Halo the Fall of Reach (Halo)

Rating:
Summary: A good book, for what it is...
Review: For those that found the game entertaining, this book offers an interesting prequel story that provides a lot of detailed background information about the Spartan supersoldiers, and the Human/Covenant war. If you got into the game's story, this book will be a fun read. It's actually not a bad sci-fi book in itself. Nothing thought provoking or revolutionary, but written intelligently enough and pretty interesting. It definitely borrows heavily from classic military sci-fi books such as Ender's Game and The Forever War and can't really compare to books of their caliber. But for a novel based on a videogame, it exceeded my expectations. The evolution and training of the Spartans was well thought out. The starship battles showed an aspect of the war that was not really covered by the game (after all, it is a first person shooter). And of course, the mysterious character of the Master Chief is fleshed out. All in all, a very worthy companion story to the HALO game that will enrich the HALO franchise. I'm actually hoping for a sequel (for both the game, and the book).

Rating:
Summary: Halo the book
Review: Halo the fall of reach is a fun fantasy book for teens and halo fans. If you like futuristic war and chaos you would have to get this book. It shows tragedy and sorrow. But for people who want to know more of halo plot and settings you should read this book. It is long but worth it and you start off fast. Has 340pg. In this book and the best plot line ever. Also has good word choice. It is worth the money and the time and shows human emotions on the front lines of a dangerous foe like in Iraq.

Rating:
Summary: Absolute story...The prequel
Review: Halo:The Fall of Reach is a book that tells the story before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, the video game. This story entails the story of the SPARTAN projects and does so very well. I am not going to get into the details because that is what the book is for and I dare not ruin any of the story or the history revealed.

This book is very very well written, and the way the action plays out is simply amazing. The story is extravigant and it fills in the holes and answers some of the questions people have if you start with the game like I did.

This novel actually made me go back and play through Halo: Combat Evolved again because Master Chief is amazing, and the holes this novel filled in terms of character is awe inspiring.

The only reason that this magnificient novel did not get a perfect five star rating is because from a critical standpoint, the grammer sucked. For a published work in which one has an editor and the book should be proof read, there were an outragous amount of spelling errors and even a mix up in the letters of a name. To the credit of the author the errors do not impede on the story they just make one look twice. They were not so outragous where you could not tell what the author was saying and there was no fragments.

hope this helps it is a great book and if you are a fan of Halo read this, play the first game again (skip HALO: THE FLOOD, caus that book is basically the game but less fun), and read HALO: FIRST STRIKE


Rating:
Summary: Great dialogue, but...
Review: I do have some issues with the way it was written. I'm also an English major, so some of my comments are tilted more towards the actual structure and grammar used, rather than the story (I'll comment on that too.)

1. Stilted sentence structure. Nylund could have done a better job with sentence structure. There isn't a real flow with the sentences. Nylund seems to stick with the same short sentences when describing something in detail. This is something that bothered me, as it ruins the flow during already-slower times in the book.

2. Detail. Not enough detail is given to the inside of the Covenant ships and alien worlds. For those who have played Halo, we get that vision in our head. Those who haven't however, don't get a real vision as to what the Covenant look like. We assume Reach looks like earth, we assume Sigma Octamus (sorry, writing this review at work, away from the book) looks like earth. What if it doesn't? Nylund could have done a better job with the details.

3. More combat situations with the Covenant. We see MC later on with tons of military medals (before the finale) and yet, we only get a glimpse of some of those battles. Years and years passed by between the end of the first book and when the Covenant showed up, and all we get is near the end.

4. I never got a real sense of the regular soldiers holding the Spartans in such a heroic status. This could almost go back to #3. We don't get a sense of growing appreciation and admiration of the Spartans by the regular soldiers. By showing the Spartans whomping Covenant [...] early on, we would have a better understanding for the heroic status of the Spartan team.

Now, the positives.

1. The story. It is nice to see a human aspect to MC, and to see other Spartans as well. Seeing the Covenant destroying everything in their path is also fascinating, as it shows the growing desperation of the human race to save themselves from complete and utter destruction.

2. Combat detail. Nylund did do a good job describing combat situations.

3. Dialogue. I really enjoyed the dialogue from nearly everyone in the story. Nylund did an admirable job with the dialogue.

