Some two hundred years before the games, geophysicist Michael Altman is working on the Yucatán coast near the Chicxulub crater when a strange signal turns up from deep under the seabed. The signal leads to something buried in the crater. Soon people in the nearby town are seeing their dead, and Altman is the one asking the questions the people paying for the dig don't want asked.
What this adds if you've played the games
The games are full of Altman, from the Unitologist chants of "Altman be praised" to a church that treats him as a prophet. This is the man himself and the first Marker, centuries before the Ishimura. Evenson writes horror outside the games too, and the slow way the Marker gets into ordinary people's heads works better here than in most tie-ins. It's a slow burn rather than an action story. If you read one Dead Space book, make it this one, but play the first game before you start, because it gives away something Dead Space saves for late.
Where it fits
- Read beforeDead Space
Set about two centuries before the games, at the discovery of the first Marker. Written after the first game, it gives away one of its late reveals, so play Dead Space first.
- Comes beforeDead Space: Catalyst
Picks up the Marker's history eighty years after Martyr, with new characters. The link is loose and it gives nothing away about Altman's story, but publication order works best.
Editions
Tor Books paperback
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