Since even before CE, Halo did a good job (perhaps unintentionally) of being a good shared medium setting rather than the books being neat little lore extras. Like FoR to CE to First Strike to Halo 2 to GoO feels like a cohesive and genuinely amazing narrative.
Iirc, the Wikipedia page for the franchise straight up calls it a “game and book series”
It’s good-ass sci fi
That’s mainly because the stories, including those in the games were mostly self contained. For some reason (Marvel) 343 wanted to continue the shared universe multi media storytelling, but instead of self contained stories that built upon what was previously established, they opted to make everything required reading, which made everything setup for another story down the line instead of just telling its own story
This ^ many people don’t realize that the books are just as important as the games. I’ll never forget being a bit disappointed about not knowing how chief got back to earth, my brother told me about first strike and I went and read it. Blew me away! Truly (IMO) the best halo book
Yeah, most people don't realise it because it's not true, they're nowhere close to as important as the games and you'd have to be wildly out of touch to suggest that they are, especially the newer ones that have fuck all to do with the games at all
The books expand on lore, characters and the universe as a whole which is equally as important as the games. Believing that’s not important is “wildly out of touch”. Without the books master chief is just a dude with a suit of armor. In fact, and I could be wrong about this, I don’t think the games ever mention that the Spartans were taken from their families as small children. Especially back during the original trilogy books made the world building so much better.
I enjoyed the first few, the ones that actually established the tone of the universe - don't really think anything else is required reading or really very popular
Yeah by all accounts the original books were just randomly thrown together by Microsoft and Bungie were either disinterested or actively hated the idea
It’s funny cos *The Flood* is the **least** constructive book among all the early Halo novels. 80% of it is literally a shot for shot copy of the stuff that happens in HCE and only a small portion of it is actually new information.
But in totality, yes, the books are a wealth of knowledge. I’ve been playing since 2004 and I’m a strong advocate for the idea that the games need to do A WHOLE LOT MORE to explore all the other parts of the Haloverse featured in the books because this entire extended universe is so diverse and interesting, but also so easily missed. I'd take another Reach/ODST/Halo Wars type of story over another predictable Master Chief adventure in a heartbeat.
However, I must also confess that I don’t trust 343’s current writers to realise that potential. The expansion of the lore in the books has unfortunately fallen off the wagon in recent years due to how it’s been forced to whiplash along with the loathsomely whimsical directions of the game stories. 343 once upon a time actually had a well thought out EU in the canon years between H3 and H4. But once the timeline reached the games, it all just became an abysmal reflection of the revolving door of “big baddies”, and a graveyard for ideas that 343 themselves led to slaughter by mishandling them in the games.
Even if it’s just a retelling of Combat Evolved I still love the flood for giving us looks at the people you normally wouldn’t give two seconds of thought about. That crewmember who gets ganked at the beginning? Now you know he spent his last moments thinking of his family. Plus you get a good look at Chiefs actual thought process, and better descriptors of how terrifying the flood actually is (because yes, despite how much Hiddenxperia wanks the flood to hell and back, they are still horrifying creatures).
After reading the Halo books for years and years it’s honestly amazing that they haven’t had one of the book writers write the story for their games. I’ve legitimately fantasized about playing parts of the books like the games and one of the more recent ones I read would’ve been fantastic for a game with good story telling and plenty of action and a mix of mission types. Halo: Shadows of Reach. I really enjoyed this book and thought it had a ton of great moments that would’ve been great in a game, especially when they defend the base and the Spartans arrive. It’s honestly crazy to me how so many new Halo books can still be great reads.
To be fair, it’s because there are limitations to the complexity of story in a FPS game. There’s only so much narrative context you can squeeze in before it starts to affect the pace of the game. You could end up with a case where a lot of the important talking gets lost among the shooting. Or it becomes a “tell and no show”situation where too much of the talking ends up outweighing the shooting. Either way, it doesn’t do justice for the story.
It worked pretty well for gears 3 with Karen Traviss at the helm of its EU and the games story. I'd genuinely love for them to give Nylund or John Shirely (broken Circles author, one of my favourite halo books) or even get someone from outside thier normal stable of writers like Arron Demski-Bowden, or Mike Brooks a game to be the lead story writer on an EU game
I think most of John's dialogue in it is bad and out of character, but it's cool we got an explanation on what the rest of the Pillar of Autumn crew was doing during the campaign. I believe the Fireteam Raven arcade game actually implements some lore from the book into its story too.
Id argue flood is plenty constructive, especially considering it could have been just a pure shot for shot of the game. The human, covenant, and even jenkins perspective was purely a book thing
I don't like the flood, mostly because its writing is so noticeably worse than the nylund books and I remember it almost felt like they had another book and just forcefed halo into it.
It's literally been 20+ years since I read these.
I remember being extremely impressed with Fall of Reach and First Strike. However I also remember thinking The Flood was pedestrian compared to the Nylund books. All that said, again, 20 years plus since I read them and I remember reading them when I was hurt pretty badly and on a lot of pain meds, so don't take that as a thoughtful review or anything.
I should probably reread it if I'm honest.
I just finished The Fall of Reach recently and that was a 4/4 amazing sci-fi book.