Like I said, most of my negative comments have more to do with nitpicking, rather than overall story. I did enjoy the story, but as an English student, I was disappointed with sentence structure and environmental detail.

Is it worth buying? Probably. Seeing the Master Chief before he was a glorified action hero is interesting. Seeing other Spartans is interesting. Seeing the war before Halo showed up is interesting.

I'm glad I bought it, but I do have reservations about it. Hopefully the second book will be better.

Rating:
Summary: An adaptation which does not suck.
Review: Most cross-media tie-ins are disastrous--just look at all of the videogames based on movies that are absolutely horrible, or at the very least, completely disappointing.

Not so with Eric Nylund's Halo books. The developers at Bungie did an amazing job on what could have been just another plotless shoot-em-up, showing creativity of design, atmosphere, and character, but they couldn't jam all the backstory into the opening of the game. Nylund fills in the holes very deftly. While there are elements of sci-fi pillars like Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Card's Ender's Game, Nylund still manages to craft nuance into the building-a-soldier formula.

While there are some annoying typos and continuity gaffes (two junior-grade lieutenants stand and salute a non-commissioned officer, for one) the books stand out from the cross-media dreck we're usually stuck with. They are easily good enough to stand on their own without the game itself.

If you like Halo, order these immediately.

If you like military sci-fi, ditto.

If not, order them anyway. You may just be surprised at what you find.

Rating:
Summary: Halo: The Fall of Reach was simply "awesome."
Review: Sure, I played the game for the XBox, but I wanted more. And Halo: The Fall of Reach was just what the doctor ordered. No, this isn't a mindless video game based novel, this is actually a PREQUEL to the smash hit video game (which was indeed an epic one at that.) All original story, etc.

The writer did an awesome job on this one. I can't give him enough credit: Eric Nylund is a genius. Page by page, this book is written very realistically in great detail just like Heinland's Starship Troopers, where often he'd show off his actual knowledge of science in great detail. Amazing stuff.

I guess going indepth on the story would waste your time since you can read a brief synopsis at the top of the page, but I just want to say I enjoyed this book from start to finish. It drops you off right where the video game starts. My dad's been reading science fiction novels since he was a kid -- he picked up the book and couldn't put it down. Really goes to show you that this a book for all ages. Just because it has video game tie-ins doesn't necessarily count it out or play it off as a "kiddie" novel. I'd suggest this book to anybody, especially since you need no knowledge of the game to get into it. Hope he makes the sequel! Pick this one up!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to the Halo universe
Review: The first book of this trilogy details the formation of the Spartan II/Mjolinar program, including the origination of the characters Master Chief, Captain Keyes and Cortana. "Fall of Reach" fleshes out the backstory. How did the Covenent happen upon humanity in the first place? What were our first encounters with the Covenent like? What does "glassing a planet" entail? And what is it that the Covenent is after?

The last question isn't answered completely, but this first volume does provide some tantalizing details that might give you a clue. You do, however, find out exactly what the Pillar of Autumn was up to prior to ending up in orbit around Halo.

Eric Nylund does a great job of injecting some humanity into the Spartans (yes, there's more than one) and some drama and strategy into fight scenes with the Covenent. If you find yourself liking this book, you may want to pick up Nylund's "Signal to Noise" or "A Signal Shattered". No matter how good Nylund's military sci-fi is, his hard sci-fi is better.

Rating:
Summary: Nylund's First Strike at the Halo Universe
Review: This is a must have for all Halo fans.

This novel looks into the creation of the Spartan program, and Spartans such as the Master Chief. It looks at major events that shaped the Spartans' lives to be who they are, prior to the events of Halo 1. It looks at the desperation of humanity as they are on the verge of complete extinction by an unstoppable foe, but it also looks at humanity as the struggling underdog fighting the good fight, never surrendering.

This is the first novel in the Halo universe one needs to read. It sets the stage for Halo 1 and the second Halo novel, Halo: The Flood.

Rating:
Summary: a great, fun read if you like halo
Review: this is the kind of book that all halo people love because it fills in the blanks that the games don't cover. It talks about the master cheif before halo and what he is (he's not your average human.
However, I would suggest you get the set of all three halo books, as i am soon to do.