This book essentially sets up the first game. It goes through the history that Saren and Anderson have together, explaining their animosity and their differences. (view spoiler)[At the end, it even shows you how Saren initially was inroduced to Sovereign, which is only glossed over in the game. (hide spoiler)] It also introduces Kahlee Sanders, who you meet in later games briefly. However, I would suggest playing at least the first game before reading this. You're more attached to Anderson that way, as your guiding figure in the first Mass Effect and you know the true significance of what happens at the end of the story. I feel like if you don't have that understanding, the impact of what he's got is significantly lessened. The voices and mannerisms of the characters are obviously very accurate. Considering the book is written by the guy who wrote the games as well, that's not surprising. You also get a lot more about the Batarians. You never seem to get much about the Batarian culture in the games. This book really expands on it without making them out to all be evil, which is nice. They're visually a little disconcerting because they're all sharp angles and they have four eyes. This book really expands to show you that they're emotionally just like humans are - they just look different. Unfortunately, they don't really introduced any named ones that aren't allied with the villain, who is a Batarian crime lord essentially. It also touches on things I hadn't noticed in the games, such as the Krogan's direction of their head tilt could mean the difference between respect and disrespect. Different blinking patterns in Batarians are similarly coded. The whole story was very black and white though. You never questioned Saren or Anderson or Kahlee. They were either good or bad with no in between. Even seeing from Saren's perspective, you never question that he is morally corrupt, even as a protector of his own race. Anderson and Kahlee and Grissom are all good without any doubt.

I would like to thank Drew Karpyshyn for writing a book in which all stereotyping was thrown out the window. Seriously, thank you. Thank you for the non-stereotyped gay character (view spoiler)[who lived (hide spoiler)]. Thank you for the autistic character who was well written (view spoiler)[who got a happy ending and who people care about in the book (hide spoiler)]. Thank you for the strong female character that is Kahlee Sanders. Thank you for making an addict put his child before himself from the beginning of the book, even if they weren't really blood. I adored the protagonists in this book. I was very happy to see more explained about the Quarians. I thought the insight into their society was very interesting. It's been a while since I last played ME2, but I don't recall learning much about their way of life involving the lockers and the quarters of the Quarians on a given ship. I thought it was all very interesting. I do have to say that all of the twists were more than a little predictable - at least for me. I saw them all coming a mile away based on the context clues of things that were said or done. Not to say that they were bad. In fact, I really enjoyed the story as a whole. I just wish it hadn't been so heavily hinted at that people were bad news.