I believe that this is the first Gears book that is set entirely in the past without any jump into current events. So as a full prequel, it does a beautiful job of linking into the beginning of Gears of War (Xbox 360). The story perfectly fills in the little details between the events of the first game and what we’ve been reading in her past Gears’ novels that were otherwise off or did not appear to line up. I couldn’t help but smile whenever these things came up. As usual, Karen Travis excels at conveying the friendship, camaraderie, and love that her characters have for one another and the emotions that result from a time of war. The parts of the book dealing with The Slab itself were reminiscent of the types of distorted inmate-family dynamics portrayed in films and television shows like Prison Break. Very entertaining stuff! My one gripe with the book is that I could have done without the last chapter, as it’s essentially a rehashing of the intro act of the game. The previous chapter had ended so perfectly with Hoffman and Anya. When the folks at Epic Games designed Gears, there’s no way they could have possibly imagined the kind of fleshed out story and quality writing that Travis could give to a video game. The series has truly been a great read. I wish they would let her write one about the fallout of Gears 3.