Gears of War: Ephyra Rising: The Gears of War Series, Book 8

I've long lamented Karen Traviss not writing more, but what we've had since has been worthwhile and this continues that. It's great to fill in the details of the story of Sera rebuilding after the Locust war and before the appearance of the swarm,whoch frankly I've felt have been "the poor man's Locust" overall.Aaron Griffin fans will be happy as he appears multiple times and seems like he will factor into Sera's rebuilding efforts greatly.Good relationship building between Anya/Marcus/other characters. Good action bits. Hoping for more books in the future like this.

I really liked the story just don't know why a digital version is missing a page.

As others have pointed out, this can be a little jarring at first. For example, Marcus does come across as 'lovey dovey', Baird is suddenly the master of all of science even though he struggled beyond mechanical engineering, and life has returned back to normalcy a mere 6 months after Gears 3. But that aside, I really enjoyed this book. It's a slow burn, yet it felt smooth. Know that it's a story about coming home from the war and dealing with the complications associated with it, so there won't be a big looming threat as before.All in all, I'd get it if you're a Gears fan. You'll enjoy knowing how Marcus feels about Dom and how his relationship with Anya evolved.

I would give the book 5 stars but it just lacked a few elements of the other books. Maybe it's due to the political-warfare perspective we see through Anya which seemed unecessarly drawn out and cliche. I enjoyed the dark aspects of the series, the grim details of unpleasant situations seens through the eyes of a hardned warrior like Marcus who clings to what humanity he himself has left. It was great to see returning Delta members and hopefully we see more return to this unfinished story like Dizzy and his girls, what about Bernie Mataki and her dog or Miran Trescu and his people of Grosnaya. Alot is left to be desired in these follow up Gears novels.

The book is immersive, I felt like I was in combat in the Gears of War universe and it was easy to connect with the characters.

Michael A. Stackpole’s “Gears of War: Ephyra Rising” - the 8th and (at least for the moment) final “Gears of War” novel – is a fast-paced, easy-to-enjoy, harder-to-remember ride through the “Gears” universe, one that ably keeps one’s attention while reading…but fails to linger long in the memory afterwards. For die-hard “Gears” fans, there’s enough here on a purely lore-level – particularly for those curious to learn more about how the world of the first trilogy morphed into the world of the new series – to justify a read. All other prospective readers, however, likely need not apply.

This book is a must for Gears fans. It expands the lore we already love

In all honesty, this book feels like the La Croix version of Karen Travess could have written. It's as if the author was told about Gears of War, played different parts of the game, and skimmed summaries of the series before it. The dialog between Marcus and the rest of Delta feels so awkward that you can feel the forced machoism between all of them. Marcus and Cole call each other "brother" at the end of a handful of sentences, and they've never done that to each other! Hardly anyone calls each other by their appropriate name. As the story progresses, the portrayed romance between Marcus and Anya reads like high school fanfiction that isn't fully capable of expressing love without sounding cheesy. Yes, it's nice that they finally get to have a life together, but surely you can come up with a better way to say "we finally have a tomorrow" 70 times without being repetitive.The beginning of the book starts out really nice since we get to see Marcus as a civilian instead of a soldier but as the story trudges on, it just gets boring and cliche. By the last 30 pages, I found myself wanting the book to be over already since there clearly wasn't anything interesting left to be said. Also, the way the book ends also leaves a nice plot hole for Gears 4.Overall, this story is 'meh'. I'm not looking forward to whatever book that the author writes in the future for Gears.

I am a big fan of the Gears of War games and all of the Karen Traviss books and this did not live up to my expectations. After Gears of War 3 (also written by the great Karen Traviss) I was hoping to see the fall out and rebuilding of the COG. We do not get this in this book. We don't see how the COG remnant is demobilised or how the new COG is former. Instead we see the creation of a fairly disbelievable organisation called the ministry. After the events of the Gears canon you would expect society to be still at the brink and the COG to have stayed formed around the military but for some reason they have disbanded. This is despite being outnumbered by the stranded who are armed and hate the COG for what they see as abandoning them. There would be anarchy without a mobilised group of Gears. The reason for that is never explained. I don't want to give any spoilers away but the choice of antagonists is also strange. There is also an attempt to convince us that Marcus and Anya and even Hoffman are not the elites and are the underdog still. This doesn't wash with me because by the end of the story Delta Squad and Hoffman etc are right at the top of COG society and who are these new social elites that have just appeared. Why is society not still a military dictatorship of some kind? (Which we know it becomes again anyway in Gears 4). It all seems far less realistic that the previous novels. There are also issues with the combat not being as well written as Karen Traviss' scenes.The writing style is good but the story and ideas let it down. The gap between Gears of War 3 and Gears of War 4 could have been explained so much better. I suspect we will see another novel set in this time span which deals with the recreation of the COG.

this book would take place over 25yrs from end of 3 to just before the events of 4 as ascendance covered thatwould of loved to read about the world building of the settlements and how baird and co created everything whilst also reading about anya prior to 4 whereas whilst this book was still worth the read it was a little drag, kind of made marcus softer than you see him in the comics and games

It was an amazing book bring on the next one great storyline and good character plots nicely rounded off the trilogy

All Gears novels so far have been a great add to the GoW lore, but this is by far one of my favourites. Although thr last two novels were a great addition to the universe and greatly expanded on the story told after Gears 4 and 5, there still remained a tremendous gap about what happened just after the Locust War ended and humanity started to reconstruct Sera and what would eventually become the New Coalition of Ordered Governments. However, the novel just focuses on the events occurring in the few months inmediately after the ICM countermeasure was activated, so there still remains a massive 25-year gap that I hope will be further explored in future novels. Give me more of this good stuff!

Es un buen libro que lleva a lo que ocurre después de Gears 3, recomendable para conocer más de ese universo