Mass Effect: Deception

Profoundly disappointing

Leading up to the release of this book, I re-read all three of Drew Karpyshyn's novels. I've always enjoyed them in the past, and so I wanted to see the story continue. I was mildly concerned when I saw that Karpyshyn had moved on, but William C. Dietz had a decent track record, so I figured this book would probably turn out okay.

Boy, was I mistaken. As soon as I opened the book, I could tell something was wrong. I like quality writing, but I'm usually able to enjoy pretty much anything. Unfortunately the writing in this book is of extremely poor quality. In places it makes it very hard to get through. The language is sloppy, the narrative is very confused, and it's full of poor grammar.

Now if this was all that was wrong with the book, I supposed I would dock it a few points and leave it at that. But this is tie-in fiction. That's where it's biggest weakness comes into play. As I read through the book, I became more and more confused. The problem is simple: the book appears to have been written by someone who had no knowledge of the previous three books, or the subject matter in general. The timeline is impossible to reconcile with the other books. Numerous terms are misused. Characters lose important traits, and act out of character at seemingly every point. The book is full of these issues. It's very hard to understand how they made their way through quality control.

Even setting these problems aside, the book has little to offer. The characters, both returning and new, are flat and uninteresting. The audience is asked to accept as fact various things that seems to make little sense.

All in all, I'm extremely disappointed. Anyone who enjoyed the previous three books is going to be sorely disappointed when they reach the end of this installment. It really is a shame, because the series once held such promise.

I hope this review is helpful in making an informed decision. There are also various excerpts available online, and I urge you to read them for yourself, so you can see the issues I've detailed, before committing your hard-earned cash to purchasing this book.

43 out of 44 people found this review helpful.

DO NOT PURCHASE - Deserves No Stars - Riddled with writing and lore errors!

I'd leave no stars if it were possible. From the extensive excerpts available it is obvious that no consideration has been given towards the quality of the writing. Apparently Mr. Dietz has not taken to heart the axiom of "Show don't tell." and inserts exposition into dialogue and intrusive parentheses. There are numerous spelling and grammatical errors as well.

All of this could be forgiven or at least stomached if the writer didn't make it clear, via 80+ confirmed inaccuracies that there was no consideration for the lore of the universe as it appears in the games, books or other ancillary material.

A sadly substandard book on all fronts, not even enjoyable if you are a fan and check your brain at the door. Do not buy this book for any reason. To check out the errors visit the go to Google and search:

"Mass Effect: Deception Discussion Thread"

19 out of 20 people found this review helpful.

Poorly written, even more poorly edited

If you are not a fan of the Mass Effect series then this book is more than likely not worth your time. If you ARE a Mass Effect fan, then this book is definitely NOT worth your time or money.

Read any public excerpts or fan reviews and you will know why. This book blatantly disregards its source material. It feels rushed, unedited, and like an attempt to exploit fan devotion for easy money. Do not buy this book, even for curiosity's sake.

18 out of 19 people found this review helpful.

hardly follows the earlier books

not good, dissapointment

16 out of 20 people found this review helpful.

Astoundingly Bad

As a Mass Effect fan, I was actually looking forward to the latest entry in the novel series. The previous three had been pretty entertaining, not masterpieces, but good for fans of the series. After a nearly two year wait, I was hoping for another quality entry to the Mass Effect universe.

I was profoundly disappointed.

It feels as though it takes real effort to write a novel this poorly. To start, the writing style is simply amateurish and it seems Dietz, at many places, was attempting to boost his word count by adding in meaningless details. Some parts have to be re-read over and over to establish a clear chain of events.

The plot is also very, very weak. Characters have gone through large personality changes. Details that should get focused, such as character deaths, are glossed over and needlessly tacked on. Some details are just strange altogether (Stealing cereal to prove you're an adrenaline junkie? What?)

All of this says nothing of the errors, my god this novel is filled with errors. Some, as a Mass Effect fan, are little errors, nitpicking at best. Many others, however, are simply glaring. As a fan I couldn't help but notice these errors and it made me lose focus and took me out of the novel.

Overall, somebody dropped the ball. Where does the blame land, however? At Dietz, who clearly didn't do enough research? At Bioware, who clearly didn't proofread it before release? I say it falls on both parties. Together they created a low quality and low effort entry to the Mass Effect series. Let's hope they never do so again.

If you're someone looking to delve deeper into the Mass Effect universe, stick to Karpyshyn's novels and avoid Deception altogether.

14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.

What were they thinking ?

W.C.Dietz created this horrible book , but why did Bioware approve this garbage.This is money missed as far as I'm concerned and I hope in the future Bioware chooses a writer that cares about lore.

14 out of 15 people found this review helpful.

Save your money.

While I usually don't like giving one stars, in this instance William C. Dietz aka the guy that wrote the terrible Halo: The Flood, has repeated his mistake again on the Mass Effect Universe.

Not to spoil anything for the dedicated fans, but the main issue with the entire novel is that way that it ignores entire back story, a very primitive plot, spelling mistakes and pretty smells of a commissioned work motivated mostly by money. Besides that, it's so bad, so inconsistent with the entire universe of Mass Effect that I just have to scratch my head and wonder how it got published in the first place.

So my advise don't fall for this deception, literally.

10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.

If there was an option to give it zero stars, you bet I would choose it.