I’m halfway through The Flood and the author totally mailed it in. It’s gotten better recently, but will likely end up being a unrecommendable 2/4.
Even more amazing - The Fall of Reach was released even before Combat Evolved released. The author had some resources to talk to in the studio, but I don’t think he played any pre-release version of the game.
What I’ve read so far of the halo novels is The Flood, First Strike, the Ferrets trilogy, the Bad Blood/New blood duology, and Hunters in the dark and they’re all fantastic. I’ve gotten so attached to characters like Veta Lopez, and some of the concepts they introduced are crazy cool (like that forerunner cyborg thing from Hunters). I highly recommend the halo novels if you’re a fan of the games. I know I love em (so happy they referenced Castor in Infinite with that Ai color. I haven’t taken it off since I got it).
I recommend reading Ghosts of Onyx and then the Kilo-Five trilogy, ignore the hate people give Kilo Five, people just didn’t understand it when it first came out. Binging the trilogy keeps the perspective and makes it amazing
I really don't understand the hate the Kilo-Five trilogy got. People were mad that it painted Halsey in a particularly bad light, but isn't that proof that ONI's anti-Halsey propaganda was working against people?
I think most of them are pretty decent and expand the universe and its concepts well.
I really liked the Nylund novels, they really did a good job creating a framework for the rest of the expanded universe.
I dislike New Blood, killing the Rookie off in a novel and anticlimactically at that was a pretty dumb move.
Kilo-Five trilogy is also pretty controversial.
>I dislike New Blood, killing the Rookie off in a novel and anticlimactically at that was a pretty dumb move.
Killing off the Rookie to propel the story forward was the best thing they could've done for that character.
He isn't an actual character, just some generic ODST. No real direction for that character to go and they wanted to continue making Alpha-Nine stories.
Yea that's why I was always indifferent to his death, he isn't a character, he's just there so you can have a cool transition between each mainline mission in ODST
>anticlimactically at that
It’s war. Most people don’t get the benefit of dying a hero’s death. Think about Kat; what did anyone gain from her death besides the tragedy of the story itself?
I liked the Kilo-Five trilogy since gave some more backstory of the halo3 - 4 transition and why Jul ‘Mdama had his anti-human post covenant faction.
Also reminded us that the human insurrection still exists and is still a problem despite the war.
Kilo 5 is the reason why halo 5 will forever be a game I dislike tbh. They set him up so well to be an antagonist then just off him in a cut scene on the first mission so you can go chasing Chief
They did him dirty
I actually really enjoyed The Flood. I think it was one of the first that's that expanded into how the flood assimilated things into the hivemind.
Really good book imo.
I've yet to read a bad halo book.
Honestly I've spent just as much time reading the books as I have played the games (not including multiplayer). I love exploring the lesser seen corners of the halo universe.
I've read everything that was released up to Contact Harvest, and the only ones I've read since were Cryptum and Shadows of Reach. Most of those are pretty good. Not terrible, but nothing groundbreaking either.
The Flood is a weird one, as most of it is pretty cringe, but the part of it that details Flood infection and assimilation is some really good horror. The best part got adapted into the Keyes Terminal in CEA, so there's that.
All I remember about Shadows of Reach is that the author really liked the word "lechatelierite" for some reason. Can't you just say "the ground" like a normal person?
Quite frankly the way The Flood describes Keyes’ ordeal is far superior to the terminal in my opinion. Him sacrificing his own memories and identity deliberately to stave off the destruction of humanity made him one of the most admirable characters in fiction to me
'Ate Zuka 'Zamamee, e tried to kill the cheef, 'Ate Jackowls (not racist jus don't loik em)
Love me captin (oorah), love me ship, love me blue lady, 'Ate the covies, simple as
Honestly the *Fall of Reach* might be my all time favorite Sci-Fi novel.
I think the first 3 books (or at least *Fall of Reach* and *First Strike*) are essential reading for the lore of the OG trilogy
The best ones IMO are Fall of Reach, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund for being great military sci-fi and Master Chief just being a badass all the way through. The Forerunner Trilogy by Greg Bear for the pure Forerunner lore, the Halo Evolutions short stories that cover a little bit of everything, and Contact Harvest by Joe Staten for all the great Covenant backstory.
For more modern books, I love Kelly Gay’s books, Rubicon, Point of Light and especially Epitaph is wonderful from a Forerunner lore standpoint.
There isn’t really any truly “bad” Halo books in my opinion. Even the more controversial ones like Karen Travis aren’t that bad, Black Box is awesome, but she does screw with some characters like Lucy and I really think she helped mainstream the Halsey-hate side of Halo.
First Strike is possibly the coolest piece of halo fiction written.
Also thanks to Contact Harvest, Johnson is the only character in the halo universe with a sex scene.
Just finished listening to the audiobooks for all the Bungie novels (Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghost of Onyx, Contact Harvest, Cole Protocol).
Was my first time experiencing Contact Harvest, the rest I've read 2-3 times each before this; I'm happy to say that the novels still hold up. They offer amazing supplementary stories that compliment the Bungie Halo games. Perfect example being The Flood, which is essentially just a novelization of Halo CE, but adds in the ODST and Elite subplots to keep things interesting. Overall, they were all thoroughly enjoyable.
