#halo ferret trilogy

[monitorchakas]

Please clap reblog the polls to spread the outreach numbers

[doom-dreaming]

I'll probably make a more coherent and long-winded post about this as I keep compiling notes about the Gammas, but I think it's interesting how Mark (quietly) eclipses Ash as the "leader" (for what that's worth in a team that's pretty balanced anyway) over the course of his character lifespan.

[bloodgulchblog]

I started reading Halo books after you recommended Legacy of Onyx to me not too long ago. I started with Fractures, which was a good first taste. Really liked Into the Fire. Next up was Legacy of Onyx, which was REALLY GOOD WOW and I chewed through the whole thing in two days. There's SO much left about Onyx, I hope we get more of it in novels or gameplay in the future. Now I'm onto Rubicon Protocol, which is pretty good so far (ch3) but not holding my attention as hard as Legacy of Onyx did

Ooh, Fractures is an interesting place to start imo. I'm glad you enjoyed it! It honestly gives you a lot of directions you could jump off in if you're looking for more book recs. I think getting into stuff with big lore like Halo is, unless you're doing something wild like just reading all of it like I did, mostly about figuring out what your handholds are and what you're interested in and where to go to follow those interests.

Rubicon Protocol is definitely a heavier, slower book than Legacy I think. It's a lot grimmer. I thought it was good overall but there were definitely points where I had to take a break because that gets dark. Really loved what the author did with Stone in particular, though.

If you are looking for more things to add to your list for later, based on what you've said here...

(Big post of tumblr user bloodgulchblog rambling about different Halo novels below the jump)

Ghosts of Onyx is the one I'm most confident about. I typically wouldn't recommend Ghosts as someone's first go at Eric Nylund's Halo novels because they're kind of a trilogy and having The Fall of Reach and First Strike read first makes it better, but if you had a good time diving right in the deep end at Fractures I think you'll be completely fine. (...The other two have Master Chief though and he's my special guy.)

Anyway, the reason I'd say Ghosts of Onyx is the stories you've already read are very heavy on the Spartan-IIIs, and that one is their origin story. You've met Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091 twice, you know Chief Mendez, you've seen the Ferrets, you've seen what Onyx turns into. Then if you like what Nylund was doing, Ghosts has you meet the surviving Spartan-IIs and Halsey and that's a big handhold to dig back further toward tFoR and FS if you feel like it.

Into the Fire is also an easy one to pull a rec off of, because it's actually the first section of a novella called Smoke and Shadow about Rion Forge. I liked it! It's short, but it was refreshing to see a book completely focused on civilian characters (...which is another reason that Legacy was fun for me.) It's also the start of a trilogy. The other two books are Renegades and Point of Light, both of those are full length and are circling back to Forerunner lore that hadn't been touched on in a while.

...Actually, speaking of Forerunners, man I feel like it has to have been wild to go right off with Promises to Keep without the context of the Forerunner trilogy. If you're curious based on that, try Cryptum. The Forerunner Trilogy is some true old-fashioned world-buildy weird scifi, Greg Bear was a master, and Cryptum is pretty accessible because it's about Bornstellar the idiot Forerunner teenager who knows just as little about what's going on as you do.

If you like it and go forward there, I'd say the middle book, Primordium, is much slower paced because it's focused on one guy (Chakas) in particular walking around with some other characters on a spooky Halo, but the third book Silentium is this great apocalyptic log of the whole of Forerunner civilization coming the fuck apart and the Didact losing his goddamn mind. 10/10

....What else.

Oh fuck, I know what else.

Alright, so. I don't like the Kilo Five trilogy, which is the series Glasslands is the first book of. The writing is engaging, but it has... it's hard to say it in a short way without starting to pull out my red string conspiracy board of insanity live on camera, but 1) this book in particular severely mishandles the characters from Ghosts of Onyx and 2) it has this really uncomfortable vibe about ONI and "necessary evil" that I think it doesn't quite stick it in a way I'm cool with. tl;dr the fictional characters don't need to be good people doing good things and fiction isn't real and the author doesn't have to come out on stage and tell you BAD PEOPLE DOING BAD THINGS IS BAD in order for a book to be okay, but I just do not trust the way this author handles ONI for real-world reasons that have a lot to do with real-world military imperialism.

