Mass Effect: Nexus Uprising

Let me preface this review by saying that I am a die hard Mass Effect Fan. I have played and completed all three original games, and bought this book to prepare myself for Andromeda (the game). I have read every single book in the Mass Effect (and Dragon Age) series and it pains me to say that this is the worst book out of every single one in the series. It's a roughly 400 page book and the first 300 are an utter waste of time. The characters are totally unlikeable, the writing is simplistic, and nothing happens. It's astonishing how completely inept the entire crew of the Nexus is... isn't this suppose to be the Milky Way's best and brightest? The decisions they make in reaction to catastrophic events on the Nexus are totally unbelievable and ripped me out of the experience. On top of that, most of the characters are insufferable, in particular, Sloane Kelly. The book can't really decide if she is a protagonist or an antagonist, and depending on the chapter her allegiances and motivations change constantly. Her personality and writing is like sandpaper compounded by the fact that she has no re-deemable or likeable qualities. Her behaviours are childish and selfish, and it begs the question of how in gods name she ever managed to become the head security director for the entire Nexus. She's basically an irrational, angry, childish thug that you will learn to loathe whenever she's mentioned in the story... which is a lot. The last 100 pages there is finally a little bit of action that is quickly glanced over followed by an ok ending. It does set the stage for the game, but overall I would say this book is a waste of your time. I love the lore and universe that is Mass Effect, which is the only reason this book gets 2 stars instead of 1. My recommendation is to skip this exercise in monotony and play the actual game-- you'll undoubtedly get any backstory covered in this book through the codex.

It's an okay read, but for a book titled "Nexus Uprising", none of that happens for the first three-quarters of the book. There is a lot of the book is meaningless filler that is unnecessary to advance the plot and doesn't further any of the characters. For a books that just over 400 pages long, it could have been about 300 and that would be fine. A main complaint I have about the book is the Sloane Kelly in the book is completely different to the Sloane Kelly we see in Mass Effect: Andromeda, it's like she has a complete personality change between the events of the book and the game, it's a bit much. In the game, she's said to have been a main instigator of the uprising, however [Spoiler Alert], it was more of a case of "Wrong place, wrong time". That was a case of bad writing. If you're really interested in the Mass Effect: Andromeda storyline, it's an okay read, but if you want to get a further insight into any of the characters we see in the game, I'd give the book a miss. There's no deeper character exploration and, as mentioned before, the Sloane Kelly portrayed in the book is completely different than the one we get in the game, there's no way that the two are the same person even.

Adds some interesting context and characterisation ME:A neglected to provide. I finished it thinking differently about a lot of things in that game, respecting characters I had hated, and holding in contempt some characters I had liked. It had an appropriate amount of build up for what feels like a natural conclusion. If that sounds good to you, give it a read.