Book Log 5/2009 - Aspho Fields

Karen Traviss: Aspho Fields – Gears of War #1

First off I don’t play computer games, especially war games, and I don’t read military SF... except for maybe Tanya Huff and Karen Traviss. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I love Traviss’ Star Wars Republic Commando books I would never have looked at this twice let alone picked it up... and if that had been the case I would have missed out because this book is good. It’s hard to compare because – as I say – I don’t have much Mil-SF in my reading repertoire to compare it with, but as a book about believable characters in extreme circumstances, coming to terms with the pain that life has thrown at them in the past and is still throwing at them in the present, this works really well. I’m not gushing; though it’s by no means slow to start the action it took me fifty or so pages to really get into this – possibly because I must be one of the few people on the planet who had no clue what Gears of War was about. (It took me a while to work out that a ‘gear’ was a soldier of the COG, Coalition of Ordered Governments, you’d thing a cog would be part of a gear, not the other way round, but...) But once I got into the pattern of this book and began to understand some of the world background it all fell into place. It’s a pair of stories, one set in the book’s present and the other in its past. The present story tells of humankind’s fight for survival against an alien menace which has emerged from beneath the surface of their planet to destroy most of the population and reduce cities to rubble. The backstory is of three boys growing to be men and soldiers during the last few years of an eighty year war between human factions (pre alien menace) culminating in the Battle of Aspho Fields and the death of one of the trio. It’s about secrets untold and words never said and the damage they can do which runs as deep as bullets. Traviss has a knack or putting a human face on war. You can tell in every line that she has deep respect for the men and women on the front line everywhere, in fact and in fiction, and she knows what she’s talking about. (It’s obvious she does from her bio.) The characters are, if not always likeable, compelling and – yes – I cared what happened to them, and what will happen to them, for though this book has a satisfying conclusion, Traviss has wisely not wrapped up all the loose threads. There are plenty more untold secrets out there, people left behind who still need to be retrieved, and a new threat developing for the ragtag bag of resource-depleted humans.

This book says it’s the prequel to the award winning video game. Hopefully there’s room for at least another prequel and possibly more. I’ll be watching out for them.

Book Log 5/2009 - Aspho Fields

Karen Traviss: Aspho Fields – Gears of War #1

First off I don’t play computer games, especially war games, and I don’t read military SF... except for maybe Tanya Huff and Karen Traviss. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I love Traviss’ Star Wars Republic Commando books I would never have looked at this twice let alone picked it up... and if that had been the case I would have missed out because this book is good. It’s hard to compare because – as I say – I don’t have much Mil-SF in my reading repertoire to compare it with, but as a book about believable characters in extreme circumstances, coming to terms with the pain that life has thrown at them in the past and is still throwing at them in the present, this works really well. I’m not gushing; though it’s by no means slow to start the action it took me fifty or so pages to really get into this – possibly because I must be one of the few people on the planet who had no clue what Gears of War was about. (It took me a while to work out that a ‘gear’ was a soldier of the COG, Coalition of Ordered Governments, you’d thing a cog would be part of a gear, not the other way round, but...) But once I got into the pattern of this book and began to understand some of the world background it all fell into place. It’s a pair of stories, one set in the book’s present and the other in its past. The present story tells of humankind’s fight for survival against an alien menace which has emerged from beneath the surface of their planet to destroy most of the population and reduce cities to rubble. The backstory is of three boys growing to be men and soldiers during the last few years of an eighty year war between human factions (pre alien menace) culminating in the Battle of Aspho Fields and the death of one of the trio. It’s about secrets untold and words never said and the damage they can do which runs as deep as bullets. Traviss has a knack or putting a human face on war. You can tell in every line that she has deep respect for the men and women on the front line everywhere, in fact and in fiction, and she knows what she’s talking about. (It’s obvious she does from her bio.) The characters are, if not always likeable, compelling and – yes – I cared what happened to them, and what will happen to them, for though this book has a satisfying conclusion, Traviss has wisely not wrapped up all the loose threads. There are plenty more untold secrets out there, people left behind who still need to be retrieved, and a new threat developing for the ragtag bag of resource-depleted humans.

This book says it’s the prequel to the award winning video game. Hopefully there’s room for at least another prequel and possibly more. I’ll be watching out for them.