Halo: The Fall of Reach

Geeze, The Fall of Reach is one of those books I've been meaning to read for a very long time (not that it is the only one...).  I think I meant to read it back around when Halo: Reach came out...seven years ago.  Better late than never, right?

The Fall of Reach tells the story of how the Spartans were chosen and trained for battle against the Covenant.  It shows how John-117 becomes the leader of all the Spartans, and how tightly knit the unit as a whole is.  It also jumps ahead and tells the story (or more accurately a story) of how Reach falls to the Covenant.  Unfortunately, when Reach falls, so do the majority of the Spartans (and the majority of humanity...)  

You have to pay close attention to the dates at the beginning of each chapter (particularly in the beginning half) because the book jumps forward in time a bit quickly.  This doesn't happen so much later on.  I did get a bit confused though when the book totally skips the prologue battle later in the book (I have no idea what that was even part of).

The book also suffers from a lack of editing.  It's not horrible, but there were moments where this knocks you out of the story (like at the beginning of Chapter 35, when Kelly shouts something to the Master Chief, even though she's not actually present - I think it was supposed to be Linda). 

I found The Fall of Reach to be a bit of a difficult read.  At times I loved it and didn't want to put it down.  But at other times I found it so boring.  And there never seemed to be a rhyme or reason for what was boring and what wasn't.  (Like sometimes I thought the space battles with Keyes were great, but at other times I wanted them to be over to get back to what was happening with the Spartans; other times it would be the exact opposite).  I liked in the earlier training bits, where the book showed how John learned teamwork and made friends.  But then we don't really get to see his friendships evolve at all - the other Spartans are just there following his orders.  I loved the scene where Cortana gets to link with him, but unfortunately that only happened the once.

That's something I also need to talk about - this story varies quite a bit from the one we're given in Halo: Reach. In the game, the Covenant infiltrate the planet sneakily and then start invading.  In the book, the Covenant show up with an armada for a full-scale invasion with the intent to glass the planet.  Cortana is already on the Pillar of Autumn at the beginning of the battle in the book, so there's no desperate attempt to get her to the ship like in the game.  And all the Spartans actually know one another in the book (unlike in the game where they don't seem to know you, the rookie to their squad).

Oh, I was also very sad to see that a lot of the cool lines from Halo 3 originate in this book....and are a lot lamer here.  And while I'm on the Halo 3 subject, it made me sad that like EVERYONE knew how lucky John-117 was (it wasn't just a Cortana thing, as she makes it sound like at the beginning of that game). 

Having said all of this, I am glad I finally read The Fall of Reach.  It just ended up a lot different from what I expected.

Halo: Blood Line

I don't have a whole lot to say about Halo: Blood Line.  I've had this graphic novel for several years now (I think I got it around the same time I got Helljumper and Uprising).  Blood Line is the story about Spartan Team Black, a team of Spartan-IIs I've never heard of before. They're sent on a covert operation to kill some Covenant when their ship crash lands on a moon.  At the same time, a Covenant ship also crash lands.  Both sides are attacked by an unknown enemy, which captures members of both teams.  So the survivors (both Covenant and Human) band together to rescue their comrades.

Blood Line is also the story of family.  Team Black has become its own family through its history of growing up together and working together.  On the other side, a pair of Elites are brothers.  The strongest one, Ship Master Thon, has always looked after and protected his much weaker brother, Reff.  Blood Line is about what both kinds of families will do for each other (and also what family means in both contexts).

Finally, Blood Line is the story of how Iona, the AI of UNSC ship Long Time Coming ended up part of Spartan Team Black.

It's a little hard to follow all of the action, but overall Halo: Blood Line is an excellent read.

Halo: Uprising

I really haven't had a lot of luck with the Halo graphic novels so far.  This is the third one that I've read so far.  And out of the three, I only really liked one of them; that one wasn't this one. 

Halo: Uprising is supposed to fill in the gap of what happens to the Master Chief in between Halo 2 and 3.  So going into this I was already a bit skeptical; I didn't think anything of note happened in that time.  As far as I was concerned, he jumped onto the Forerunner vessel at the end of 2, then jumped off it when he got to Earth.  But I like Brian Michael Bendis, so I was willing to give this a shot.

Unfortunately, I found it really hard to follow the story.  A lot of that was due to layout and art; sometimes it was a full page spread, but I had no warning of when that would happen so I'd get confused as I read down the page.  The art was also really busy and I often had a hard time following it, particularly when the Chief was killing Covenant, which happened in almost every picture with the Chief in it.

So the Master Chief was doing his thing on the Forerunner ship: killing Covenant, almost getting killed by Covenant, you know, the usual.  And then the story started following some guy on Earth.  A UNSC special forces soldier was captured by the Covenant and tells them about the Key of Osanalan, which is supposed to be located in Cleveland.  So the Covenant attack there, tearing the city apart for this mysterious Key.  In the middle of all that, the story starts to follow a hotel concierge named Ruwan, who is the only one who knows anything about the Key.

