Book review(s): Gears of War
Back story
When it comes to lore, the Gears of War series is a vastly underrated one in my opinion. For most, looking from the outside in, without having spent much time with the games, will write it off as just another action filled “dudebro” franchise. However, digging in and playing through the series, you really appreciate its tight focus on telling a cohesive and deep story. Very much taking its lore seriously.Compared to other, long running, series, like the Resident Evil franchise, I’ve come to appreciate and realise how much more cohesive Gears is at being cannon, and at the same time knowing exactly what type of game genre it wants to be. Staying close to familiar gameplay and genre all the way.
The Gears titles feature a large scale to their story but do a clever job of never having to exaggerate themselves into almost juvenile heights. It keeps the movement of storytelling tightly focused, even moving it a whole generation of character lives forward in the move from Gears 1-3 to Gears 4. At the same time, Gears lore loves referring to the early days of mankind's battle against the Locust, collectively spanning a longer timeline.
The story then, underrated and deep, with its overlying world coming to destruction through a war between humans and the alien race of the Locust. It’s an anti-war story at its core, yet pulls the player through endless firefights and depictions of ruined cities of civilisation. Hammering in the fact that no matter how much the characters hate war, humans never change and repeat their mistakes. Fighting for a freedom that, over and over, ends in a ruthless destruction of civilisation.
Sure, we humans are the good guys and Locust the bad ones, but through the stories of the soldier, the boots on the ground, the gear cogs in the war machinery, we get to see how harsh and brutal the fight is. Gears is about the soldiers, their viewpoint in the battlefield and their friendships as they journey through it all. This vast world depicted through each games key scenes, be it large scale or small segments of info, give us a broader picture of the scale of the war.
This is where expanding the lore becomes interesting, you want to learn more about the places you visit along the way, the smaller stories and what happened between each game.
Which brings me to the point of this blog post: the Gears of War books. They fill in the blank spaces, for the fans to appreciate, and further enrich the lore. There are quite a few of them, five books originally written by Karen Traviss, whom also has written several Halo books, but I’m going to focus on the three latest books here. Two written by Jason M. Hough, one by Michael A. Stackpole and all three excellently narrated by Nan McNamara on audiobooks.
Let’s take a look at each one!
Ascendance covers the events between Gears 4 and 5. We learn about how Kait Diaz reluctantly joins the COG and begins her work on convincing smaller settlements to join the big battle and move to the rebuilt New Ephyra capital city. There’s a lot of dialogue and the building of friendship between Kait and Marcus Fenix here, as they go looking for settlements, which I enjoyed.
There’s also an exciting parallel story, with Del Walker and JD Fenix having to battle it out with almost no weapons at their disposal, following a botched aircraft landing. A firefight that’s quite intense and is exciting, keeping you reading on.
Overall, I found the story exciting, with quite a bit of variation between Kaits overwhelming, and mixed, feelings of arriving at New Ephyra, her travel into the wilderness and a lot of action scenes which are quick page turners. Although Gears 5's story follows shortly after Gears 4, it’s neat to get an insight into some of the questions of what happened between the games.
A solid book, with nothing major eye opening, but interesting to learn Kaits struggle in life. From living as a stranded survivor at a settlement, to becoming a dedicated and strong, fighting soldier of the COG.
Released: 2019
Bloodlines is another Kait related story, this time taking part in the time after JD Fenix’s accident in Gears 5 and before she goes out in the wilderness with Del. However, the story mainly focuses on a jump back in time when Colonel Hofman teaches Kait about how great a soldier her father, Gabe Diaz, was. As such, Gabe’s story places itself right before Gears Tactics, the turn-based strategy spin-off game I wrote about here. The book tells the story of his heroic acts at Battle of Gatka Ridge.
Gear Tactics had a neat story, with well-made cutscenes woven in, but it doesn’t explain so much about Gabe himself and so I found the main focus of this book very interesting. The island battle is a great setting. With coastal areas surrounded by palms and mountains. It’s an exciting story to follow, where you get an insight into how creative and good leader Gabe was.
