The Story Beyond

“What a bunch of loveable meatheads.”

This is the thought and phrase I’ll typically use to define the protagonists of the Gears of War Series. Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, August (Cole Train) Cole, and Damon Baird are the brick shithouse characters, bearing tree trunk sized arms and chainsaw guns, that roam the world of Sera, ridding it of the genocidist Locust who’ve emerged from the underworld to destroy the ground walkers. Perhaps playing this game for the first time you may have had the same thoughts I did. Sure it’s an intriguing story, and these dudes are the most bad ass gears for the job. But there isn’t any real character development or back story in the original Gears of War game so it’s really left at that. I know who Marcus Fenix is; he’s the guy that likes to say “aww shit” and curb stop the locust scum.

Great games like Gears of War have a tendency to leave me wanting much, much more. In fact, this is a crazy story telling fetish I’ve had since Halo Combat Evolved. I want to know more of the story, why is Marcus so emotionless, why was he left in prison to die on this yet unexplored planet? How did Marcus and Dom become such great friends? Do Marcus and Anya have a secret relationship that isn’t typically allowed in the military (officer dating enlisted)? What is Hoffman’s major beef with Marcus? What is thrashball and how did a famous “thrashball” player like Cole Train transition into the gears army. What did the Fenix mansion look like in the glory days? Why don’t the members of Delta wear headgear while all the other Gears do? Who the hell is this chick that momentarily narrates portions of the story and sounds like she wants the humans dead? If she is against the humans, why does she sound human? Who is Adam Fenix in relation to Marcus? Oh yeah, and why is Baird such a sarcastic prick? That’s a lot of questions huh? That’s only a fraction of questions stored away in a top secret safe hidden in my brain. It’s not even the only game story that I have questions for. I possess questions to other AAA titles such as Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, Halo, Alan Wake, etc. How can I possibly get my fix on these stories outside of the game?

It’s simple really. You see, game developers and publishers came across a unique way to keep us nerds busy while the next installment in the series is (or isn’t) being made. They began expanding their games story by writing them into novels. Halo: The Fall of Reach was the first video game book adaptation that I came across one day whilst roaming through a Barnes & Noble. I adore this book and often compare other game adaptations to it. What was so special about it though? Well, one, it wasn’t about the game itself, two it contained amazing character development and back ground stories to my favorite protagonist, Master Chief. It also introduced dozens of other memorable characters and expanded this once tiny fragment of story into a universe full of mysteries and origin. There’s nothing I enjoy more than reading about the past life of a fictional character that comes across as an unstoppable and relentless hero.

Wow, I sure do take a long time to get to what I planned on talking about. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s my style I guess. Maybe it’s because I have an unquenchable need to spell out every single detail of whatever it is I’m talking about. Okay well anyway. I’ve gotten myself into reading a lot more than I normally use to because I feel it will help me find my style of writing. I’ve read that by reading a lot of fiction written by multiple different authors is a great way to see what I like and don’t like. It will help inspire me to adopt some of the style from this person and maybe mix it with a little bit of that person’s style. Could you imagine if I mixed Quentin Terantino with Stephen King? That’d be one fucked up nightmare. As of late I have 12 books on my shelf that I purchased ages ago and haven’t read yet (the number was higher). I’ve read many of my previously untouched books in order to explore a different person’s fantasy world and for the most part have like what I’ve read. I can tell you what I don’t like right off the bat, and since most of the books I own are game adaptations, I hate when the book retells the same story I already played in the game. Perhaps that’s what helps define a good game novel, substance that has yet to be explored outside of the original tale. Sure I know the main plot, but maybe I want to know how these characters came to be, or what will happen to them since the games stopped being developed.