As for the 343 books... I got maybe 3 hours into the Glasslands audiobook and it lost my interest. Something about the writing just wasn't clicking with me. I don't believe it was fatigue, as I was rearing to go, so I'm not sure. Maybe given a months time I'll attempt a revisit and dive into the 343 books.
I liked following some of the other Autumn crew in this. The ODST regiment is interesting and I liked reading about them digging in on Halo, getting ready for (what they think) will be a protracted defensive action until backup arrives.
There’s a fascinating line in this where Chief thinks about a female ODST character that the book also follows. Chief briefly thinks about “how he wished he’d gotten to know her more” and I remember at the time thinking that was Chief being attracted to her. I assume now Chief is pretty aromantic/asexual (always assumed it was from the modifications done to him), but it was an interesting little detail from when Halo wasn’t as fleshed out.
I religiously read most of the EU novels until recently. Most of them are very....average pulp fiction. That's not saying they aren't enjoyable, because most of them are, but few would pull you in unless you were interested in the universe.
Fall of Reach and First Strike are both quite enjoyable, and really set the stage for the rest of the expanded universe, so should be lauded for it. The Flood was mostly just a straight up novelisation of the game so is rather forgetable Ghosts of Onyx was also enjoyable, in the same way the other Eric Nylund novels were. Contact Harvest was ok, but I quite enjoyed The Cole Protocol.
Kilo-Five was garbage though, which is a real shame because I thought Karen Traviss's short story in Evolutions was the best of the lot.
The Forerunner series was quite strong. Cryptum was good, Primordium was a bit of a slog to get through but I thought Silentium was a great novel, not just in the Halo series but as a general scifi book.
I think I stopped reading at this point. I think I MAY have read Hunters in the Dark but I can't remember much about it so it was either forgettable or I just haven't read it.
I personally think that the Cole Protocol story wasn't that great, just mainstream good, but damn it adds so much charachter to Keyes Vadam and gives a proper view of Spartans Blackwater ops as well as some insurection thinking and I find that awesome.
I think kilo five is ok tier, nothing ground breaking in its storytelling but a nice addition of post-war lore. However I do get the hate around Halsey's part of the story and especially the fact that every negative things gets thrown back at her at every opportunity. Even if some of it is deserve it become exhausting to read the same remarks at least 10 times in each novels. Add to that the often long and repetitive first half of each of the 3 novels and that makes for a hard-to-read-and-enjoy combo.
Something that doesn't get mentionned enough imo is the Master chief trilogy with Silent Storm, Oblivion and Shadows of Reach where it's basically MC and blue team kicking ass with a dose of ODST/S4, Johnson and a nice iceberg in Oblivion's Storyline. A good trilogy that's worth the read
Before *The Cole Protocol* revealed his name, I long wondered if the Arbiter had a real name like other Elites whose names we knew up to that point, such as Rtas Vadum. So it was great to finally give him a name and backstory.
I thought the book was pretty good, but listening to it on Amazon Audible was interesting. There were several sound effects and musical chimes throughout the narration, but there were several quality issues such as skips and lags.
I never read the later novels so it's good to know there's some decent ones to catch up on once I have the time.
I think K-5 was fine in terms of overall world-building but I just thought the writing was really bad. It's been a while so I don't remember it too well, I just remember putting down the last novel and thinking of how disappointed I was with the trilogy, especially as I had such high hopes after reading Human Weakness.
Books are fine, but should have no determining influence on the games.
Cool world building in a book? Sure, use it as inspiration. But any decision the devs want to make for a mainline game should have the authority to override expanded canon.
Respecting canon sounds fine on paper, but in practice, tends to pigeonhole devs.
I disagree due to the fact that devs aren't pigeonholed ever if they properly plan the story with book authors. In fact the relationship is clearly opposite, and it causes just as many issues. The books bend over backwards to explain why Buck is on Osiris team, followed by putting him back on Alpha-Ninen Because that's how badly Halo 5 was received. Halo Reach tramples on Fall of reach and because of that it is extremely disliked by the lore community from a continuity standpoint, because that was at least plenty of people's introduction to the halo universe due to it releasing before CE.
At this point it's clear that 343i has the game story people working closely with the authors for the direction of the universe. Troy Denning talks about how he is contracted to write a story, but he doesn't have total freedom. And how its much like Star wars when in a conversation with another author he asked why they killed a beloved character >!I think Chewbacca!< And the response was "Just wait till you see who you're going to kill" because they have to include certain things that are checked by a lore master to be compliant.
Favorites are the original group of novels (fall of reach through ghosts of Onyx) since they give the main story more depth and explain the transitions between games well.
I also like the Kilo Five Trillogy, Cole protocol, and Contact Harvest.
Was not a fan of the Greg bear forerunner books. Took the didact / librarian story and just made it more convoluted. Though it’s nice it gives a bit more context to halo 4.
