The star wars of computer/console games…

That’s what u gotta call HALO, the sci-fi shooter of epic proportions. Apart from the extremely gratifying (combat wise) game trilogy, I recently found out about the existence of complete HALO (official)novels covering all the back story and more. And the novels are a sci-fi treat in themselves even if u havnt played the game itself. The first of the books “The fall of reach”(which I got in the Delhi book fair for a measly 50 bucks!!) tells us of the events prior to the halo game, the creation of the Spartan project(turns out Master Chief’s isn’t one of a kind), the first contact with covenant(though I believe it is covered in more detail in another book – contact harvest), and more details of the war between humans and the aliens as such. Reach is a human battle stronghold and the home of project Spartans(IIs). The plot has a some practical and innovative concepts like the priority of keeping earth’s location secret via a ‘cole protocol’ and the presence of a hierarchy in the ranks of covenants, covenants being a mixture of species rather than a single one. The books are well written by Eric Nylund, a chemical engineer himself(what do u expect by a microsoft framchise?).


but the books do have some weak points. It focuses on very particular individuals and their extremely specific experiences instead of giving a bigger holistic view of the human covenant conflict. The book has extremely few characters considering the scope of its events. Also, this may depend from person to person, the Spartans are depicted to be sometimes inhuman and insensitive(?) sometimes, they consider the complition of their mission a prority over everything, including lives others or their own, which seems noble and idiotic at the same time.

However, it is the concept that takes it in the star wars league, its probably the only sci-fi I have heard involving a full scale inter-galactic war between humans and aliens. And that’s not all of it. Theres another seemingly extinct alien race which was much more advanced than either of the battling factions and both factions are in a race to unlock the secrets of the surviving technology first. It was these people who had actually created HALO to contain the flood, by the way. And here ends my knowledge of the halo universe. I am trying to get my hands on the other halo books but with no luck yet(shucks I havnt even played halo 2 yet).