About a month ago I finished reading the first Gears of War novel, “Gears of War: Aspho Fields.” I can honestly say that it was the first game story I’ve completely fell in love with since The Fall of Reach. On top of that I found respect for a new author I never knew existed. Karen Traviss. I had read a tiny biography on her when I skimmed over the “About the Author” section of the first Gears of War book and learned that she did a whole series based off the game “Star Wars: Republic Commando.” I’m not a huge Star Wars buff and I quite frankly found it a tad insulting that a dorky nerd like this would write a book about one of my favorite games. What could she possibly know about this when she’s spent a large portion of her writing career making Star Wars geeks happy? How petty of me to think such ignorant thoughts, not realizing that Star Wars in a much older version of what I love about the stories that make me nerdy. It started out as a movie (I think), but expanded into this enormous universe that is literally adored by millions of people. The same thing has happened with Halo, Gears of War, and other popular video games. These stories have evolved beyond the limitations of the game and allow for endless expansion. Karen Traviss is just one of many tools that etch these stories into existence and I’ve come to realize that she’s kind of a universe expanding whore. Playing her role in the Star Wars universe came first, and then came her Gears of War stories, and now I see that she’s working on expanding the Halo series. Wow, this chick loves science fiction as much as I do (minus Star Wars, that’s too nerdy for me).

Like I was saying, I read this first book and was in utter shock at how much I enjoyed it. Karen really taught me a lesson within the proverbial phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” In this case I didn’t judge the cover of the book; instead I judged the cover of the author. Sure I bought the book because it expands the story one of my favorite games, but I never cared to sit down and open it. Here came the second book, then the third. Years later and I still didn’t read them and it took me wanting to become a better writer to finally open them. I shouldn’t have judged Traviss by the previous works she’s partook in, but instead, as a reader and writer, taken in her point of view regardless of the outcome.

Here is what Karen did so well in the Gears of War book that it has me contemplating on purchasing every work of fictions she’s ever done. The Gears of War and Halo books she puts out are easy shoe ins, but I do plan on buying her six part book series that I’m assuming is a complete set of work that originated from her own influence. Traviss took the undefined macho men and women from Gears of War, wrapped them in reality, and smacked me in the face with them. Playing through a game of Gears of War is an experience that can make the weakest, most self conscience people, feel totally bad ass. Rarely do we as gamers think of the human struggles that these protagonists are going through. Why should we? They’re not real and I’m not partaking in this fantasy battle royal to be drowned out by feelings and other such nonsense. Or so I thought. After playing with these characters through the first game you begin to care about them, and in my case, I began to ask questions (as stated earlier). In Aspho fields, Traviss does a fantastic job with her character build up and relationships with each other. Slowly she started to answer many of my questions as well as opening avenues for new ones. She tells two stories together, one in present time (of the story arc), and the other as a flashback. The way she did this made the book a prequel/sequel to the first Gears of War game. In the present portion of the story we follow Delta after their victorious (or was it?) adventures from the game through the points of view of Dominic Santiago, Hoffman, and Bernie (a new character that we have yet to see in game). In the flashback portion of the story, we witness the childhood of Dominic and Carlos Santiago and their newly found friend, Marcus Fenix. The events span throughout years that leads up to the battle of Aspho Fields. We witness the flashbacks through the eyes of Dom, Carlos, Bernie (sometimes), and Hoffman.

This back and forth method between the stories could possibly be frustrating and annoying to some readers, but not me. My favorite part was the back story and learning why Marcus was had such a tight lid on his emotions. Marcus is such a stoic character and his lack of emotion (other than what he says with his eyes) is much more riveting to read about than to watch. This dude shows no fear, guilt, sadness, happiness, love, or anything. Traviss does a great job of describing his tormented life at home with his famous, yet distant, parents. It describes loving brotherhood that is developed between Marcus, Carlos, and Dom throughout their younger years. Often, Traviss portrays their bonds to each other in such amazing detail that you might feel jealous of this kind of camaraderie. The Santiago family takes Marcus in as if he were the third brother they always wanted and treat him better than his own family.

