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The videogame series Mass Effect is a remarkable rarity not only for being an original science-fictional franchise of recent vintage that has risen to such prominent commercial and critical success in popular culture but also for pushing the canonical boundaries of how science fiction as a genre will be experienced and understood in the future. This book analyzes the significance of the game for an understanding of the evolving SF genre and articulates an explanatory framework to limn its landmark reception in videogame history. This book both synthesizes the burgeoning body of scholarship on Mass Effect for a readership unfamiliar with either the game or the critical conversation on its salient importance, while simultaneously, for readers already invested in the science-fiction and videogame scholarship, mounting an extended inquiry as to why Mass Effect has served as such a representative milestone in videogame and genre history. The book should appeal to veteran science-fiction and videogame scholars and students as well as a wide variety of fans, consumers, gamers, and general readers.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. "I Don't Know What to Do with Grey": Ludic Gameplay and Narrative Agency.- 3. "There is No War, There is Only Harvest": Diplomatic Realpolitik and Combat Gameplay in Mass Effect.- 4. Embracing Eternity: FemShep, Queer Romance, and Diversity.- 5. "Science Fun Today": Mass Effect and Rethinking SF's Pedagogical Approach to Exoplanetary and Astrobiological Science.- 6. Conclusion.
About the author
Jerome Winter, PhD, is a full-time lecturer at the University of California, Riverside, USA. His first book,
Science Fiction, New Space Opera, and Neoliberal Globalism was published in 2016. His second book,
Citizen Science Fiction, was published in 2021.
