I’m no novelist, but I can assume that having an entire community pick up on canonical inconsistencies in your new book would be more awkward than watching Michael Cera play Shaft. Such is the case for the author of Mass Effect: Deception.
The novel, penned by sci-fi author William C. Dietz (and not Drew Karpyshyn, author of the first three books as well as the first two of the Mass Effect games,) features a pretty embarrassing amount of continuity errors. In fact, there’s so many errors that BioWare has even announced they will be making changes to future editions of the novel.
The inconsistencies, which can all be found in a Google Document maintained by fans, range from less damning (e.g. the novel states that there’s a Batarian Embassy on the Citadel) to major flaws that can’t be reconciled with pre-existing canon (e.g. Volus characters being able to survive outside of their suits, which is impossible.)
The document also details several instances of out of character incidents, such as a canonically homosexual character expressing interest in someone of the opposite gender and a character who apparently ‘grows out of’ her autism.
Not being ones to take this lightly, fans have brought the inconsistencies to BioWare’s attention, who have taken the matter seriously, according to a statement posted by Chris Priestly,
“The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception. We are currently working on a number of changes that will appear in future editions of the novel."
"We would like to thank all Mass Effect fans for their passion and dedication to this ever-growing world, and assure them that we are listening and taking this matter very seriously.”
While it might seem insignificant to some, to the Mass Effect community this could be akin to Spielberg and Lucas deciding to make an Indiana Jones movie with aliens in it. Oh, wait. That happened.
