Mass Effect Andromeda books & comics (Nexus Uprising 'soon')

If they could get Greg Bear to write Halo novels I can't be surprised by any video game tie-in authors. And they did. And they were good

Video game tie-in novels are not usually prestigious because they tend to be crap. I think there is enough non-cheesy depth in the mass effect world to actually write something good if the writer is good enough. Would they even need a fee? I thought they would be paid through sales of books?

So  are you implying that a comic series which take many months to be made with several people working on it is not time consuming? Because that is totaly wrong.

Besides those writers are working inside the ME universe, not his/her own autoral franchise. And we all know what happens when a writer is given too much freedom without anyone checking to see if his work is contained within the canon.

So what is the problem on his/her working being a tie-in?

Copy of the information from @shecinah's post, with the tentative release dates added from the image:


Mass Effect
Launching a brand new series of Mass Effect novels which tie in to the epic game.

With a new game - Mass Effect: Andromeda - set for release in 2017, the launch of a new series of Mass Effect novels is timely. The new game will take the story in a dramatic new direction set in a new region of Space, with a new and deadly enemy.

Titan will publish four unmissable Mass Effect novels sure to appeal to the game's huge number of fans. The game Mass Effect has won numberous Awards, including Best Story, Best Voice Acting, Best Original Music and from the New York Times, Game of the Year.

The novels will act as prequel and sequels to events in the games and will become part of the overarching Mass Effect saga. These new stories, developed in close collaboration with the Bioware game team, weave directly into the action of the new game and reveal events kept secret over the course of game play, and which add to the canonical Mass Effect saga.

Mass Effect: Nexus Uprising - MARCH 2017

Jason Hough is the New York Times bestselling author of the The Darwin Elevator, Dire Earth Cycle and Zero World. He has been a 3D artist, animator, and game designer for Metal Fatique, Alien vs Predator, and others. K.C. Alexander is the author of paranormal romances and the steampunk adventure the St. Croix Chrornicles. She is an avid player of Mass Effect and has logged more than 500 hours on the game.

Mass Effect: Lost Ark - SUMMER 2017

Catherynne Valente is an acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction novels, short stories, and poetry including Paimpest, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She has won or been nominated for every major award in the field including the Hugo Award (four times), Nebula Award (two times), Locus Award (five times), World Fantasy Award (four times), and the James Tiptree Jr. Award. She is a huge Mass Effect fan and player.

Mass Effect: Andromeda Initiative - AUTUMN 2017

N.K. Jemisin's debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was nominated for the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, Locus Award, World Fantasy Award and short-listed for the James Triptree Jr. Award. In 2016, N.K. Jemisin was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel for her book the Fifth Season, winner of a Hugo Award in 2016 and the official "prequel" to the events of the game.

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Color me disappointed! The "official prequel" comes out at the end of the game's life cycle? That's just ... 

But ... I can't say that I'm surprised. NKJ tweeted she now expected the book to come out in November. I thought she meant of 2016, but apparently not ...

My information is at least 15 years out of date, but what I recall from when I had aspirations of being a writer is that it's not so much prestige as economics. Or at least, the prestige stuff was a consequence of economics. Contract work for licensed IP paid a lot less than freelance work. A lot less.

So, as a professional, you had two choices once you took contract work: 1) write at your normal speed and make chicken feed, or 2) write super fast -- read, sloppy and formulaic -- to bang out the book in record time, and keep your opportunity cost low and your earnings/month normal. It was option 2 that resulted in a lot of bad writing and corresponding low prestige for the writers.

Writers who normally wrote decent stuff super fast anyway and/or for whom chicken feed was way better than nothing, went for option 1. That probably explains some of the better names we see. It could also be that in these modern times, the gap between contract work and freelance work has closed, probably because freelance rates have declined, rather than contract work rising.

Please allow for at least 38.7% inaccuracy in all of the above.

That help?  As you said above, sloppy and formulaic.  Either that or a lack of sleep and/or coffee.

look like some info soon

very intrigued by the book titles. especially the Mass Effect: Nexus Uprising title. the Nexus part could relate to the Hades Nexus cluster in the Milky Way. this might be where the technology to build the arks is acquired. the Uprising part of the title has me even more intrigued. could relate to an initiative from folks who didn't want to put the faith of the entire galaxy in hands of one individual (Shepard), and looked for their own solution to the Reaper crisis. highly doubt we'll get sequel books before the prequel book. Bioware has never done that before with any of the tie-ins and there's no reason to think they would do something like that now.
as for the Lost Ark book. it could be taking place and time parallel to the game. maybe an ark gets lost due to some cosmic anomaly and ends up alone in an entire new galaxy and we get to read about their adventures, to maybe find their way back to the Andromeda galaxy. or it could tell a story of the first ark that was sent to Andromeda, as a precursor to "our" Ark, and lost contact with the rest of the team. as someone said DLC could be finding the ark somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy and finding out what happened to it after the events of the book.

I think the casual comment was a joke.
I mean... 500 hours in any game goes so far away from "casual status", right?

RIGHT?

When I read 'The Masked Empire', prior to the release of Dragon Age Inquisition,
I formed a mental impression (the look) of characters including:

• Michel de Chevin
• Duke Gaspard
• Briala
• Imshael

This was immersion breaking when those characters in the game were not as I had envisaged.

By reading the book(s) afterwards, I already have some context, so I can enjoy an earlier story, perhaps in anticipation of a second playthrough.