Audiobook Review: Gears of War: Aspho Fields by Karen Traviss

Genre: Gaming, Post-Apocalyptic, Military Science Fiction

Series: Book #1 of Gears of War

Publisher: Del Ray (October 28, 2008)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Tiara’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Narrator: David Colacci | Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins | Audiobook Publisher: Tantor Audio | Whispersync Ready: Yes

Gears of War is the story of humans battling a species of reptilian humanoids known as the Locust and their variant species, the Lambent, on a fictional planet called Sera (Earth, basically). Sera has always been plagued with wars, even prior to the game and the introduction of the Locust, as overpopulation and energy shortages took its toll on humanity. After finally brokering a peace treaty between themselves, humans are faced with a new threat when the Locust and Lambent start surfacing soon after, causing devastation throughout Sera. This became known as Emergence Day.

The Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) becomes the main military force standing between the horde and humanity. These game largely follows a group of Gears (soldiers) led by Marcus Fenix, war hero and purported traitor for his actions during one of the battles.

What I love about Gears of War is that it’s teeming with tension. As much as I love Mass Effect, nothing ever feels really urgent in those game despite there being an intergalactic war against an almost unstoppable force going on. Gears of Wars fills that part of me that loves the almost nonstop action froth with pressure. So much is thrown at you in this game and it never feels like you really get a breather. I recently replayed these games co-op with my cousin and gaming partner. We made a mad dash through all three games, and I can remember there being moments when we had to take a break as the intensity intensified. You’re always moving, always fighting, against this opponent that seems countless in number while humanity dwindles to fewer and fewer people each day. This game is dirty, gritty, painful.There’s nothing romanticized at all about this military epic.

Unfortunately, that means the in-game lore is really just a quick series of cut scenes and random ambient conversation that give you a vague sense of things. There’s not much to work off of in terms of character and story, even though it’s easy to get attached to the characters and their struggles, and some personal things you do know about the characters beg for more exploration. This book allows players to explore Fenix’s world both before Emergence Day and after, filling in blanks about the story prior to the beginning of the first game while bridging the gap between Gears of Wars and Gears of War 2.

This book mainly follows Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. It chronicles their beginnings as childhood friends and eventually as soldiers through one of their most important battles–Aspho Fields. This book also follows them in their modern day journeys through a ravished Sera where every day is a battle against the Locust horde. Marcus is fresh out of prison after serving four years due largely because of the continuing threat of the Locust. He immediately gets back into the action.

A slight aside for context. I mentioned earlier in this review that Marcus was a purported traitor. The reasoning for this is because Marcus left a big battle to save his father. His actions caused countless deaths and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He only avoided death because he was a decorated war hero and Dominic went to bat for him at the expense of his own military career becoming stagnant.

Marcus grew up in an affluent household, the only child of two scientifically brilliant, but distant parents. Dominic had a tight knit family consisting of his parents and his older brother, Carlos. Carlos was the first person to meet Marcus being they were the same age and in the same class. Marcus started hanging out with the Santiago brothers, becoming an honorary member of their family, cementing a lifelong bond that no one could break.

You can glean from the games that Marcus is not an emotional person. This book solidifies that by showing his privileged, but joyless (well, joyless when he wasn’t with the Santiagos), childhood and where he learned this behavior. The Santiago family brought out more emotion in him, but he was still reserved, even as a child. He locks down even more of his emotions after the death of Carlos.

The Santiago brothers on the other hand grew up in a warm household, and it shows in their personalities. This books explores a household that’s full of love, emotion, dedication, and earnestness, among other things, and these things are shared with Marcus.  Marcus doesn’t become some open, expressive guy due to the Santiagos, but you can tell that he learned things about family and camaraderie that touch him on a deeper level even if he doesn’t show it through his emotions.

You can get a pretty good sense of the kind of people these characters are in the game, but this book shows exactly why they’re the way they are. This exploration of their lives and character made me wish that I could’ve given this a higher rating than I did, but there were a few issues that I had with it. As a gamer who loves gaming lore, I really enjoyed the meat this story added, but as a reviewer, I have to think about other things aside from how much I love Dominic.

