Dead Space gets prequel novel in July

In recent years, Electronic Arts has gotten serious about turning its original properties into entertainment brands that transcend mere gaming. One of the earlier examples of the publisher's multimedia push was Dead Space, which launched alongside an anime and a comic book and has a feature film adaptation in the works. The publisher revealed the next step for the Dead Space series today, announcing that it would be getting a prequel novel this July, courtesy of Tor Books.

Dead Space: Martyr will explore some of the game's backstory, explaining more about the origins of the Church of Unitology, the mysterious alien artifact, and the first game's necromorph threat. The book is being penned by Brian Evenson, author of horror novels like 2009's Last Days and 2006's The Open Curtain.

The fiction of the Dead Space universe is becoming increasingly fleshed out. EA has built on the original game with a Wii-exclusive spin-off, Dead Space: Extraction, and is working on Dead Space 2 for multiple platforms. That mythology is likely to expand even more, as EA has hopes for Dead Space: Martyr to be just the first of many books based on the franchise.