Well, now that my exams are finished, I now have time to play video games, watch lots of Youtube videos, go on the forums more often.
I have also decided to read more Halo books.
Only problem is I only have one and don’t know which ones to read next.
I am attempting to go in “canon” order of the Human-Covenant War and Pre-War timeline, I am avoiding Forerunner books as I would prefer to keep my sense of “mystery” about them when I am playing the games, this means I do not intend to read the “Reclaimer Trilogy”.
I already have and read Contact Harvest, so I have come from afar to the Universe Forum to ask:
Which books should I read?
In what order should I read them in?
Which books should I avoid or not bother with?
If you are kind enough to reply, you only have to give me their names, I will do the searching
Thanks to all in advance who have read and replied to this thread.
But heres a simple order to go by for books and games
Contact Harvest
Halo Wars
The Cole Protocol
The Fall of Reach
Halo Reach
The Flood is a retelling of Halo Combat Evolved.
Halo Combat evolved
First Strike
Halo 2
Halo 3 ODST
Ghosts of Onyx
Halo 3
Grasslands
The Thursday War
Halo 4
> I am avoiding Forerunner books as I would prefer to keep my sense of “mystery” about them when I am playing the games, this means I do not intend to read the “Reclaimer Trilogy”.
Well if you intend on playing halo 4 you are going to have to read the novels to understand what the frack is going on. If not you could just read my thread Explaining the Didact’s viewpoint.
> I am avoiding Forerunner books as I would prefer to keep my sense of “mystery” about them when I am playing the games
Groan
I’ll never understand you people. Why on earth would you pass up the magnum opus of this series to delude yourself into ‘preserving’ a sense of mystery? What is it that people find so compelling about repetition?
And above all, why the -Yoink- do people think that the Forerunner books ‘ruin the mystery’ of the Forerunners? They really don’t, if anything they add more mysteries to the story while providing answers to old questions like any good narrative should do in order to prevent itself from becoming a sterile, repetitive mess.
> > I am avoiding Forerunner books as I would prefer to keep my sense of “mystery” about them when I am playing the games
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> Groan
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> I’ll never understand you people. Why on earth would you pass up the magnum opus of this series to delude yourself into ‘preserving’ a sense of mystery? What is it that people find so compelling about repetition?
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> And above all, why the -Yoink!- do people think that the Forerunner books ‘ruin the mystery’ of the Forerunners? They really don’t, if anything they add more mysteries to the story while providing answers to old questions like any good narrative should do in order to prevent itself from becoming a sterile, repetitive mess.
Don’t try to make people who enjoy the mystery feel inferior, “I’ll never understand you people”. Have you ever thought that people have different viewpoints? I like the fact that when I play Halo games I’ll come across forerunner objects and buildings and I’ll have no idea what their purpose is, who built them (Besides knowing that they’re forerunner) and when. The magnum opus of the series for me is the typical sci-fi “Humanity versus aliens” war concept. That’s the reason I started playing Halo in the first place, because I’ve always loved that kind of thing. I don’t need an entire Ancient humanity, Forerunner and Precursor subplot to enjoy Halo. I find the most interesting characters are the Spartans and the Covenant themselves. You might prefer the Didact or the forerunners and that’s fair enough, you enjoy them, great, but that’s not what i enjoy about the series. Frankly I find the whole “Geas, this is all destiny and preplanned, Chief you are the chosen one” sort of concept to be ridiculous.
Some of us like not knowing anything about the forerunners. We like that mystery and that ignorance. The Forerunner trilogy of books might enlighten you on a lot and bring up even more questions about the forerunners but I feel that it’s almost as if they’re two separate series’ because the time periods, settings, technology and context are so vastly different. You might find that ridiculous but frankly that’s my opinion and I couldn’t care less if you don’t understand or like it.
Back on topic: I’ve listened to some of the audiobooks (Youtube is a wonderful creation) and I find they’re all fantastic, my favourites being Ghosts of Onyx, Contact Harvest and Fall of Reach. I might buy The Cole protocol though because I couldn’t find it all and what I did listen to I really enjoyed. If I were you I’d read The Fall of Reach, First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx in that order. then read Contact harvest and The Cole Protocol. Maybe read The Flood in between Reach and First Strike.
On a side note I’m thinking of buying the graphic novels, anyone know if they’re any good?
> Then don’t get pissy with people when they are correcting you on all the stuff you are getting wrong or complain a game sucks when you haven’t read half of the material explaining it.
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> At this point ignoring the forerunners is stupid. We are nearing 7 books that show what they are about and their technologies (Goo and kilo 5) which is directly linked to the current story arc. You can’t outright ignore the story and then come back saying how much it sucks when you don’t even know anything about it
> The magnum opus of the series for me is the typical sci-fi “Humanity versus aliens” war concept. That’s the reason I started playing Halo in the first place, because I’ve always loved that kind of thing.
