Hey guys.
I’m not sure if this is the absolute best place to post this, but oh well.
I was thinking of getting into the books, and was wondering where everyone thinks the best place to start would be.
Admittedly probably the Fall of Reach, that’s start of the Spartan-II project (the project John was a part of).
Do yourself a favour and don’t start with Ghosts of Onyx, it’s the best book IMO- but only if you’ve read Fall of Reach first.
> Admittedly probably the Fall of Reach, that’s start of the Spartan-II project (the project John was a part of).
>
> Do yourself a favour and don’t start with Ghosts of Onyx, it’s the best book IMO- but only if you’ve read Fall of Reach first.
Yes. Read them in this order:
1.Fall of Reach
2.First Strike (although it’s not as good as the rest, it’s necessary)
3. Ghosts of Onyx (the best by far)
4. Glasslands (although some people hate it, I loved it)
5. The Thursday War (very good and a direct lead up to Halo 4, I really enjoyed it)
Then you’ve got the Forerunner saga, which is a must since it goes along with the Reclaimer trilogy, and a few side books which are less necessary…
My suggestion would depend on what you want to read/how much time you would be willing to put towards reading.
If you have not a heck of a lot and want some good stories, I’d go with Halo: Evolutions. There are some amazing stories in there and they are all in digestible sizes.
If you want to know more for Halo 4 I would suggest reading the Forerunner Saga. They are longer, will be 3 books shortly, and extremely well written.
Other than that, if you want to see more of Johnson, I’d read Contact Harvest, once again, it’s a well written book showing the start of the Human-Covenant war.
About the spartans/Master Chief is Fall of reach and that is another great book.
Ghost of Onyx leads to the Karen Travis Kilo-5 Trilogy. Ghost of Onyx is another great book. The only book out of all in the Halo series that could be skipped is the Flood one, which is basically Halo 1 in a nutshell.
i got into the books almost exactly a year ago, and i must say that i highly recommend it if you love the story of halo. As the others have said you should start with The Fall of Reach…from there i would read them in chronological order, which would be:
First strike (my personal favorite - lots of action)
Ghosts of Onyx
Glasslands
Thursday War
There are also two great side stories (and i do mean GREAT), The Cole Protocol, and Contact Harvest - i thoroughly enjoyed these as well, and yes they are full length books.
Then there are the forerunner books (Cryptum, Primordium, and Silentium coming in early 2013) which are great reads and help you actually understand the story of halo 4
I hope that we have been able to convince you to take a deeper look into the universe and happy reading!
It’s been forever since i created this. But I only just got around to checking (and finding) it.
Thanks for all of your feedback. It’ll be much easier to get started with a bit of a plan.
Oooooh, a topic on something we pretty much all love ^.^
Start with Fall of Reach, and then First Strike. People on Amazon liked FS the best, then FoR, and thought Ghosts of Onyx kind of dull (I didn’t think it was amazing either, although that’s going 3-4 years ago that I last read it). After you read those, since it introduces the legacy of the Spartans, their origins, and the concept of a forerunner civilization, read the Forerunner books. Read all of Cryptum, Skim the first 1/3 of Primordium, and then read the rest like you did cryptum. Once you do that, preorder silentium (like all of us on here) on amazon, get release date shipping.
Done that? Good. Now crack open Contact Harvest and get a great backdrop on Johnson and get your mind blown by the true reason for the Human-Covenant War, especially after reading the Forerunner books.
As for the Thursday War and Glasslands series, I heard they were pretty bad by just about everyone. I’d just stick to online synopsis reading for those.
So (in order):
1: Fall of Reach
2: First Strike
3: Ghosts of Onyx (feel free to skip this if this list is too long, I’d suggest reading it though anyway)
4: Cryptum (my favorite with FoR, different styles of writing)
5: Primordium (Skim the first 1/3 or 1/2, it’s mostly a lot of walking. After that, it gets really, really good).
6: Silentium (if it’s released by then).
7: Contact Harvest (Comes after forerunner series on purpose, let it blow your mind).
I would read them in publishing order. I suppose if you were more interested in the deeper revelations, you could actually skip the original trilogy of novels. I know some here are going to think that suggestion is basically heresy, and that you have to read Fall of Reach and First Strike. I would generally agree, but if you’ve been following Halo for long, you probably won’t learn anything that new from them. They do tease some mysteries, but they don’t really reveal anything. They do introduce characters that appear throughout the fiction, but in terms of mythology (origins of the Spartans and the time just before and just after Halo 1 events), you probably already know the major points. They’re good stories though, and fun to read.
That said, if you’re interested in the backstory, revelations, and mysteries that aren’t commonly referred to in the games, then the other novels will be more exciting off the bat.
The Forerunner Saga is kind of seperate, so I suppose that you could read them outside of the publishing order, though the beginning and end of Primordium have some ties to more of the modern era fiction.
To put the entire book series in chronological order:
Forerunner Saga
Cryptum
Primordium
Silentium(not out yet)
Human-Covenant war
Contact Harvest
Cole Protocol
Fall of Reach (Doesnt pertain to the game in the slightest)
The Flood (More in-depth view of what happens on ring 04)
First Strike (How the Chief and Johnson get back to earth, bridges H1 and H2)
Ghosts of Onyx (Details about other spartans and Halsey)
Post-war
Glasslands
Thursday War
HALO: Evolutions is also a good read, but its mostly just side-stories that dont really pertain to the games all that much.
Many won’t agree, but I don’t suggest reading Fall of Reach. For some reason it’s very popular, but in my opinion, after a promising first part, it becomes incredibly boring, repetitive and absolutely irrelevant to better appreciate the Halo Universe.
If you really want an enjoyable read that also creates some really interesting background for the origin of the Human-Covenant war, the Covenant religion,their views of the Forerunners, and many key characters of the original trilogy, I’d suggest Contact Harvest.
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Contact Harvest: It tells us how the Human-Covenant War began, and is easy for newcomers to read.
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Fall of Reach: Details later events of the Human-Covenant War and the Spartan-II project.
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Cole Protocol: Now that you know who Jacob Keyes and the Spartans were, you can understand this pretty well.
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First Strike: Continues after Halo CE and leads into Ghosts of Onyx and Halo 2.
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Ghosts of Onyx: Follows First Strike and details the Spartan-III project.
The best book to start off on is Contact Harvest as it details the beginning of the Human-Covenant War and the entire reason for it starting. As well as giving backstory to Sgt. Johnson and Truth and Regret as well and how they came into power.
Fall of Reach should probably be the second one you read as it introduces the Spartans and explains their origins as well as giving a sort of introduction a lot of the other key characters, such as Ackerson, Cortana, Captain Keyes, Halsey…etc.
First Strike continues the story of The Fall of Reach and picks up right after the first Halo game ends, bridging the gap between it and Halo 2.
Ghosts of Onyx continues from where First Strike left off, though it’s not important that you read it right after you read First Strike. Really, after you get to First Strike you could read Ghosts of Onyx, Cole Protocol, Halo Evolutions (a collection of short stories), or the Forerunner Saga (Cryptum and Primordium are it so far) in any order you want to.
Any of the three books being done by Karent Traviss should be read as the very last ones after you’ve read everything else at least once, or just not read at all. They change almost everything established about Halsey or the Spartans in the earlier books as well everything about the Elites, so read them last after you’ve gotten a good feel for the actual story.
I would read the Forerunner books by Greg Bear. They’re the best written, and the most relevant to the game ATM. For me, the 2500s books are just military jargon, and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. For some reason a lot of people here like them though - so if you think you’re similar to them - go for it.