Halo: The Fall of Reach

Reviewed by Max D.


One of the books I read this year was Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund. It is a science fiction/action novel that I would recommend for any fan of the genre or the major hit video game series that it is based on.

The book starts off explaining the war raging on between humans and a powerful alien enemy known as The Covenant. Living on planet Reach five hundred years in the future is a six year old boy named John who has been chosen for the a military project known as Project: SPARTAN. John – along with other six year olds – is then trained to be a ‘Super-Soldier’ to fight The Covenant.

On John’s journey towards maturity and becoming a more experienced warrior he meets other people such as: Kelly, Sammy, Keyes, Dr. Haseley and A.I. human-simulation Cortana. After The Covenant becomes stronger and start invading the planet Reach(which is John's home planet) John (and the other SPARTANS) are thrown into full-scale combat and John does things that he has never done before, things like: jumping through slip-stream space, destroying a Covenant ship and let go to the people that mean the most to him.

The number one protagonist in this book is John (who later in the book is addressed as Masterchief). Ever since childhood he has been determined to win no matter what the costs are. He is a very likeable character and despite the ‘win or die trying’ attitude he feels more like a human than an object.

Another important character in the story is Kelly; she has been a major part in John’s life since they were six years old. She is a fellow SPARTAN and takes commands from John. It is very hard not to like this character because she is obedient, loyal and cares about the other team-members.

The antagonist in this novel is a group rather than an individual: The Covenant. The Covenant is a brutal alien force hell-bent on destroying humanity. Their technology is far more superior to that of the humans (and this is 500 years in the future). It is only Captain Keyes who has destroyed one of their ships seeing as the Covenant lives by one rule: Destroy the humans no matter what.

In my opinion, this book is a great read for anybody that enjoys guns, explosions and blood. Even though John is a protagonist like no other, you feel like you can connect to him because at some point in our life we have all been thrown into situations that we didn’t like. The characters in the story are very believable and likeable and they are involved in a story line that is deep and action-packed at the same time. Unlike many other action novels, this one does not throw violence and fighting for no particular reason.

I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this book despite the fact that I don’t like the video-games that this story is based on. Like I said, this book is an incredible read for fans of the game or the genre. Eric Nylund has written two of the other Halo books in the series on addition to other novels such as: Mortal Coils, A Signal Shattered, A Game of Universe and many more. This book is the first in a series of six (if you exclude an anthology of short stories) and the prequel to the wildly successful X-Box game, and my opinion is worthy of the name: Halo.

On a scale of one-to-ten I would give this an eight because it dragged it’s feet at points and the story line was a little predictable. But by all means I would still recommend it if you were a fan of the games or not.