...Also if you disagree with her on anything, especially Halsey, prepare to get hit with a sledgehammer telling you that you shouldn't be having fun. But I'll try to be the bigger person here.

The main reason I would say Glasslands at all is mostly Jul 'Mdama, who really does not get any emotional weight anywhere else in Halo. He's just kind of a ragdoll they throw around to have a bad guy in Spartan Ops and the Escalation comics until killing him off in the first 2 seconds of Halo 5. But if you cared about his sons in Legacy, I think you will find the origin story of Jul and how he wound up in an extremist Sangheili sect (and how badly the UNSC treated him as a POW) interesting. (He's also in The Thursday War, which gets him to where he is when he goes to find the Didact. Up to you if you decide to continue for that.)

It also deals with getting characters out of the dyson sphere at Onyx right after that's been discovered. I'd say if you're interested in this one, definitely read Ghosts of Onyx first.

........OKAY I THINK THAT'S EVERYTH-

This is just to say that if you really liked the Halo But It's High School vibe of Legacy of Onyx, you might enjoy the actual Halo YA novel Battle Born where four scared high school kids and one (1) wounded Spartan-III who's only a little older them try to rescue a whole town from the Covenant. It's slow at the start, but it's short and I had a lot of fun.

DONE FOR REAL THIS TIME THANKS FOR READING HAVE FUN OUT THERE BYYYYYYE

[argentumcor]

Notes About the Halo Ferret Trilogy

If you are reading this and haven't read Halo: Last Light and Halo: Retribution, you should because they're good.

Apparently, Troy Denning (of Star by Star fame, much is explained) said that he had to rewrite the ending of Shadows of Reach because Infinite was getting delayed. The Ferrets were supposed to get away with Blue Team and go back to the Infinity, not go off to the Ark. This was done last minute, as in the book was formatted and sent to be printed when the word came down. I would just about kill for the part that got switched, but 343 likely shredded it.

Knowing this now, I reread the book to find where the patch job likely was...I think it started when John and the girls go to grab the stuff they were on Reach to snag. It's not a really Denning Halo climax- all the Spartans are injured and their armor damaged, which in his books is usually a prelude to a final fight for somebody if not them. Instead, John does leg day and says hi to fragmentary AI and Fred has a too-brief encounter with Veta. There's no fight to get out, the mission just kind of ends. It's well written for sure but it just...the pace is off. A patch job.

I can see the set up for the original ending, too, I think. Fred keeps talking about blowing stuff up, which doesn't really get a pay-off. The Ferrets watching and waiting is set up for them needing Blue Team to do something, and delivering a message seems like a lot had to go just right for that move to work the way it did, rather than the easier task of getting the message to the horde of UNSC personnel now on the planet. Also it doesn't matter? Atriox is back and...I mean everyone would know soon enough, he's not a shadowy sort of guy, Atriox.

Also, I was certain that the mining equipment would not make it to the excavation site after all this effort was put into protecting it and it was really useful for doing war.

How, exactly, Infinite's delay necessitated the existence of Divine Wind specifically I'm not clear about. Atriox is back from the Ark, okay, there are a lot of portals to the Ark, or he could have got through regardless of what Blue Team did (making the mission a su success and failure at the same time is on-brand for Halo novels). Nothing in Divine Wind comes up in Infinite- not any of the stuff with the Prophets, not anything to do with the Banished's humans, not the Spirit of Fire. I get needing a book to fill in the schedule gap for the franchise, and Denning being slotted for that, but have him write another Ferret and Blue Team book, no one would mind...Blue Team is barely mentioned in Infinite, and their specific status except alive and busy elsewhere isn't said.

I'm pretty sure there was meant to be one more Ferrets book after Retribution that did wrap up a lot of the plot points wrapped up in Divine Wind, but perhaps with more finality in a few cases.

The three Ferret books were all about facing off with Intrepid Eye and Castor...and the first two had a lot to do with Gao. Intrepid Eye got brought down of course, and Castor while alive is in a different spot. Veta should be the one to off Castor, or at least set him up, considering what he did to her team. Arlo Casille needs justice for his part in that and worse, too.

Of course Blue Team, and Fred specifically, is a highlight of the first two books, too. Fred is my favorite Spartan so I'm biased. Not having the Ferrets working with him again seems like a mistake, and not just because of Fred/Veta, but also because it gives him something distinctive to do. Otherwise he's just a guy on John's team, which is unfortunately what Halo 5 did to my boy.

