If you’re really enthusiastic about the world of Mass Effect, you won’t have to wait much longer because sci-fi book publisher Del Rey is releasing two novels that serve as a prequel to the game. The first novel, Mass Effect: Revelation will be available in May and will set you back $7.99 for 336 pages, information about the second book has yet to be released.

The book will introduce readers to Alliance war hero David Anders who has been forced to team with a rogue alien agent to investigate the ruins of a secret research facility. Since we’re not a book site, I won’t talk about it too long, but the interesting thing about this book is that it’s being released around the period when the game was rumored to be released a while ago. That release date was debunked shortly after but according to source IGN, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to think that the game is on schedule for a release this summer to capitalize on publicity from the book.

“We’re excited to be working on original Mass Effect novels with BioWare whose track record of successful and high-quality video games speaks for itself, and between Drew’s close involvement with the Mass Effect IP and his ability to tell an engaging story, the novels will draw fans even further into the rich world of Mass Effect.”

“We’re excited to be working with Del Ray Books on expanding the Mass Effect universe,” said Ray Muzyka, CEO of BioWare Corp. “We are thrilled to have Drew writing the book as he has the knowledge and skills to make a great novel.”

Casey Hudson, Project Director at BioWare updated his blog on IGN as well giving a bit of inside information about the Mass Effect production. He explains about the ‘dailies’ where a bunch of guys of the development have a get together and play the game in its current form to determine the weak spots and make notes on how to improve it. He then tells how the combat controls were recently improved and how cool it is when all the details come together in those sessions. His blog is not only about how awesome he thinks the game is, a bunch of reader questions that have been posted on the Bioware forums by various users have been answered as well.

Does “Mass Effect” fit on one disc?
Yep, but just barely. This is a monstrous game. In fact, there was a time – not too long ago – when we pretty much scoffed at the idea of fitting onto one disc. But, there’s an art to optimizing the data that goes on a disc – plus we have a few programmers that seem to pull off magic tricks right when we need them.

How far can you go customizing Shepard?
Commander Shepard represents the specific kind of experience you can have in “Mass Effect”: serious situations, important decisions, and the feeling that you can kick down any barrier that stands in your way. But how you do it, and what kind of character you are is up to you. So you can be male or female, change the details of your face and hair to look however you want, and then you’ll decide what kind of character you are: soldier, tech specialist, user of dark energy powers, or some combination of those. You’ll also be able to decide what your starting skills will be. And throughout the game you’ll get new weapons and equipment that you can use, further modifying your appearance and capability. You can also buy or find mods that can be used to enhance your weapons and equipment. So your character is quite a bit more customizable than in “KOTOR” for example, but you’re also adjusting things that seem more tangible or real-world.

Do you care if players use a custom sound track?
This is actually a controversial subject, as most game developers don’t like the idea of people replacing their carefully crafted audio experience with random songs. But of course, players don’t have to use that feature, and I think most players don’t – especially in this type of game. And if the feature didn’t exist, you’d still be able to adjust your sound settings to mute the music and play your own music on a stereo. So we don’t mind supporting it. Having said that though, my last update was all about the huge original score that’s going into “Mass Effect,” so you won’t want to miss out on that part of the experience.

The game will probably get released somewhere this year and hopefully this summer, but Microsoft and Bioware are keeping their mouths shut about a specific date however.