I’m sort of puzzled at why you would choose a game franchise based around change and the breakdown of “Humans versus aliens”, and also something that is centred around a cosmic horror story, then, if all you like is “Humans versus aliens”. Halo isn’t really about that at its core, and the Human-Covenant war was just background material to give some context to the game’s setting. Personally, that trope and the narrative regression that it has caused recently in the form of the Kilo-5 novels is retarding the fiction’s growth, and has become borderline milking of the franchise (Human-Covenant War 2.0 - I still can’t believe 343i went down that path). I’d rather the Halo Universe not become like the Warhammer 40k universe, which hasn’t noticeably evolved its story for nearly 20 years now.
The mysteries of the Forerunners and Precursors were great for the original trilogy, when the story was focused on stopping the Covenant and a parasite. When the Forerunner stories were a background and a setting.
But as many have said, continuing to use that mindset isn’t truly allowing the series to move on.
To move on, we need new mysteries. And obviously to move on to new mysteries we need to explain the old ones first.
The Forerunner Trilogy did replace a lot of mysteries with reveals and hints, but its all setting up the big finale of the Halo story’s biggest part: The Precursors. What happened so long ago that essentially doomed all creation to come.
In a way, Halo is nearing is close of its main story. You don’t want a ton of mysteries lingering in your ending. What 343i is doing, is wrapping up many old mysteries and paving the way for new stories. Keeping the same kind of and mystery itself will end up milking the series in the long run… and the story will deteriorate.
Liking the mysteries is fine. But when keeping thinks a secret blocks or potentially blocks moving on, then you should open up and accept the new mysteries.
> > Then don’t get pissy with people when they are correcting you on all the stuff you are getting wrong or complain a game sucks when you haven’t read half of the material explaining it.
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> > At this point ignoring the forerunners is stupid. We are nearing 7 books that show what they are about and their technologies (Goo and kilo 5) which is directly linked to the current story arc. You can’t outright ignore the story and then come back saying how much it sucks when you don’t even know anything about it
>
> Never once complained about a game and can’t remember a single time I’ve “been pissy” over being corrected. I’ll happily admit defeat if someone can convince me with enough evidence that I’m wrong. I haven’t read the Kilo-5 trilogy yet, though I intend to at some point. Aside from that the only books I haven’t read are Cryptum, Primordium and Silentium. My reasoning for not reading them is that as far as I’m concerned, that trilogy strays from what originally interested me about the series.nI’m not ignoring the story because I know that those evnts happened in the Halo universe. I’m just keeping myself ignorant of the wider picture for my own enjoyment. Maybe I’ll get round to reading them at some point but as of right now, they’re not my top priorities.
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> > > The magnum opus of the series for me is the typical sci-fi “Humanity versus aliens” war concept. That’s the reason I started playing Halo in the first place, because I’ve always loved that kind of thing.
> >
> > I’m sort of puzzled at why you would choose a game franchise based around change and the breakdown of “Humans versus aliens”, and also something that is centred around a cosmic horror story, then, if all you like is “Humans versus aliens”. Halo isn’t really about that at its core, and the Human-Covenant war was just background material to give some context to the game’s setting. Personally, that trope and the narrative regression that it has caused recently in the form of the Kilo-5 novels is retarding the fiction’s growth, and has become borderline milking of the franchise (Human-Covenant War 2.0 - I still can’t believe 343i went down that path). I’d rather the Halo Universe not become like the Warhammer 40k universe, which hasn’t noticeably evolved its story for nearly 20 years now.
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> You misunderstood me but that’s because my wording was flawed, sorry about that. I started playing Halo with Halo 3. Before I bought the game I was completely ignorant to the story and it was only since playing it that I clued myself up on everything. Before I bought it, I just knew it was some bloke in a suit of armour that shot aliens. I love the Halo universe though and read up on it massively, soon becoming interested in the rest of the games, the books and the wider universe. I understand that that’s not what the series is about and perhaps I’ve messed up what I was trying to say haha. Overall, the forerunner saga just doesn’t interest me as much as the rest of the wider universe, however it’s implantation into the wider universe does, e.g. the Halos, the Ark, Onyx, Sentinels, Requiem, Prometheans. I’ve worded that so horrendously that if you don’t understand I don’t blame you at all, sorry about that.
seriously, can we stop fighting about what we are allowed to like in halo? this is going way off topic. if OP doesnt want to read anything about the forerunners thats fine. i dont either.
op just do the following for all the covie story line
Contact Harvest
The Cole Protocol
The Fall of Reach
The Flood is a retelling of Halo Combat Evolved.
First Strike
Ghosts of Onyx
Glasslands (this kinda starts the forerunner stuff a bit but it also wraps up some of the covenant parts after the war too)
