william-c-dietz posts

With the release later tonight of StarCraft II, the fans of Blizzard's sci-fi RTS game will soon have a new part of the vast StarCraft lore to chew on. However fans of the game series have already had a number of expansions of the back story via a series of novels published by Simon and Schuster. The latest such novel is StarCraft Heaven's Devils by veteran sci-fi author William C. Dietz. It's not only the first hardcover StarCraft novel ever released but it also serves as a kind of introduced to some of the new characters in StarCraft II.

Big Download got a chance to ask Dietz some questions about the novel along with other topics (including, as we first reported last week, his future plans to write a Mass Effect novel).

As part of an upcoming interview with science fiction author William C Dietz, Big Download has learned that the writer has been hired to write a new novel set in BioWare's Mass Effect game universe. In the interview when we ask if he plays games regularly he answered, "I do play games regularly, and was busy working my way through the latest Call Of Duty game, when I was hired to write a Mass Effect tie-in. So I had to switch and play all of the ME games. Full time. For a week. It's tough to be me:) " While he offered no details on the novel itself he did say the Mass Effect novel was "... due to the publisher in early 2011."

Two Mass Effect prose novels have already been released and the third, Mass Effect: Retribution, is set for release on July 27. All three novels have been written by BioWare script writer Drew Karpyshyn.

Dietz is no stranger to game-based novels, having written books based on Star Wars: Dark Forces/Jedi Knight, the Resistance series, the Halo series and Hitman. His latest novel is StarCraft: Heaven's Devils which serves as a prequel of sorts to StarCraft II. Look for the full interview with Dietz on Big Download, where he talks more about Starcraft Heaven's Devils, next week.