Publisher: Gallery Books

Author: Karen Traviss

Release Date: 8/2/2011

Pages: 464

MSRP: $24.99 (Hardback), $14.99 (Paperback, Audio CD), $12.99 (Digital)

Recommended Audience: Young Adult

There were a lot of questions throughout the Gears of War trilogy, and only the hardcore fans asked them. The books helped answer all of these and tie up the plot holes that the games couldn’t fill. The final book of the Gears series fills the holes between Gears 2 and 3 and leads right up to the beginning of 3. The book focuses mainly on Bernie Mataki, Colonel Hoffman, and Dizzy. The book explains the fall of the Coalition that you see at the beginning of the third game and why everyone was living on the ship Sovereign. Even little things, like why Anya cut her hair short, are answered in this book.

Like Jacinto’s Remnant (book 2), you get flashbacks during the Hammer of Dawn strike that wiped out most of Sera, and we get to find out how Baird and Cole met (which is the question about why they knew each other in Gears 1), but it focuses on Bernie, Cole, and Dizzy just before, during, and just after the Hammer strike. The book is riveting, sad, and really heartbreaking during some moments. Just seeing humanity crumble and every last hope fall apart is heartbreaking. Traviss does a great job of keeping the characters’s personalities in the book so they feel just like they did in the game. Of course, this is mostly about the stalk and polyp infestation on the island of Vectes, which is humanity’s last refuge. Hell, you even find out why Prescott left the COG and where Hoffman wound up.

The book has the perfect pacing, and I don’t think the book series could have had a better ending. With such deep and lovable characters, a tragic setting, and a great lead-up to the final game, you can’t really go wrong here. There isn’t much action here because the book really digs deep into the minds of the characters and more into the tragedy they are facing than actual battles. There are some battles here, but there aren’t any with locusts because of the polyp crisis they face. This book is really only for hardcore fans, but if you want every single question answered up to this point, then pick this book up.