Halo
As the bloody Human-Covenant War rages on Halo, the fate of humankind may rest with one warrior, the lone SPARTAN survivor of another legendary battle... the desperate, take-no-prisoners struggle that led humanity to Halo--the fall of the planet Reach. Now, brought to life for the first time, here is the full story of that glorious, doomed conflict. While the brutal Covenant juggernaut sweeps inexorably through space, intent on wiping out humankind, only one stronghold remains--the planet Reach. Practically on Earth's doorstep, it is the last military fortress to defy the onslaught. But the personnel here have another, higher priority: to prevent the Covenant from discovering the location of Earth. Outnumbered and outgunned, the soldiers seem to have little chance against the Covenant, but Reach holds a closely guarded secret. It is the training ground for the very first "super soldiers." Code-named SPARTANs, these highly advanced warriors, specially bioengineered and technologically augmented, are the best in the universe--quiet, professional, and deadly. Now, as the ferocious Covenant attack begins, a handful of SPARTANs stand ready to wage ultimate war. They will kill, they will be destroyed, but they will never surrender. And at least one of them--the SPARTAN known as Master Chief--will live to fight another day on a mysterious and ancient, artificial world called Halo...
Stats for nerds
5recommend
6mentions
6people
2014–2025years
83% recommend17% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I thought I recognized that name: Nylund also wrote some books for the Halo series which I enjoyed, although I was already a fan of the games.
- > The sci-fi writes itself. Having averted climate catastrophe by switching to renewables 23rd century humans face the imminent catastrophe of disrupting the entire solar system dynamics after wrecking Earth-Moon orbital stability with their reckless energy extraction.
In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I will merely advise anyone interested in a story with similar themes and content to read Signal to Noise and its sequel A Signal Shattered by Eric S. Nylund. You may know him from his work on the Halo franchise or other popular games. I don’t really know his other work, since I first discovered him via his original works.
- Eric Nylund's books are uniformly excellent, even (perhaps surprisingly) the Halo tie-ins
- I don't read much fiction either. I did read more when I was younger.
I enjoyed many of the Halo books (there are a couple duds in there too), which lead me to other books authored by Eric Nylund. I like his writing style, even though he has more fantasy elements to his stories than I would typically like but it somehow works. A Game of Universe and Mortal Coils are some that I have read.
I also read some of the Splinter Cell books. They were ok from what I remember, but probably only good if you liked the games. Tom Clancy has some good books (the Splinter Cell game books are ghost written). I remember Rainbow Six was a good one.
You could also try non-fiction adventure books. Since they are set in areas you are not familiar with, your brain still has to build the environment and imagery. Something like One Man's Wilderness. I enjoyed that book. I used to read and listen to books like Hatchet and this was along the same lines but non-fiction. I'd also say to be careful about these. For me, it makes me want to quit and live on a farm.
- Gotta plug in the Halo/Marathon reference here: They did a great job of covering this, I highly recommend the game series/books(original halo trilogy). Nylund's and the Halo universe take on AI is very much underappreciated. I'm glad windows named their 'siri' competitor Cortana with Jen Taylor as voice actress to boot!
- What's really interesting is that there are a number of video game franchises with nuanced backstories that have spawned successful and surprisingly well-written novels. So it's definitely possible to take a video game and turn it into a book. And there are plenty of books that get turned into excellent movies or TV shows (of course, there are plenty that get turned into bad ones, FWIW).
Books like Eric Nylund's Halo: The Fall of Reach, Greg Bear's Forerunner Saga (Halo again), or Brandon Sanderson's Infinity Blade: Awakening are all pretty well-respected and did well in terms of sales. Probably because they manage to avoid falling into the temptation to simply recreate the game experience as a book. They use the game's plot as a starting point to influence the story without dictating it.
Of course, by deviating away from "the game" as fans experienced it, you risk alienating them because the final product doesn't match up with what they expect. And because the same fans are probably the reason why the studio is willing to finance the movie in the first place, I can sort of understand why Hollywood repeatedly tries to hew closely to the source game even though that approach has repeatedly screwed them.
The peculiar thing is that they face a somewhat similar situation when they turn a book into a movie. And yet, Hollywood is more than willing to take risks and deviate away from the source material when necessary. So what about video games in particular scares the studios away from doing the same?
