Novels

Revelation is ok.

I like reading a book set in the Mass Effect universe, filled with all the lore and crux of what makes the overall trilogy tick, and it is quite interesting in places learning of a few things that took place before ME1. For me, the best scenes (and ones with some of Drew's best dialogue) were

But overall, I agree with aiobhealfae that Revelation doesn't give us much more insight into Anderson as a character than the games already do, he becomes a fairly generic hero in what is a fairly generic plot, if you get to the barebones of it, taking away the distractions provided by the lore and greater picture it shows with things neatly tying into the beginning of ME1. That said, Saren is the character best treated and written in Revelation. Still ME's best villain.

Ascension is my personal favourite, I agree with others here that is the best. A tighter, stronger core story, Anderson is pushed aside to allow Kahlee to develop, and she becomes a much stronger and more impactful character in this one. Other great characters introduced here include Hendel Mitra, and we also get a lot of time devoted to the quarians, which I appreciated. Ascension is the novel I greatly enjoyed most. It and Drew's prose is far from good, but the plot and narrative are what make the book worth reading.

I was disappointing by the weaker Retribution. It's story was forgettable, the novel series best characters were underused in favour of weaker characters, and there was just way too much Cerberus.

Avoided Deception like plague.