In 2009, ’10, and ’11, the people behind the Gears Of War games released three novels that chronicled what happened in this military sci-fi saga between the end of Gears Of War 2 and the beginning of Gears Of War 3. With the new (and excellent) Gears 5 picking up weeks after the end of Gears Of War 4, the good people at The Coalition who made these sci-fi shooters have again turned to the written word to fill in the blanks. In the following email interview, writer Jason M. Hough talks about what inspired and influenced Gears Of War: Ascendance (paperback, Kindle), and whether he took any cues from those previous gap-filling stories.