'The Locust War has ended with an energy weapon that pulsed across the land, destroying Locust and Lambent alike. The world is in shambles and the few survivors are isolated from one another. Humanity must begin anew. This novel reveals the canonical, never-before-seen events set in the time immediately following the game Gears of War 3.
'With most of Sera's civilisation destroyed, Sergeant Marcus Fenix and Lieutenant Anya Stroud must somehow rebuild on the ruins. For Marcus, his purpose is impossible to grasp. With no clear enemy to fight, there may be no place left for him in this postwar world. Some call him hero, others view him with resentment.
'As Anya struggles to create alliances to re-form the Coalition of Ordered Governments, she quickly discovers how impossible it is to tell friend from foe. Then whispers of Locust still stalking the land begin to spread. Fearing the worst, Marcus forms a team to assess the potential threat. As he and the other Gears search for Locust survivors, however, they quickly discover that the new enemy may be all-too-human, and utterly ruthless.'
When I discovered Gears of War when it first came out I, like most people, were drawn to the inventive action, the over-the-top characters, and the stark, ruined beauty of the world that had been created. However, whilst I soon saw other fans moving from the main story into the multi-player and Horde modes as each successive iteration of the franchise came out I was instead drawn to the story, the setting, and the characters. I enjoyed picking up the books, reading the comics, and replaying the campaign over and over again. And when the series made a jump forward in time by decades with Gears of War 4 I was super intrigued by what had gone on in that time gap, and the world building that had happened.
Whilst we get some of this information in the games with files that can be found and snippets of dialogue it's been the novels where we've really had the chance to find out what happened after the defeat of the Locust and the Lambent, before the rise of the Swarm. And Gears of War: Ephyra Rising might give us the best insight into this period yet.
Picking up several weeks after the end of the third game the book begins with Marcus Fenix and Anya Stroud having finished their time in the COG and trying to make a new life together in the remains of Anya's family estate. Whilst the house has been damaged over the years there's still enough of it there to be repaired and rebuilt, providing Marcus with a distraction to keep him mind busy whilst he begins to process the trauma of everything that he's been through during the war.
Whilst Marcus deals with the estate Anya finds herself being approached to help rebuild in another way, as Jamila Shin, a woman with a lot of political connections, tries to bring together influential and powerful people in a bid to build a new form of government that can try and help everyone. Not wanting a career in politics, but knowing that her skills would prove useful and that she could do some genuine good, Anya agrees to help, and begins to form a new Ministry. As Anya begins to learn the ins and outs of political power, as well as finding innovative ways to try and rebuild society, Marcus is approached by Brandon Turrall, a survivor of the war with connections to many small settlements, who has heard stories of surviving Locust. With Anya using her skills to help the world Marcus feels he can finally use his to do some good, and agrees to head out into the wilds with Brandon to make sure that the Locust are finished once and for all.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about Gears of War: Ephyra Rising is how little of the book is given over to action and firefights. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't any, or that fans of those things will come away disappointed, but for the longest time reading this I didn't even think about those things. I was so engrossed in the story of this world and these people that I'd come to care about that it didn't even occur to me that a book based on an action game would involve action. Michael A. Stackpole had done such a good job in breathing life into Marcus, Anya, and the others that I didn't need monsters and explosions to enjoy things, I simply needed more time with them.
One of the prime examples of how well Stackpole deals with these characters in a setting none of them have ever really been in before, a time of peace, is what's done with Marcus. When Marcus and Anya first arrive at the Storud estate he's full of hope. He's got hope for building a life with the woman he loves, of starting a family together, and spending his time rebuilding the house and growing tomatoes. But slow things begin to turn for him. It begins with how he feels naked when not wearing his armour, how he unconsciously scans his environment for escape route, cover, and places where the enemy could be hiding. He slowly comes to the realisation that the world around him is at peace, but part of him is still at war.
It's not just that Marcus is always on edge though, but the grief that he also has to work through. Early on in his time at the estate he finds the bodies of a young woman and her baby on the land, both having died some time before. This is far from the first body he's seen, even the first dead civilian; but something about it causes him more pain than he's used to. He sees these two bodies as a symbol for all the death during the war, all of the pain and the loss, and sees how close they were to making it through the war alive before dying. Then there's the memories of Dom, the thoughts that sneak up on him when he's least expecting it but leaving him spiralling into depression.
This book takes a figure who has always been portrayed as this big, macho figure, a hero larger than life who's the first to run into danger and can do incredible things, and it shows the real man underneath it all. We see that the scars from the war run a lot deeper than they appear, and how even the bravest, most idolised soldiers come back from that hell as changed, hurt people. And this is why it makes perfect sense for him to go back out into the world to face more danger. He doesn't feel that the war has really finished with him, that even though the fighting might be done it still has his claws in him. He might be going out there to make sure the Locust have gone, and to save some people, but he's also out there to put a lot of his own demons to rest.
Whilst Anya doesn't have as much emotional trauma to work through as Marcus she does get ample things to do in this book, with an almost equal amount of the book given over to her and her story. Having played the later gears games I know that Anya will become the First Minister, and that she helped to shape the society that would rise from the ashes, so it's interesting to see her here as a person who wants nothing to do with politics and needs to be convinced to get involved. Over the course of the book we see her discovering parts of herself she never knew that she had, of her ability to not only manage people, but to see through their exterior and figure out what they're really after and the deceptions underneath. Anya doesn't end the book being First Minister, or even wanting the job, but the Anya from the beginning of the novel isn't the one there at the end, and it's easier to see how she would go on to become one of the most important political figures on Serra.
Outside of Anya and Marcus there are several returning faces throughout the book. We get a brief appearance from Colonel Hoffman, whose relationship with Marcus has definitely changed since these stories began, as well as the surviving members of Delta Squad. The one who gets the most time and development is Baird, and we get to see not only the formation of DB Industries, but also how he becomes one of the most important people in humanity's survival, helping to innovate new technologies and strategies to keep people alive. We also get to catch up with Cole, who's always a delight, as well as having appearances from Samantha Byrne and Clayton Carmine.
The book also introduces several new figures to the Gears of War mythos. There are a number of important political and industrial figures who play large parts in Anya's story, but the best new character is easily Brandon Turrall. Having grown up surviving out in the world during the Locust War Brandon is one of the few non-Gears who seems to be able to earn Marcus' respect, and the friendship that forms between the two of them feels very genuine, and well earned. He doesn't hold Marcus on a pedestal like some do, nor does he look down upon him for being a soldier. The two of them understand that the other did what they had to do to survive, and that their skills are useful and important. He's one of the few characters introduced in the book who I'm genuinely sad isn't in the games, as I'd love to see where he went after this, and if his friendship with Marcus got to carry on.
Fans of Gears of War who, like myself, love the characters and the world and want to see more of it and learn about the gaps between the games are definitely going to enjoy this book. It answers some very important questions about how society began to rebuild itself after the Locust War, and how the members of Delta Squad began their journey to where we find them in Gears of War 4. It takes its time to examine how the war effected these people, how it changed them, and how the hopes for a better world afterwards shape them too. As much a character piece as an action story, this was an absolute delight from start to finish.
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