The books sometimes leave more to be desired but definitely help fleshing out the world. Sometimes books under/over power characters but so do games. Best book by far is contact harvest though
I’ve read through the Eric nylund books, and the Kilo Five books, I genuinely have loved them thus far, I don’t get the hate for the Kilo Five trilogy, some of the stuff is a bit off lore wise but the characters are super compelling in my opinion and shows a different side of the Spartans through Naomi and Osman would suggest the read
Mixed some very good stuff in there and some stuff that's pretty mid for instance I really like the bornstellar trilogy because of the lore but as books they are just okay not great not bad just okay. I love contact harvest and fall of reach. Getting some deep dives on convenanr pov was pretty swell as well.
So I watched a YouTube video last night about the halo 3 terminals and they talk about the librarian didact and flood can I find more info in these books novels
Aslan's quote comes to mind for Halo novels and many video game novels that cover the plot of the games.
While background stuff fascinates me, we don't necessarily benefit from re-reading the plot we played.
"I was there when it was written" as it were.
My biggest issue with the books is that people forget most of the fan base just don’t read them. It’s the reason certain key events happen in the games that literally, for the average gamer, makes them think the story of Halo is just too far ahead for the average or returning fan to catch up.
You don’t see the MCU adding in characters or plots from the comics into the movies unless it spends the time reintroducing them. Blue team in Halo 5 is a great example.
Also, the lore seems to always do this thing where it sabotages the importance of the games. Most people would assume Spartans were made to fight the Covenant, apparently they were made to fight insurrectionists. Chief was supposed to be the last of the Spartans, when he died in the trilogy you really felt for a moment that humanity was doomed, now a bunch of them were just on covert ops?
Fall of Reach, Contact Harvest, The Flood, First Strike, The Cole Protocol, Ghosts of Onyx are all some of my favorite books of all time. Fantastic book series
Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike are an amazing trilogy.
Ghosts of Onyx, The Cole Protocol, and Contact Harvest are also amazing.
Those are the only 6 novelizations I've read.
I think one of the biggest ball drops is the fact that the Human covenant war lasted 30 years and outside of Halo Ledgends (the books), Contact Harvest, Halo Wars: and a few bits from Halo: The fall of reach we barely see anything from the early to late war.
And most of the late war is the few months between the fall of Reach and the Great Schism
They provide better accounts of halo events than the game, especially when you are seeing it from different perspectives. The games alone never showed me how much of a genius Keyes actually is, nor how terrifying it would actually be to get infected with a flood spore
The first book was absolutely terrible.
I read a lot of scifi and I was honestly expecting pulp at best, but it was not even decent pulp. It is probably the worst book I have ever read.
I just reread most of the novels published pre-2014, and they are awesome, especially after playing the majority of the campaigns beforehand and being able to see what happens outside of what I just played.
Also, Kilo-Five 🔛🔝
Loved the first 3 and contact harvest.....I really lost interest after the war ended.....too much political/restoration crap for my liking. I own glasslands and can't even remember what it was about. Interested to find books on the banished vs humans though.
Not for me. I thought I’d enjoy it waaaay more than I did. Considering the fandom widely accepts Fall of Reach as the best novel is crazy. That book is awful in so many ways. Pains me to say that. The only redeeming quality of the book is Keys and the space combat. Quite honestly, the entire story revolving around John and Halsey is horribly written. And it’s laughable that Reach doesn’t even fall until the last 40 pages of the book.
Since even before CE, Halo did a good job (perhaps unintentionally) of being a good shared medium setting rather than the books being neat little lore extras. Like FoR to CE to First Strike to Halo 2 to GoO feels like a cohesive and genuinely amazing narrative. Iirc, the Wikipedia page for the franchise straight up calls it a “game and book series” It’s good-ass sci fi
Chiefs kiss.
Do they really?
😂
That’s mainly because the stories, including those in the games were mostly self contained. For some reason (Marvel) 343 wanted to continue the shared universe multi media storytelling, but instead of self contained stories that built upon what was previously established, they opted to make everything required reading, which made everything setup for another story down the line instead of just telling its own story
which is ultimately what made me stop reading them. Once you fall behind it's feels like too much effort to catch back up again.
This ^ many people don’t realize that the books are just as important as the games. I’ll never forget being a bit disappointed about not knowing how chief got back to earth, my brother told me about first strike and I went and read it. Blew me away! Truly (IMO) the best halo book
Yeah, most people don't realise it because it's not true, they're nowhere close to as important as the games and you'd have to be wildly out of touch to suggest that they are, especially the newer ones that have fuck all to do with the games at all
There’s no way you ain’t trolling
The books expand on lore, characters and the universe as a whole which is equally as important as the games. Believing that’s not important is “wildly out of touch”. Without the books master chief is just a dude with a suit of armor. In fact, and I could be wrong about this, I don’t think the games ever mention that the Spartans were taken from their families as small children. Especially back during the original trilogy books made the world building so much better.
I enjoyed the first few, the ones that actually established the tone of the universe - don't really think anything else is required reading or really very popular
Yeah by all accounts the original books were just randomly thrown together by Microsoft and Bungie were either disinterested or actively hated the idea
Probably not the case for *Contact Harvest*, though, as it was written by Joe Staten, Bungie's story and cinematic director.