I’d love to go into great detail about the story, but I’d rather have you read it for yourself and tell me what you thought of it. This is the only way you can get the full experience rather than me paraphrasing it to you. I can say though, that at one point of the story, I was literally on the verge of tears whilst charging my way through page after page of mystery, friendship, love, death, and war. This feeling of almost crying (I didn’t because I’m a man), made me stop and ponder how Traviss was able to bring physical emotion to me through characters who are as real as the tooth fairy. My conclusion has been that she developed the backgrounds of these characters very well, allowing the reader to see what kind of life they lived before all hell broke loose, and too see the struggles that burden them every day of their fictional lives as tragedy re-shapes them. Playing the game I see a bunch of meatheads battling for survival, but I’m not convinced that they comprehend reason, yet the novel reached out to me and told me that these people aren’t just the superhero muscle men I’ve come to know and love. They’re people with real emotions and heartache and they don’t just mindlessly kill the bad guys and feel nothing whatsoever. Instead they kill with purpose, typically revenge for their family and friends long lost, and for the planet that has been torn down along side humanity. Holy cow, talk about bringing them down to earth. Dom suffers greatly with the death of his kids and his missing wife whom he can’t find. Cole Train writes his mother a letter every day, even though she’ll never get to read them because she perished along with most of the planet. Baird’s typical asshole comments and sarcasm is revealed to be his coping mechanism, and Marcus, well let me just say that that I’m unsure what it is that really bothers him because the man keeps a tight lock on his emotions that even his closest of friends have a hard time reading him.

I highly recommend this book, but I just wanted to point out one more thing before I end this catastrophe of a blog. Don’t read reviews from regular Joe Schmoe, because you may find them to be rather disappointing. People dislike things over the smallest grains of annoyance. Each person is granted their opinion; I just typically think they’re stupid. This one person wrote why he hated this book so much and it really pissed me off because I felt like he didn’t have any valid reason other than he’s a massive tool who’s had all of his creative thinking striped from him and had it replaced with ignorant thoughts that keep him entertained. He disliked this book because:

“My biggest pet peeve with this book is the author. It is obvious the woman is British, and it pissed me off that she constantly used British slang as one of the character’s dialogue. They are on a different planet; I seriously doubt they have an England there too. Not to mention the fact that the person who always uses this slang is supposed to be modeled after a Samoan, not a Brit. The worst thing about this book is the way the author basically puts herself into the novel. Yeah, that’s right; there is an old middle aged women gear. And the way she writes the character, it is so obvious it is supposed to be her, and all girl power and that nonsense.”

I’ll end his silly quote right there. This person showed us the epitome of what a stupid opinion is. So I’ve decided since there is no way for me to reply to his god awful post that contained a terrible mixture of past and present tense as well as a plethora of spelling errors (that I fixed up for him in), that I would post one here, just to get it off of my chest.

Dear moron,
I find the fact that your biggest pet peeve with this novel being that the British author portrays a British character in her book that may or may not be modeled after herself is a ridiculous pet peeve to have. Your argument is that it’s a different planet, is there supposed to be an England there too? Perhaps not, but this is the wonder of fiction. One, it’s not unnatural for an author to write themselves into their stories, I mean heck, why not? Is there one personality that we know and comprehend better than our own? Can we always look at someone else and determine what that person would do in this situation or that? Hasn’t Stephen King written parts of his own personality into his stories? How about J.K Rowling? Tom Clancy? David Wong? Your distaste for her possible inclusion of herself into her own novel is rather petty in my opinion.

On to the fact that you don’t like British people. Perhaps you didn’t say that, but your arrogance was certainly screaming it. I wonder if people who read any of the Halo novels hated them because Master Chief was written by an American author and totally made him sound American. Obviously he wasn’t born on Earth and instead on a different planet far away. I seriously doubt there is an America there too. Not once did I see you complain about how this fictional world portrayed other things the we see on a daily basis such as cars, phones, coffee shops, books, music, television, dogs, cats, and even human beings! OMG! How did earth wind up on that fictional planet? Perhaps it’s human nature to include the worldly things in our society into that of our fiction. Maybe Traviss isn’t imaginative enough (doubt it) to create things that are unreal. Who knows, but the fact that the way a character spoke in this book resembles that of the British person who created her annoys you, makes you look like the unfortunate stereotypical American idiot who has a very dense and all too literal view on things.

Phew, now that I got that out of the way. I’d like to encourage you guys to read more! It’s an unbelievable world out there and there is so much knowledge we can learn from reading as well as building up our own imagination. Take your eyes of that dreary television and let your mind do the talking. One book in particular that I’d like to recommend, Gears of War: Aspho Fields, especially if you’re a Gears fan.

Stay tuned, I plan on releasing Part III to This Gaming Life, sometime this week (hopefully). Until then, here is a neat Cole Train song to show you what Gears of War looks like in case you don't know.