The story of Ruwan seemed interesting, but it was hard to follow what was going on (see my above comments about the art and layout).  I also didn't understand what the Master Chief was actually doing through most of the story, other than killing Covenant.  At the beginning he was fighting to stay alive; that much made sense.  It was the later stuff that kind of lost me. 

One thing that I really enjoyed in this graphic novel were the interviews at the end.  There were three: one with writer Brian Michael Bendis, one with the artist Alex Maleev, and one with Brian Jarrard (Bungie Studios) and Frank O'Connor (Microsoft).  All three were really interesting reads and definitely worth checking out if you are either a comic or Halo fan (or both!)

Halo: Helljumper

I was hoping to learn a bit more about the Rookie from ODST for a blogging project I'm planning. So I decided I'd read Halo: Helljumper in the hopes that I would. Unfortunately Helljumper isn't about the Rookie at all. It's about Dutch and Romeo, two of the other Helljumpers from your squad in ODST.

Romeo and Dutch are best friends. But Dutch's girlfriend, who is also an ODST, was injured and is stuck planet-side. She wants Dutch to take a different position so they can be together. Unfortunately, Dutch doesn't tell Romeo about this (or about his decision) until they are fighting for their lives.

I also have to add, my favourite part of the graphic novel was when a pair of jackals was trying to figure out what was being said on a Helljumper's comm. They don't realize that "blow" means more than just "a strong breeze."

Overall, while I've never really liked Romeo (moreso from the game. He was okay here), I thought this was a great story that doesn't take long to read. It gave a little more background to the game and was just plain fun.

Mortal Coils

I was standing around in Chapters, talking to a couple of friends when Mortal Coils caught my eye. It is written by Eric Nylund, who also writes some of the Halo novels (which I have not yet read). It sounded intriguing, so I decided to buy it.

Mortal Coils tells the story of the twins Fiona and Eliot Post. They live with their Grandmother and Great-Grandmother in a house full of rules. Nothing exciting has ever happened to them, until they turn 15. It is then that they begin to discover the truth about themselves. As the children of a Goddess and Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, they are tasked with three heroic trials by their mother's family to determine whether they belong with the Immortals or the Infernals (their father's family). Discovering the twins' existence, the Infernals also devise their own tests in the form of three temptations. The twins need to survive these tests by ultimately discovering their own powers and strengths. But much more is at stake than just their lives, for Fiona and Eliot may be the key to starting a war between the Immortals and the Infernals.

I was excited when I found Mortal Coils in Chapters, but while I was poking around on Eric Nylund's website, I discovered that it is not a stand-alone book, like I expected. The next book is due out this summer. Normally I would wait to read a book in a series, having learned several years back that I do not remember everything that happened in previous books (this was from reading Terry Brooks' High Druid of Shannara series. I thought I remembered everything that happened, but when I opened the second book, Tanequil, a year after reading Jarka Ruus I was completely lost as to who the characters in the first chapter were!). Unfortunately I discovered All That Lives Must Die as I was in the middle of Mortal Coils so I chose to keep going.

Mortal Coils was also a bit hard to read at first. The main problem was that it had footnotes all over the place; the footnotes reminded me of a school book, even though they provided mostly fictional information. This made Mortal Coils a poor choice for my first non-school book of the summer. Luckily it was still an excellent read, especially at the end, as Fiona and Eliot really began to assert their own authority. Overall, Mortal Coils was great, filled with wonderful ideas and characters. I can't wait for the next book!

The Halo Graphic Novel

I wasn't sure if I was going to include graphic novels on the List. But then I decided that they are, by definition, novels. And I don't read a whole lot of them, so why not use them as a break when I need a really quick read?

I was also really happy when I picked this up in Minneapolis a month ago; I was able to pay the American price ($24 I think) rather than the Canadian price ($40).

The one thing I was rather impressed with was the art. In two of the four stories, the artwork was AMAZING! (In the other two, not so much). There was also a gallery included after the stories with pictures from many different artists, and many of those pictures were also amazing! (I also found out that this is where one of my favourite pictures comes from, which I have included here).

However, I didn't really like the stories. The first one was incredibly hard to follow. It was supposedly about one of the Elites from Halo 2, showing how he lost part of his jaw. I scanned through the pictures a couple of times and I couldn't find where he loses part of his jaw. (There was one really cool part that looked like the flood he was fighting had a chance to bite it off, but I'm really sure he didn't).

The second and fourth stories had the worst drawings. The second one wasn't bad, and it was kind of fun. The fourth story was just okay; I really wasn't impressed with it.

But the fourth story was hands down my favourite! It was the story of how Sgt. Johnson escaped the flood from Halo 1. There were no words in the entire story, yet it was amazing! The artwork (as mentioned) was phenomenal. And they didn't NEED words at all!

So, overall, I totally recommend this for any Halo fan. While the stories might not be super fantastic, it is worth getting just for the artwork.