Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund
January 26, 2002

Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 340

     First off, I will try to keep the spoilers as much as possible to a minimum; if I exceed, I will grant you permission to slap me.  But I believe I am quite capable of doing so, do you not agree?  Yeah, also I apologize for my ignorance of the glorious Halo franchise, as I’ve only played it a couple of times.

     Anyhow, Eric Nylund’s Halo: The Fall of Reach is a prequel to 2001’s big hit, Halo: Combat Evolved, on the Xbox.  On hearing the storyline of The Fall of Reach before actually reading it, I was immediately reminded of one of my favourite novels, Ender’s Game.

     The UNSC takes to training the most powerful soldiers ever, fittingly dubbed the Spartans.  Guess what age these would-be Spartans were taken away from their families to be trained? 6.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Wait… I think Ender was taken at age 7… And again, what are the threats and/or conflict?  Aliens, more specifically the Covenant, remember the Buggers?  Even their A.I. seems reminiscent of Jane in Speaker for the Dead.  But then the ties end here.  I think.

     Ender’s Game… er… I mean Halo: The Fall of the Reach takes place in the very distant future, around 500 years ahead of our time.  Mankind is being threatened by an alien presence, the Covenant.  Their technology is many times stronger than that of man.  Man’s attempts seem all but futile against such colossal adversary.  All hope lies in these highly advanced warriors, the Spartans.

     Eric Nylund beautifully and vividly describes futuristic technologies, events and vistas.  Halo: The Fall of Reach is plenty of visual bliss and produce events that seem to accurately portray the futures.  More so than Ender’s Game; I believe, though this can be justified by the forty-so year difference of being written by Orson Scott Card. 

     Anyways, enough of these idle comparisons between two great literary works.  Although, with a considerable amount of similarities… it just makes me wonder what Microsoft is doing…  Anyhow, Halo: The Fall of Reach is a great story of a battle between the human race and aliens, and the accounts of the Spartan, John, or better named, the ‘Master Chief’.  Although John is such a plain name… should have used a ‘cooler’ name… like Ender or something…

     Overall, Halo is a definite must-read for those avid Halo fans out there, even those who are just familiar with the game Halo, such as I, and even those who have thoroughly enjoyed reading Ender’s game, which too describes me.  What I liked most about Nylund’s writing is that he doesn’t try too much to explain every little thing.  This gets the reader thinking, something we rarely see nowadays, heh… just kidding!  I also noticed quite a bit of foreshadowing, hah, even the title blatantly foreshadows some sort of event!  But foreshadowing is a neat little effect. 

     After reading this novel, it really got me thinking on something that would be great, and something that I would definitely like to see in the future.  Yes, I would like to see more games go from console to pages.  That would be most definitely great.  I know there’s already a Resident Evil series out there, but that’s just not enough.  Also, I hear there are these little kid’s books for Zelda and other such games, but it should go into novel format!  Like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Golden Sun, Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy, and many more have great stories and would make great books!  Well I would buy them… but let us still hope!

 - Bobo

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