated by David Colacci?

Yes, David Colacci's performance brought me into the story. His Illusive Man is perfect.

Any additional comments?

Got this book after enjoying Mass Effect: Retribution. Overall, I didn't enjoy it as much but is still worth it for fans of the games and the story does shed more light on the concept of biotic abilities. I haven't read the first book (revelation?) but this one ties in great with Retribution.

A definite for ME fans!

This book covers the the space of time from the end of ME1 and the Start of ME2. This is done from the inner workings of Cerberus and their machinations in respect to creating superior biotics. I won't go into anymore detail but to say this let's you see the Illusive Man from a different perspective.
I gave it 3*'s due to David Colacci I think this is better read than the last ME book. However I think it would have been better served if they divided up the feminine voices to a female, Mr. Colacci's female voice grates on me.

Narrative slip ups.

While I enjoyed David Colacci’s reading, it was impossible to get past the verbal mistakes as he read, the part where he pronounced “lived” with a long i as though he were saying “lively.” There were other parts where he substituted words or wasn’t consistent in the pronunciation of names and places.

Other than that, this was a fun read-along.

Mixed feelings.

It was Mass Effect but I had trouble staying interested in the story. Which is surprising considering I love other works by this author. The performance was good.

good story, poor delivery

The games defined canon for pronunciation of names, the audio books butchered them and it was hard to get past.

how is this 4.5 stars?

Even as a major mass effect I would rate book one as Okay and this one as just Mediocre. I never felt more than a passing interest in the book, the second half of the nook especially dragged. I doubt I'll ever listen to the third.

Mass Effect

Any additional comments?

Mass Effect - the game, is a mulch-layered universe - featuring multiple alien societies striving to co-exist. The book is somehow less deep than the game. While I enjoyed the story - it focused mostly on human characters and didn't delve too deeply into the alien races - though it did touch upon some (and at times seemed to be at odds with the information available in the game).

Also - one of the main characters in the book had a small part in the game, however her name was pronounced differently in the recording - which drove me crazy. The voice actors in-game were of such superb quality the narration of the book seems to suffer because I can "hear" how different characters "should" sound. Not that I expect one narrator to be capable of reproducing all those voices - it just felt a bit shallow

Worth it if you're into ME Lore, but read the book

Like the other books in the series, this is essentially just a lore dump for fans of the in-game universe, drawing connections between the games and filling in backstory for characters only hinted at.

The narration however is substandard. The narrator has three male voices and one female voice, the latter of which is poorly pitch-rotated to try to represent both a 19 year old girl and a 40 year old woman.

A number of questionable pronunciations make me wonder if they've ever heard the words spoken aloud by a native English speaker. These aren't British vs American distinctions, rather things like "ricochet" spoken as rhi-KO-shay, "potential" as PO-ten-tial with a distinct gap after the incorrectly emphasized syllables and "short-lived" pronounced as if it rhymed with "dived".

If you're a ME lore nerd, grab the books and make up your own voices in your head. I guarantee it will be a more immersive experience.

I only like it cuz I played the game.

It's kinda cool if you played any of the games.. It adds to the story.. However these first 3 books are disjointed with different circumstances and characters and little relation. I'm assuming 10 books down the line there might be an overall plot.. But not yet.

The book is ok. Good enough to listen to when bored, but don't expect an epic tale of aventure and intrigue. Au least not yet.

Oh ya, and the narrator is also so so. Not bad, but not great.