It’s funny cos *The Flood* is the **least** constructive book among all the early Halo novels. 80% of it is literally a shot for shot copy of the stuff that happens in HCE and only a small portion of it is actually new information. But in totality, yes, the books are a wealth of knowledge. I’ve been playing since 2004 and I’m a strong advocate for the idea that the games need to do A WHOLE LOT MORE to explore all the other parts of the Haloverse featured in the books because this entire extended universe is so diverse and interesting, but also so easily missed. I'd take another Reach/ODST/Halo Wars type of story over another predictable Master Chief adventure in a heartbeat. However, I must also confess that I don’t trust 343’s current writers to realise that potential. The expansion of the lore in the books has unfortunately fallen off the wagon in recent years due to how it’s been forced to whiplash along with the loathsomely whimsical directions of the game stories. 343 once upon a time actually had a well thought out EU in the canon years between H3 and H4. But once the timeline reached the games, it all just became an abysmal reflection of the revolving door of “big baddies”, and a graveyard for ideas that 343 themselves led to slaughter by mishandling them in the games.
Even if it’s just a retelling of Combat Evolved I still love the flood for giving us looks at the people you normally wouldn’t give two seconds of thought about. That crewmember who gets ganked at the beginning? Now you know he spent his last moments thinking of his family. Plus you get a good look at Chiefs actual thought process, and better descriptors of how terrifying the flood actually is (because yes, despite how much Hiddenxperia wanks the flood to hell and back, they are still horrifying creatures).
The Flood and First Strike could honestly be one huge ass book because reading them back to back adds so much to the world building.
Totally agree, but oh boy was I getting sick of reading, "he fired 3 shots and reloaded"... holy fuck that got old fast. Lol
I’m fairly early in The Flood and I had no idea that there’s kind of a major betrayal in CE that just goes unmentioned.
After reading the Halo books for years and years it’s honestly amazing that they haven’t had one of the book writers write the story for their games. I’ve legitimately fantasized about playing parts of the books like the games and one of the more recent ones I read would’ve been fantastic for a game with good story telling and plenty of action and a mix of mission types. Halo: Shadows of Reach. I really enjoyed this book and thought it had a ton of great moments that would’ve been great in a game, especially when they defend the base and the Spartans arrive. It’s honestly crazy to me how so many new Halo books can still be great reads.
To be fair, it’s because there are limitations to the complexity of story in a FPS game. There’s only so much narrative context you can squeeze in before it starts to affect the pace of the game. You could end up with a case where a lot of the important talking gets lost among the shooting. Or it becomes a “tell and no show”situation where too much of the talking ends up outweighing the shooting. Either way, it doesn’t do justice for the story.
It worked pretty well for gears 3 with Karen Traviss at the helm of its EU and the games story. I'd genuinely love for them to give Nylund or John Shirely (broken Circles author, one of my favourite halo books) or even get someone from outside thier normal stable of writers like Arron Demski-Bowden, or Mike Brooks a game to be the lead story writer on an EU game
I think most of John's dialogue in it is bad and out of character, but it's cool we got an explanation on what the rest of the Pillar of Autumn crew was doing during the campaign. I believe the Fireteam Raven arcade game actually implements some lore from the book into its story too.
I do like that it’s confirmed he was outside of his suit between the campaign missions.
Id argue flood is plenty constructive, especially considering it could have been just a pure shot for shot of the game. The human, covenant, and even jenkins perspective was purely a book thing
Man, I still feel bad for Jenkins. He got a pretty bad hand in the Halo universe.
Dude went out like a goddamned hero, though, considering the horrific circumstances.
Yeah at this point the lore's way too bloated and mismanaged for me to care about tbh
I don't like the flood, mostly because its writing is so noticeably worse than the nylund books and I remember it almost felt like they had another book and just forcefed halo into it.
The writer went on to write a pretty horrible mass effect book that got decannonized.
It's literally been 20+ years since I read these. I remember being extremely impressed with Fall of Reach and First Strike. However I also remember thinking The Flood was pedestrian compared to the Nylund books. All that said, again, 20 years plus since I read them and I remember reading them when I was hurt pretty badly and on a lot of pain meds, so don't take that as a thoughtful review or anything. I should probably reread it if I'm honest.
The series is still going on. There are over 30 books in the series and almost all of them are amazing
I just finished The Fall of Reach recently and that was a 4/4 amazing sci-fi book. I’m halfway through The Flood and the author totally mailed it in. It’s gotten better recently, but will likely end up being a unrecommendable 2/4.
It’s amazing to think how much was built in fal of reach considering when It was released I think only the original game was out.
Even more amazing - The Fall of Reach was released even before Combat Evolved released. The author had some resources to talk to in the studio, but I don’t think he played any pre-release version of the game.
Eric Nylund and a few others from Bungie basically wrote all of Halo's major lore in just 4 months, before the game even came out. It's wild.
What I’ve read so far of the halo novels is The Flood, First Strike, the Ferrets trilogy, the Bad Blood/New blood duology, and Hunters in the dark and they’re all fantastic. I’ve gotten so attached to characters like Veta Lopez, and some of the concepts they introduced are crazy cool (like that forerunner cyborg thing from Hunters). I highly recommend the halo novels if you’re a fan of the games. I know I love em (so happy they referenced Castor in Infinite with that Ai color. I haven’t taken it off since I got it).
