Gears of War - The Book

[Captain Awful]

I'm reading the book right now, it's exactly how you'd imagine it. I'm surprised they even bothered with a book, I can't imagine a frat boy downing a beer while looking at adjacent letters.

[shMerker]

Gears of war always makes me think of this (http://www.rinkworks.com/ithink/thoughts2.shtml): I can't tell you how many times I've read a book or watched a movie about war, then read criticism on it that touted it as "one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time," then wondered why I never noticed the underlying anti-war message in the first place. Sometimes the anti-war sentiment is there, of course. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the book or movie is simply about war and is too involved with the more compelling dilemmas of its characters under extreme circumstances to be concerned about making trite political statements such as, "War is bad." But to any critical analysis of these works, any narrative about war is one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time. I'm going to write a pro-war novel someday where war is portrayed as a glamorous thing, and all the soldiers run around saying, "Yes! War rules!" and the teenagers back home lament that their friends got drafted and they didn't. When I do that, I think every critic in the country would hail it as, by its satire and sarcasm, one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time. It's all a conspiracy. Somewhere out there, there's a Secret Organization Of Critics Of Literature And Cinema Whose Purpose Is To Call Other People's Art Anti-War Whether It Really Applies Or Not whose members worm their way into influential positions at newspapers and magazines and literary conventions to promote their cause. I think this is a pretty good idea, but their organization is too chicken. They should call stuff like "Green Eggs and Ham" one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time, but they don't make observations quite that far off the wall because they fear they might be found out. But I have no such fears. I'm all for it, for reasons that will come to me.

[Captain Awful]

If that's what Cliffy B was going for, he is a master. The book is FULL of

"I've never felt as great as I do, now that I'm a gear. I feel sorry for people who go through life half-full, never knowing the thrill of living on the edge."

That was paraphrased, but they really said something about living life half-full as a "civvie". There are parts where they start going towards being like Starship Troopers, like they're almost about to talk about how hard things are in boot camp, and then it just goes back to "I'm so glad about what they've made of me."

[Scriabin]

Sounds like an excuse for a shitty book.

[Demaar]

Sounds hilarious, depending on how it reads.

[Neen]

Does it have pictures? I bet has pictures.

Seriously though, does this thing have an audio book. I imagine it doesn't due to its source material being out of blind/old peoples interest. In any case, if it doesn't, we should make one wherin we put on our gruffiest, grittiest, over-the-top voices, and release it on the internet in MP3-form to an unsuspecting audience. OR NOT, BUT IT COULD BE FUN.

[Captain Awful]

You know how authors will take up writing something they don't care about just to make money? It's like that. It's not poorly written, the content is just a lot of buff men, loving the army, and killing things. The plot thus far is that something mysterious happened to Dom's brother, and something even more mysterious had happened to Marcus' Mom, then something about hanging out with eachother, Dom knocking up a 16 year old Maria, and how great it feels to stab a man in the neck who's the enemy. I really don't know why I'm still reading it, I think I'm a third of the way through. It's hard to imagine they could fill 300 pages with this stuff though.

Edit: This is the exact book (http://www.amazon.com/Gears-Aspho-Fields-Karen-Traviss/dp/0345499433/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236827660&sr=8-1), they even have excerpts for the curious.

[Scriabin]

For me, it's easier to enjoy a terrible book than a mediocre book.

[The Archduke]

Can't be as bad as the Unreal books. Those were god awful.

[shMerker]

How do these things pick threads? Does someone link to this a lot?

[Beef Wellington]

Hey, Mr. Halo wrote some books. The Gears of War people are missing out on the book money if they only stick to games and merchandise.