Very, Very disappointed.
There are over 50 things wrong in Deception.
Wouldn't even let my own worse enemy buy this book.
Dietz obviously didn't ever bother to play the games or even watch a play through.
I'm appalled Casey Hudson let this be published.

This novel is an insult to all Mass Effect fans.
Do not buy this book!
Well, unless you're entirely ok with a series you know and love to be utterly destroyed.

Other reviewers saying the people give it one star are trolls are obviously demented.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

"Poor" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Dietz completely ignores both game and previous novel-established canon to create his own amazingly bad interpretation. His sentences are dry, clipped and offer no insight into character development or even hint at the rich universe BioWare has created with the Mass Effect series; instead it is a slog of wince-inducing dialogue and dull descriptions better suited a five year old's scribblings than a professional author's work.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Worst. Tie-In. Ever.

This is terrible. Terrible, terrible. There's WAY too many things to go into. Google what's been said already if you won't take everyone's word for it here. It's just bad.

Terribad.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Its true; its bad.

There's nothing to say that hasn't been said already; if you're a fan of the series, this "Novel," will only serve to confuse, irritate, and sadden you; its poor characterization and lack of any emotion aside, as other members have attested; its "Plot," is betrayed be being both moronic and lore breaking.

Dietz does the Mass Effect community a great disservice with this gross attempt at literature, and makes no effort to reconcile at all.

BentOrgy, at BSN.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Worthless

Perhaps if this were a stand alone novel, set in an original universe instead of the Mass Effect universe, it might be worth your time. But as it stands, this is a terrible entry in an otherwise stellar franchise. AVOID!

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

good action, disappointing overall

'Deception' was easy reading despite some typos and grammatical errors. The action sequences were awesome but I was left starving for plot development regarding the 'reapers.' The minimal 'reaper' development was most disappointing. This was basically a filler novel to whet our appetites for mass effect 3. It almost seemed as if the poor author was compelled to write this novel with too many constraints placed on him (can't spoil the major plot points for the upcoming game you know). It's just too bad. This novel could have been so much better. Check out some original sci fi works by William C. Dietz...then you'll see his true genius in action.

3 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Way too many errors.

A true fan of the Mass Effect series will notice the plot holes and inconsistencies right away. If you love the series, don't let this book spoil it for you.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A some what dissapointment

This could have definatly been better, personally I think you should know what your writing about before you make a book and this writer obviously did't know the lore at all and this has no useful tips on Mass Effect 3 it just seems like aa complete waste of time to read this I mean if you want to read something pointless that has way to many mistakes then be my guest

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

They are releasing a new version...

I think the most telling thing about this book is the fact that Bioware and Del Rey have already publicly apologized for the content of this book and have pledged to re-release a new version that addresses all of the lore concerns that fans have voiced with the book. How it got published as-is, I have no idea, but there you have it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

If your a fan of Mass Effect, try to pretend that they stopped after the third book.

All I can say is that most of the other reviews are spot on. The book averages one mistake every three pages, the writing style is at a middle school level at best, and the plot serves no purpose other than to kill off characters that were lovingly developed over the past 3 books. If you need more in depth reasons, please see the other reviews, as they are much better worded and logically phrased than I am capable of. Actually, better than the book is capable of to be honest. If your a fan of the Mass Effect series, I would recommend checking out the graphic novels. They aren't the most amazing pieces of literature ever written, but the story is interesting and they add a lot of back story to the games.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not worth it I was on vacation or I would have checked the revie

Not worth it
I was on vacation or I would have checked the reviews. DEarnshaw's review was being nice. I haven't read the others in the series so I can't make any comment on tie-in. I found the main characters shallow and extremely incompetent throughout the book. I was hoping they would be killed off due to stupidity. I will give one of the Drew Karpyshyn Mass Effect novels a read.

Fans of ME will love it cover to cover

I've read all the ME books and this one falls in line with the rest of them. It provides more story for fans of the game series. If you enjoyed playing the games, you'll enjoy reading this book.

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Decent, Terrible ending

This book has some problems. It has some good things too. Unlike the previous 3 books, written by Drew Karpyshyn, this book is written by a different author, William Dietz. He has a decent track record, writing books for series such as Resistance, Halo, and Hitman. However this is not one of his best books. His characters are not at all care able. By that I mean that unless you read the previous 3 books you won't care about the main characters in this book. They don't have much of a human feel to them, and with the exception of Kai Leng I didn't connect with their struggles. Which is sad because that is something Drew did exceptionally well. There was no real feel of climbing action, rising excitement, sorrow, or relief. I felt slightly detached from the book and felt the story lack an overall focus. It is was going in a direction that seemed irrelevant to the rest of the series. When the book finally finished I was left with a feeling of "that was it?" It was one of those types of books where you're waiting for it to pick up only for it to end on the same note it began. The ending felt, to put it simply, rushed. I felt like the entire struggle of the book ended very quickly. There was a lot of talking and reflecting on the struggle but very little action solve it, and when it was finally solved it was done so in a way that finished it quickly. You get the feeling that William wasn't sure how to end the book, so he threw something together and left it at that. Either that, or he had an idea for how to finish it but wasn't sure how to make it work. The book is a decent read if you enjoy the Mass Effect universe, but don't expect this book to tug at your heart strings and make feel emotions. It's more like reading and interesting textbook, and less like reading a story.