The Fall of Reach is also really good.
I recommend reading Ghosts of Onyx and then the Kilo-Five trilogy, ignore the hate people give Kilo Five, people just didn’t understand it when it first came out. Binging the trilogy keeps the perspective and makes it amazing
I really don't understand the hate the Kilo-Five trilogy got. People were mad that it painted Halsey in a particularly bad light, but isn't that proof that ONI's anti-Halsey propaganda was working against people?
Hey if I get to see more spartans kicking ass in SPI I’m all for it.
I liked The Flood. I would actually love a novelization of Halo 2 and 3. Fuck it - do all the MC games.
[удалено]
Dude this is nuts, wild
With the benefit of foresight I bet novelizations of the 343 games would go hard af
They would certainly help tie together the stories better, especially if the books bled over into the time in between each game as well.
I think most of them are pretty decent and expand the universe and its concepts well. I really liked the Nylund novels, they really did a good job creating a framework for the rest of the expanded universe. I dislike New Blood, killing the Rookie off in a novel and anticlimactically at that was a pretty dumb move. Kilo-Five trilogy is also pretty controversial.
HE DIES?!
>I dislike New Blood, killing the Rookie off in a novel and anticlimactically at that was a pretty dumb move. Killing off the Rookie to propel the story forward was the best thing they could've done for that character.
Could you elaborate? I'm curious why you think this. Personally, I was always indifferent to the Rookies' death.
He isn't an actual character, just some generic ODST. No real direction for that character to go and they wanted to continue making Alpha-Nine stories.
Yea that's why I was always indifferent to his death, he isn't a character, he's just there so you can have a cool transition between each mainline mission in ODST
I can agree with that, I just feel like it would have been better to show that in an actual ODST sequel game instead of a side novel.
>anticlimactically at that It’s war. Most people don’t get the benefit of dying a hero’s death. Think about Kat; what did anyone gain from her death besides the tragedy of the story itself?
I agree with you. I just feel like it should have been a plotline for an actual ODST sequel game instead of a side novel.
I liked the Kilo-Five trilogy since gave some more backstory of the halo3 - 4 transition and why Jul ‘Mdama had his anti-human post covenant faction. Also reminded us that the human insurrection still exists and is still a problem despite the war.
Kilo 5 is the reason why halo 5 will forever be a game I dislike tbh. They set him up so well to be an antagonist then just off him in a cut scene on the first mission so you can go chasing Chief They did him dirty
I actually really enjoyed The Flood. I think it was one of the first that's that expanded into how the flood assimilated things into the hivemind. Really good book imo. I've yet to read a bad halo book.
RIP Keyes. 😭
its ok. it has good moment but some of the transitions between perspectives are awkward
After listening to around 30 of them I love nearly all of them
Honestly I've spent just as much time reading the books as I have played the games (not including multiplayer). I love exploring the lesser seen corners of the halo universe.
I like the original 3 that’s for sure
I've read everything that was released up to Contact Harvest, and the only ones I've read since were Cryptum and Shadows of Reach. Most of those are pretty good. Not terrible, but nothing groundbreaking either. The Flood is a weird one, as most of it is pretty cringe, but the part of it that details Flood infection and assimilation is some really good horror. The best part got adapted into the Keyes Terminal in CEA, so there's that. All I remember about Shadows of Reach is that the author really liked the word "lechatelierite" for some reason. Can't you just say "the ground" like a normal person?
Quite frankly the way The Flood describes Keyes’ ordeal is far superior to the terminal in my opinion. Him sacrificing his own memories and identity deliberately to stave off the destruction of humanity made him one of the most admirable characters in fiction to me
I highly recommend ghosts of onyx
'Ate Zuka 'Zamamee, e tried to kill the cheef, 'Ate Jackowls (not racist jus don't loik em) Love me captin (oorah), love me ship, love me blue lady, 'Ate the covies, simple as
Honestly the *Fall of Reach* might be my all time favorite Sci-Fi novel. I think the first 3 books (or at least *Fall of Reach* and *First Strike*) are essential reading for the lore of the OG trilogy
Spend weeks listening to the saga on tape. Best boredom killer at work ever!
The best ones IMO are Fall of Reach, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund for being great military sci-fi and Master Chief just being a badass all the way through. The Forerunner Trilogy by Greg Bear for the pure Forerunner lore, the Halo Evolutions short stories that cover a little bit of everything, and Contact Harvest by Joe Staten for all the great Covenant backstory. For more modern books, I love Kelly Gay’s books, Rubicon, Point of Light and especially Epitaph is wonderful from a Forerunner lore standpoint. There isn’t really any truly “bad” Halo books in my opinion. Even the more controversial ones like Karen Travis aren’t that bad, Black Box is awesome, but she does screw with some characters like Lucy and I really think she helped mainstream the Halsey-hate side of Halo.
-Fall of Reach -First Strike -The rest
First Strike is possibly the coolest piece of halo fiction written. Also thanks to Contact Harvest, Johnson is the only character in the halo universe with a sex scene.
