Mass Effect, part 2

Looks like the Mass Effect gang at BioWare Corp aren't taking much of a break.

Their million-copy selling RPG has already made numerous best-of-2007 lists, but lead writer Drew Karpyshyn has already sold the second novel about the world he and the other developers at BioWare created.

The first novel, Mass Effect: Revelation, was published earlier this year, a few months before the game hit shelves. It was a prequel to the game, and set the stage for the story that gamers would enter as Commander Shepard.

Karpyshyn announced last week that the second novel, Mass Effect: Ascension, is slotted for publication by Del-Rey this summer. It will be set in between the events of the games Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, presumably in development.

At the Mass Effect community forum page, Karpyshyn wrote that the book will feature "some familiar faces, a few new ones, and get a much closer look at the culture of one of the alien species featured in Mass Effect. And, like Revelation, Ascension will be your first introduction to some key characters for the ME2 game. And we'll also get a closer look at biotics, and what humanity is doing to tap into the amazing potential in that field."

Note that this does not give us any indication of a potential release date for Mass Effect 2, but I think we can expect that the success of this first game means that a sequel is in development (the story was conceived of as a trilogy). I think it's safe to suggest that ME2 will hit some time in 2009. Granted, that's not much of a prediction, but what do you expect? Day and time of release?

I haven't had a chance to read Karpyshyn's first ME novel. Anyone out there who has? Let us know what you thought of it in the comments.