I recently got onto a kick on learning more about the Gears of War universe. I had just finished the game Judgment for the first time. It reminded me how much I loved the game series. The only media I haven’t touched for it so far was the book and comic series, and so I dove right in.
The first book I the series is called Aspho Fields. It takes place after the first game for the present-day storyline. The unique thing though is the past storyline. It really dives into where Marcus, Dom, and Dom’s brother Carlos came from. Their friendship, and what eventually happens to Carlos that wasn’t expressly said in the games. As far as I can remember, anyways.
The present day stuff touches more on what looks like the destruction of the Locust horde after the Lightmass Bombing at the end of the first game. We get to see the dynamic of Marcus and Dom after Marcus was rescued from The Slab. How Marcus is received from Hoffman, and even Baird. There are some excellent gun fights and insights to these characters that you never really get to see in the games as much. Hoffman is a pretty central character in this book which is great. He fights with the decision of leaving Marcus in The Slab to die, and also the fact that he is getting older and is not as resilient as he once was in the never ending wars on this planet.
Dom’s whole thing is discovering what truly happened to his brother Carlos so many years ago. After meeting up with Bernie, an old friend of Marcus and Carlos, he starts demanding answers. She’s pretty reluctant, but by the end of it the reader gets to learn what happened, as well as Dom, and it’s pretty heart breaking.
The past storyline is a huge focal point of this book and it is done really well. We get to see Dom, Marcus, and Carlos’ grow up together. Marcus and his dad’s relationship. Dom and Maria are together at such a young age and having kids. We also get to see the events before E-Day and the Locusts attack. Before the whole world was under attack, the COG and the UIR were at war with each other for over 70 years in the Pendulum Wars. This book centers on a specific turning point in this war. It is when the COG do a covert mission to steal the plans to what will eventually be the Hammer of Dawn.
I don’t want to spoil anything in this book, but I would recommend playing the first game again before diving into it. I had to dive deep to remember what happened at the end of the game.
I love being able to be inside Dom, Hoffman, and Bernie’s head. Seeing how they are feeling in the past and the present. Marcus takes a bit of a back seat when it comes to a focal character, which I think is great. The entire series is almost entirely about him, so getting a book series that give us more for others is really nice. Even getting to see Cole Train and Baird and getting a feeling for their characters right after the first game is really cool. Cole breaks my heart a little bit.
Karen Traviss does an incredible job bringing these characters to the page. I’m really excited to continue my push into the Gears books. I have a few other books I need to finish first, but I know I will get to them soon! In the meantime though, I plan on going back to the first Gears game and playing through it again. I also have the comics ready to start reading as well, so I think that will be something I will touch on soon too.
The Tired Obsidian 