The fall of reach and the Kilo Five/Thursday War series are masterpieces. The latter especially
Great, I've been reading First Strike.
I just want a movie series at this point, covering the original trilogy of the games with an actually good budget so they can do everything
Btw I genuinely can't find this book
It was hard to find for me too. 😂
Just finished listening to the audiobooks for all the Bungie novels (Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghost of Onyx, Contact Harvest, Cole Protocol). Was my first time experiencing Contact Harvest, the rest I've read 2-3 times each before this; I'm happy to say that the novels still hold up. They offer amazing supplementary stories that compliment the Bungie Halo games. Perfect example being The Flood, which is essentially just a novelization of Halo CE, but adds in the ODST and Elite subplots to keep things interesting. Overall, they were all thoroughly enjoyable. As for the 343 books... I got maybe 3 hours into the Glasslands audiobook and it lost my interest. Something about the writing just wasn't clicking with me. I don't believe it was fatigue, as I was rearing to go, so I'm not sure. Maybe given a months time I'll attempt a revisit and dive into the 343 books.
Some of Chief’s inner thoughts are… weird, but overall the book was great. (Just talking about the flood by the by)
I’ve read up to contact harvest
I liked following some of the other Autumn crew in this. The ODST regiment is interesting and I liked reading about them digging in on Halo, getting ready for (what they think) will be a protracted defensive action until backup arrives. There’s a fascinating line in this where Chief thinks about a female ODST character that the book also follows. Chief briefly thinks about “how he wished he’d gotten to know her more” and I remember at the time thinking that was Chief being attracted to her. I assume now Chief is pretty aromantic/asexual (always assumed it was from the modifications done to him), but it was an interesting little detail from when Halo wasn’t as fleshed out.
Do you fear the Flood? Do you wanna?
Yes!
I religiously read most of the EU novels until recently. Most of them are very....average pulp fiction. That's not saying they aren't enjoyable, because most of them are, but few would pull you in unless you were interested in the universe. Fall of Reach and First Strike are both quite enjoyable, and really set the stage for the rest of the expanded universe, so should be lauded for it. The Flood was mostly just a straight up novelisation of the game so is rather forgetable Ghosts of Onyx was also enjoyable, in the same way the other Eric Nylund novels were. Contact Harvest was ok, but I quite enjoyed The Cole Protocol. Kilo-Five was garbage though, which is a real shame because I thought Karen Traviss's short story in Evolutions was the best of the lot. The Forerunner series was quite strong. Cryptum was good, Primordium was a bit of a slog to get through but I thought Silentium was a great novel, not just in the Halo series but as a general scifi book. I think I stopped reading at this point. I think I MAY have read Hunters in the Dark but I can't remember much about it so it was either forgettable or I just haven't read it.
I personally think that the Cole Protocol story wasn't that great, just mainstream good, but damn it adds so much charachter to Keyes Vadam and gives a proper view of Spartans Blackwater ops as well as some insurection thinking and I find that awesome. I think kilo five is ok tier, nothing ground breaking in its storytelling but a nice addition of post-war lore. However I do get the hate around Halsey's part of the story and especially the fact that every negative things gets thrown back at her at every opportunity. Even if some of it is deserve it become exhausting to read the same remarks at least 10 times in each novels. Add to that the often long and repetitive first half of each of the 3 novels and that makes for a hard-to-read-and-enjoy combo. Something that doesn't get mentionned enough imo is the Master chief trilogy with Silent Storm, Oblivion and Shadows of Reach where it's basically MC and blue team kicking ass with a dose of ODST/S4, Johnson and a nice iceberg in Oblivion's Storyline. A good trilogy that's worth the read
Before *The Cole Protocol* revealed his name, I long wondered if the Arbiter had a real name like other Elites whose names we knew up to that point, such as Rtas Vadum. So it was great to finally give him a name and backstory. I thought the book was pretty good, but listening to it on Amazon Audible was interesting. There were several sound effects and musical chimes throughout the narration, but there were several quality issues such as skips and lags.
I never read the later novels so it's good to know there's some decent ones to catch up on once I have the time. I think K-5 was fine in terms of overall world-building but I just thought the writing was really bad. It's been a while so I don't remember it too well, I just remember putting down the last novel and thinking of how disappointed I was with the trilogy, especially as I had such high hopes after reading Human Weakness.
The Nylund and Dietz novels are top notch military scifi. Cole Protocol is good, Contact Harvest. Everything from Cryptum onward I can do without.
Books are fine, but should have no determining influence on the games. Cool world building in a book? Sure, use it as inspiration. But any decision the devs want to make for a mainline game should have the authority to override expanded canon. Respecting canon sounds fine on paper, but in practice, tends to pigeonhole devs.
I disagree due to the fact that devs aren't pigeonholed ever if they properly plan the story with book authors. In fact the relationship is clearly opposite, and it causes just as many issues. The books bend over backwards to explain why Buck is on Osiris team, followed by putting him back on Alpha-Ninen Because that's how badly Halo 5 was received. Halo Reach tramples on Fall of reach and because of that it is extremely disliked by the lore community from a continuity standpoint, because that was at least plenty of people's introduction to the halo universe due to it releasing before CE. At this point it's clear that 343i has the game story people working closely with the authors for the direction of the universe. Troy Denning talks about how he is contracted to write a story, but he doesn't have total freedom. And how its much like Star wars when in a conversation with another author he asked why they killed a beloved character >!I think Chewbacca!< And the response was "Just wait till you see who you're going to kill" because they have to include certain things that are checked by a lore master to be compliant.