The time period after JD Fenix’s battle wound, in Act 1 in Gears 5, is interestingly fleshed out in this book too. It was a clear jump in time within Gears 5, with a lot of questions unanswered.
I found this to be the most interesting book of all the three.
Released: 2021
Ephyra Rising takes part shortly after the end of Gears 3. With the Locust defeated, Anya Stroud and Marcus Fenix return to live a peaceful life at the Stroud estate. However, they’re quickly drawn into the problems of a fallen society and the troubles of rebuilding it. This estate is, interestingly, revisited in Gears of War 4.
This book is a heavier read than the other two, where a lot of the focus is about the struggle of rebuilding a ruined society, with a lot of political issues rising. Anya takes part in this political struggle, while the parallel story is Marcus joining a traveller named Brandon, far into the outskirts of the lands you're familiar with from the games. They seek to find truth in the rumours of surviving Locust.
I found the political side to be heavy, with lots of detail and slow moving, but it gets varied enough between chapters with Marcus travelling at least. We're also reunited with a lot of other familiar characters from the series along the way.
I wish the story had touched on JD Fenix being born and his childhood, but this takes part prior to his life. Which I found a bit disappointing, as the optional visit to Anya’s grave in Gears 4 is an extremely touching scene with JD Fenix. I would have liked to learn more about his relationship with Anya.
On the bright side, the audio book is read by Nan McNamara, who's also Anya’s voice in the games, making her character become perfectly alive when listening! Bringing back memories of the old Gears trilogy, much appreciated for a fan like myself.
The slowest moving of the three books, and only for the overly interested in the lore. Action is toned down in its frequency too, with mostly dialogue happening, however, the fight scenes are a gory read nevertheless!
If you want to understand more about the large gaps in time between Gears 3, 4, 5 and Tactics, then these books will fill in some of the blanks. Making you appreciate the newer Gears games, and the time and effort into taking care of the lore, even more!
The Gears titles feature a large scale to their story but do a clever job of never having to exaggerate themselves into almost juvenile heights. It keeps the movement of storytelling tightly focused, even moving it a whole generation of character lives forward in the move from Gears 1-3 to Gears 4. At the same time, Gears lore loves referring to the early days of mankind's battle against the Locust, collectively spanning a longer timeline.
The story then, underrated and deep, with its overlying world coming to destruction through a war between humans and the alien race of the Locust. It’s an anti-war story at its core, yet pulls the player through endless firefights and depictions of ruined cities of civilisation. Hammering in the fact that no matter how much the characters hate war, humans never change and repeat their mistakes. Fighting for a freedom that, over and over, ends in a ruthless destruction of civilisation.
Sure, we humans are the good guys and Locust the bad ones, but through the stories of the soldier, the boots on the ground, the gear cogs in the war machinery, we get to see how harsh and brutal the fight is. Gears is about the soldiers, their viewpoint in the battlefield and their friendships as they journey through it all. This vast world depicted through each games key scenes, be it large scale or small segments of info, give us a broader picture of the scale of the war.
This is where expanding the lore becomes interesting, you want to learn more about the places you visit along the way, the smaller stories and what happened between each game.
Which brings me to the point of this blog post: the Gears of War books. They fill in the blank spaces, for the fans to appreciate, and further enrich the lore. There are quite a few of them, five books originally written by Karen Traviss, whom also has written several Halo books, but I’m going to focus on the three latest books here. Two written by Jason M. Hough, one by Michael A. Stackpole and all three excellently narrated by Nan McNamara on audiobooks.
Let’s take a look at each one!
Released: 2019
Ascendance covers the events between Gears 4 and 5. We learn about how Kait Diaz reluctantly joins the COG and begins her work on convincing smaller settlements to join the big battle and move to the rebuilt New Ephyra capital city. There’s a lot of dialogue and the building of friendship between Kait and Marcus Fenix here, as they go looking for settlements, which I enjoyed.
