Emercobibliophilia

Quell your curiosity and uncock that eyebrow because yes, I admit that I made that word up; totally mixing it up with the neologisms community lately. Anyway, testament to my haughty and fittingly coy title, I’ve come into the possession of 6 new books in the past few days. All second hand and all totally kickass (despite the fact that I haven’t read all of them yet, I’m fairly certain my bibliodar was functioning correctly at the time of purchase), giving me an excuse to write about something in my otherwise dull and uneventful existence.

So let me give you the low down. Or down-low. I could never quite get the hang of that phrasal syntax, but anyway, let’s dust the irrelevance of my lexical ineptitude under the carpet of “shut the fuck up and get on with the point”.

First and foremost comes Mass Effect: Ascension, the first of two books that I ordered from Amazon with the other still hanging in limboland. I tore my way through this 342 page novel in less than two days, transfixed and enticed by the familiarity of the basic Mass Effect paraverse, but drawn to the new and slightly more than a tangential offshoot of a story the book boasts. The novel is well written, well paced, masterfully constructed and it’s clear to me that the author obviously did a fair amount of background research before penning the story.


All races are accurately depicted in conjunction with their video game counterparts and there are these teeny, sporadic snippets of information thrown at you throughout the course of the book relating to events in the video game (canonically occurring a few months before the events of the book), giving me a sense of ease that we’re still in the Mass Effect universe.

The protagonist of the story, I guess you could say, would be Gillian, a 12 year-old girl with high-functioning autism that affects her social skills to a very large degree. Her extremely introverted personality puts her at odds with her true “biotic” ability (think a slightly more sci-fi version of telekinesis) and as such puts her at the centre of Cerberus (a secret, but powerful organisation) interest.

She’s part of the “Ascension Project”, essentially a school for children with the rare biotic abilities, and is looked after by a joint civilian/military faculty, most of whom look out for the best interests of the children and truly want to help them reach their full potential.

Most of them. Little does Kahlee Sanders, a scientist with Alliance military experience working on the Ascension Project, know that she’s being played a fool by her toyboy love interest, covertly working undercover for Cerberus along with Gillian’s non-biological father, Grayson. Soon the pieces all fall into place with several groups trying to lay claim to the oblivious girl, the father-daughter relationship conflicting with Grayson’s loyalty to Cerberus and Kahlee’s own desire to protect Gillian embroils her in the mess.

I said that Gillian is the protagonist, but what with the shifting story arcs and different character perspectives, Kahlee takes probably takes a greater role than any of the other main characters. Her attitude towards certain things – and people – changes drastically throughout the book, and it’s interesting to see the clear-cut character development affect their decisions and disposition.

The books drifts from action to suspense continually, building up to a crescendo towards the end of the novel as various factions are forced to confront each other and decide just how far they’re willing to go to support their cause. A very good read by any standards, but particularly engrossing to those already familiar with Mass Effect das Spiel or with a general interest in suspenseful-cum-emotional stories; I would heartily recommend it to both parties.

Also in the pile in books lay Corelli’s Mandolin, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Secret Garden, Birdsong and A Gathering Light. A couple of well-known titles amongst some unknowns, but I feel that’s a healthy balance of reading material. I’m hoping to read The Handmaid’s Tale next, but that depends on when my other Mass Effect book arrives and indeed how long it’ll take me to finish the other book (Modern Masters of Horror, 1980s edition, obviously) I’ve been reading.

At the time of writing this, I’ve also just remember of another book I ->have<- to read in time for school in September. Gah, stupid books. I’m gonna play some Mass Effect.

Evidently I’m not the only one who finds blue-skinned alien femmes attractive.