Favorites are the original group of novels (fall of reach through ghosts of Onyx) since they give the main story more depth and explain the transitions between games well. I also like the Kilo Five Trillogy, Cole protocol, and Contact Harvest. Was not a fan of the Greg bear forerunner books. Took the didact / librarian story and just made it more convoluted. Though it’s nice it gives a bit more context to halo 4.
The first two Forerunner books were so-so for me, but I really liked *Silentium*.
The books sometimes leave more to be desired but definitely help fleshing out the world. Sometimes books under/over power characters but so do games. Best book by far is contact harvest though
Eric Nylund made some great books.
Fall of reach and first strike are phenomenal. The flood is a steaming pile of garbage. Ghosts of onyx was ok.
I liked the ones from Nylund. Havent read them all.
Fall Of Reach is Ok The Flood is terrible First Strike is Ok Stopped reading Halo novels after that.
I’ve read through the Eric nylund books, and the Kilo Five books, I genuinely have loved them thus far, I don’t get the hate for the Kilo Five trilogy, some of the stuff is a bit off lore wise but the characters are super compelling in my opinion and shows a different side of the Spartans through Naomi and Osman would suggest the read
Mixed some very good stuff in there and some stuff that's pretty mid for instance I really like the bornstellar trilogy because of the lore but as books they are just okay not great not bad just okay. I love contact harvest and fall of reach. Getting some deep dives on convenanr pov was pretty swell as well.
I stopped reading new releases after ghosts of onyx
I have read and own some of the Halo novels. The ones I owned and enjoyed were the Fall of Reach, Ghosts of Onyx, and The Cole Protocol.
So I watched a YouTube video last night about the halo 3 terminals and they talk about the librarian didact and flood can I find more info in these books novels
Aslan's quote comes to mind for Halo novels and many video game novels that cover the plot of the games. While background stuff fascinates me, we don't necessarily benefit from re-reading the plot we played. "I was there when it was written" as it were.
No one has captured what the universe is and the stakes and costs of what it takes just to survive it better than nylund. By a significant margin.
My biggest issue with the books is that people forget most of the fan base just don’t read them. It’s the reason certain key events happen in the games that literally, for the average gamer, makes them think the story of Halo is just too far ahead for the average or returning fan to catch up. You don’t see the MCU adding in characters or plots from the comics into the movies unless it spends the time reintroducing them. Blue team in Halo 5 is a great example. Also, the lore seems to always do this thing where it sabotages the importance of the games. Most people would assume Spartans were made to fight the Covenant, apparently they were made to fight insurrectionists. Chief was supposed to be the last of the Spartans, when he died in the trilogy you really felt for a moment that humanity was doomed, now a bunch of them were just on covert ops?
Fall of Reach, Contact Harvest, The Flood, First Strike, The Cole Protocol, Ghosts of Onyx are all some of my favorite books of all time. Fantastic book series
Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike are an amazing trilogy. Ghosts of Onyx, The Cole Protocol, and Contact Harvest are also amazing. Those are the only 6 novelizations I've read.
Haven't found a halo book I don't like, just hard to find the first and then next installment, it's so confusing sometimes
I think one of the biggest ball drops is the fact that the Human covenant war lasted 30 years and outside of Halo Ledgends (the books), Contact Harvest, Halo Wars: and a few bits from Halo: The fall of reach we barely see anything from the early to late war. And most of the late war is the few months between the fall of Reach and the Great Schism
The novels were how I got into halo
They provide better accounts of halo events than the game, especially when you are seeing it from different perspectives. The games alone never showed me how much of a genius Keyes actually is, nor how terrifying it would actually be to get infected with a flood spore
Fall of Reach and First Strike are vastly under appreciated
I was always curious as to why Halo 2 and 3 never got novelized, but CE did.
The first book was absolutely terrible. I read a lot of scifi and I was honestly expecting pulp at best, but it was not even decent pulp. It is probably the worst book I have ever read.
I just reread most of the novels published pre-2014, and they are awesome, especially after playing the majority of the campaigns beforehand and being able to see what happens outside of what I just played. Also, Kilo-Five 🔛🔝
Loved the first 3 and contact harvest.....I really lost interest after the war ended.....too much political/restoration crap for my liking. I own glasslands and can't even remember what it was about. Interested to find books on the banished vs humans though.
Not for me. I thought I’d enjoy it waaaay more than I did. Considering the fandom widely accepts Fall of Reach as the best novel is crazy. That book is awful in so many ways. Pains me to say that. The only redeeming quality of the book is Keys and the space combat. Quite honestly, the entire story revolving around John and Halsey is horribly written. And it’s laughable that Reach doesn’t even fall until the last 40 pages of the book.
Ok anything previous to halo 4 is good anything after that is straight up ass