There’s also an exciting parallel story, with Del Walker and JD Fenix having to battle it out with almost no weapons at their disposal, following a botched aircraft landing. A firefight that’s quite intense and is exciting, keeping you reading on.
Overall, I found the story exciting, with quite a bit of variation between Kaits overwhelming, and mixed, feelings of arriving at New Ephyra, her travel into the wilderness and a lot of action scenes which are quick page turners. Although Gears 5's story follows shortly after Gears 4, it’s neat to get an insight into some of the questions of what happened between the games.
A solid book, with nothing major eye opening, but interesting to learn Kaits struggle in life. From living as a stranded survivor at a settlement, to becoming a dedicated and strong, fighting soldier of the COG.
Bloodlines is another Kait related story, this time taking part in the time after JD Fenix’s accident in Gears 5 and before she goes out in the wilderness with Del. However, the story mainly focuses on a jump back in time when Colonel Hofman teaches Kait about how great a soldier her father, Gabe Diaz, was. As such, Gabe’s story places itself right before Gears Tactics, the turn-based strategy spin-off game I wrote about here. The book tells the story of his heroic acts at Battle of Gatka Ridge.
Gear Tactics had a neat story, with well-made cutscenes woven in, but it doesn’t explain so much about Gabe himself and so I found the main focus of this book very interesting. The island battle is a great setting. With coastal areas surrounded by palms and mountains. It’s an exciting story to follow, where you get an insight into how creative and good leader Gabe was.
The time period after JD Fenix’s battle wound, in Act 1 in Gears 5, is interestingly fleshed out in this book too. It was a clear jump in time within Gears 5, with a lot of questions unanswered.
I found this to be the most interesting book of all the three.
Ephyra Rising takes part shortly after the end of Gears 3. With the Locust defeated, Anya Stroud and Marcus Fenix return to live a peaceful life at the Stroud estate. However, they’re quickly drawn into the problems of a fallen society and the troubles of rebuilding it. This estate is, interestingly, revisited in Gears of War 4.
This book is a heavier read than the other two, where a lot of the focus is about the struggle of rebuilding a ruined society, with a lot of political issues rising. Anya takes part in this political struggle, while the parallel story is Marcus joining a traveller named Brandon, far into the outskirts of the lands you're familiar with from the games. They seek to find truth in the rumours of surviving Locust.
I found the political side to be heavy, with lots of detail and slow moving, but it gets varied enough between chapters with Marcus travelling at least. We're also reunited with a lot of other familiar characters from the series along the way.
I wish the story had touched on JD Fenix being born and his childhood, but this takes part prior to his life. Which I found a bit disappointing, as the optional visit to Anya’s grave in Gears 4 is an extremely touching scene with JD Fenix. I would have liked to learn more about his relationship with Anya.
On the bright side, the audio book is read by Nan McNamara, who's also Anya’s voice in the games, making her character become perfectly alive when listening! Bringing back memories of the old Gears trilogy, much appreciated for a fan like myself.
The slowest moving of the three books, and only for the overly interested in the lore. Action is toned down in its frequency too, with mostly dialogue happening, however, the fight scenes are a gory read nevertheless!
Summary
I went for the audio books of all three, as I enjoyed utilising time spent walking to and from work while listening. They’re all three available on Audible and the books are read in an excellent manner, with various voice styles for all the characters. I really appreciated Nan’s impression of Marcus and of course her spot-on Anya is a warming reunion.If you want to understand more about the large gaps in time between Gears 3, 4, 5 and Tactics, then these books will fill in some of the blanks. Making you appreciate the newer Gears games, and the time and effort into taking care of the lore, even more!
If you really want a deep dive, over 3 hours and 30 minutes in fact, of the whole Gears of War franchise, focusing a lot on their story and narratives, then I highly recommend this YouTube retrospective. Written and narrated in excellent fashion by Noah Caldwell-Gervais. His content in general is absolutely amazing and a rare find these days!
So, there you have it, three book reviews on a blog that normally only talks about games!