For people who are reading this book and haven’t played the games, this will be sorely lacking in some respects in regards to detail. The book assumes that readers already know what things, such as a “Boomer” or a “Grub,” look like and gives very little to go on as far as description. I only really saw a problem with her describing the Locust Horde. Well, I take that back. She was a vague with people as well. You might get some identifying details like knowing Baird is blonde or Marcus has blue eyes or Taliso has tribal tattoos on his scalp, but mostly, if you’re not familiar with the games, you’re left to your own imagination or Googling these people.

This is a Boomer, by the way. They can’t be chainsawed. Do with that knowledge what you will. Don’t say I never taught you anything.

The author seems to assume that all her readers are people who–at the very least–know of the games, which is a fair assumption and I’m sure a large portion of her readers are familiar with the series. Still, a little description would’ve been nice, just to see how she’d describe some of these things with words, even if I can already picture them in my head. Also, there are some people who like to read about video games, even if they don’t actually play them, and some people just happen to pick these books up randomly without being aware they’re based on games. However, in other respects, her attention to detail is masterful, especially when describing firefights.

I think the blurb for this book asking if Marcus and Dom’s friendship will survive the truth behind Carlos’ death was a bit overdramatic, as well. I was expecting something earth shattering to surround the circumstances of Carlos’ death.  However, that situation is very anticlimactic in terms of what I was expecting versus what the book eventually revealed. When it was all said and done, I felt deflated, thinking, “Really? This is the friendship breaking secret?” I mean, true, you never know how people will react to certain news, but fiction needs to make sense where reality doesn’t. And I just couldn’t see these “revelations” being the make or break of their friendship.

In fact, I don’t think that was limited to just Carlos’ role at Aspho Fields. It seemed like Traviss tried too hard to make things that feel insignificant in the grand scheme seem important. I feel like much of the tension that she tried to create between Dom and Marcus regarding Aspho Fields and even Marcus’ imprisonment was a bit grasping. These men have too much history together and too much brotherly love for one another for me to believe that the simple problems presented in this book could actually tear them apart. These things didn’t challenge their solid friendship, and any reader could probably understand from the history of their friendship presented here that these fears are really a nonissue.

The narration was just okay. I don’t think that David Colacci was the best choice for this book. His voice had a way of making things sound shallow, especially when he tried to voice characters like Cole. I absolutely could not stand the way he voiced Cole or the South Islanders. I had the hardest time not laughing during Cole’s dialogue while listening to this. I liked how he voiced the Pesanga, though. He did women okay, too.  In fact, that’s when the narration felt most natural–while he was speaking as a woman. It just felt like he should be narrating something very different, not a military science fiction novel set in such a depressing world.

I think my mistake was “listening” to this instead of just reading it, so I don’t know if I can really fault the narrator. I already have a collection of voices in my head for each character because I’m familiar with the media it stems from, and of course, the narrator can’t sound exactly like the characters do in the game. It’s kind of hard to reconcile the voice he uses for Cole, when this is what Cole sounds like (and yes, that is his actual voice actor from some old Super Bowl ads I love, and yes, that is actually how he voice Cole, as well):

IT’S THE COLE TRAIN, BABY! WHOO-WHOO! How do you hope to compete with that? You can’t, and I guess I should cut the narrator a little slack with that in mind. However, I may just read the subsequent books instead of listening to them. I think that would allow for a better overall reading experience for me.

I really loved that this book explored Marcus and Dom’s lives and the events that shaped them into the soldiers and people they are. Don’t take that to mean that this story is in any means slow. Much of this book is as intense as the games, following the characters through tense situations and battles. The tone and pacing of this book fits very well with its game counterpart without sacrificing the story. You learn about the characters, but you also get a good taste of the action they’ve had to live through for most of their lives. Even in those moments that seem like nothing but nonstop action, you learn so much about these characters.