The first two books also made use of Veta doing CSI stuff, not just spy stuff. It's such a cool bit of both books and gives her a really unique skillset in the Halo roster that makes for some entertaining reading. It is not utilized in Divine Wind.

Divine Wind introduced a lot of interesting things, don't get me wrong, mostly on the Covenant side. The Ferrets...well, poor Mark died horribly. The survivors are on the SoF in a situation where spying isn't going to count for much (the Banished are killing their human members pretty freely), so maybe Ash and Olivia will be back to combat ops leaving Veta to...?

On my list of projects now, I guess, is to write my shot at the original climax of Shadows of Reach, then maybe try writing the third Ferrets book set on Infinity- an underutilized setting, may she rest in peace (if she is dead? I like that ship...she was beaten and evacuated, so she's gone...right? Why is the fate of so many people and places in Infinite not clarified?! Where is Blue Team?!?!)

[yanderes-galore]

Well, time for my autistic hyperfixation skills to shine! Here's your cheat-sheet for what Halo EU media to skip to for the good parts (aka aliens):

Since you've already read The Cole Protocol, Envoy is a rlly good skipping point. Besides the greatness that is Rojka 'Kasaan, and it having a pretty notable Jiralhanae villain, it's also written by the same author and follows up on the Gray Team storyline introduced in the former book.

Hunters in the Dark also makes the top of my list for fleshing out the Halo 3 co-op characters N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham and giving us nice cross-species positive interactions. Also can't forget Broken Circle, as it's all Sangheili and San'Shyuum in the story, no humans for once. It's split between two timelines: the era of the Covenant's founding and the time of Halo 2.

The Ferrets series of books (Last Light, Retribution, and Divine Wind so far) features the reoccurring antagonistic faction the Keepers of the One Truth lead by the Jiralhanae named Castor. The Master Chief series also features Fleetmaster Nizat 'Kvarosee in the first two books (Silent Storm and Oblivion) and the Keepers in Shadows of Reach; haven't read them yet but I heard good things about Nizat so far and he seems to be one of the more unique in the lore, being kinda older than most Sangheili we've seen so far. Also can't forget the Halo CE novelization, The Flood, which featured the first portrayal of Covenant perspectives in canon I believe (and therefore some of the lore and characterization there is a bit off in comparison to the rest of the books, but it's fine). Zuka 'Zamamee and Yayap are a real treat in that one, even if the tone of their sections are a bit sillier than most (from my impression so far, haven't finished the book yet actually).

And I kind of have to include the Kilo-Five trilogy, although with the fair warning that they're a bit divisive amongst the fandom. You're either gonna like them or despise them. I think a majority people, regardless of how they feel about the trilogy as a whole, did find the alien sections fine though. If I had to re-read them again I'd probably skip to just those chapters. Jul 'Mdama is a prominent character in the first two books (Glasslands and The Thursday War), with his wife Raia 'Mdama having more of a spotlight in the second, but then the whole 'Mdama plotline wraps up and gets replaced by Kig-Yar Chol 'Von in Mortal Dictata (although she's a good character on her own and it's unfortunate her story never got picked up by other authors after the trilogy ended). Other notable aliens in the trilogy include Forze 'Mdama, Avu Med 'Telcam, Sav Fel, and probably the most concentration of named Huragoks in a Halo storyline ever. Thel also makes some appearances here too.

Speaking of the 'Mdamas tho; I haven't gotten to it yet but Legacy of Onyx does feature Jul and Raia's sons as major players post-Halo 5, plus I believe there is a Sangheili teacher character and maybe some rare alien kid characters. Ohhhh and I can't believe I almost forgot, but upcoming book Outcasts is gonna feature Thel as a main character again! Been waiting for it but it got delayed, we should finally be getting it in August tho. You may want to read the Master Chief books first tho since it looks like some lore introduced there will be featured here too, especially since it's the same author Troy Dennings.

Finally to round out the recs are the anthologies. I'd go for Fractures before Evolutions, as the former has Shadow of Intent with Rtas, Tul 'Juran, Vul 'Soran, Stolt, and Tem'Bhetek and Oasis with Jat (who existed for maybe a dozen pages but has captured my heart for years). Latter still has Henry (human nickname, we never learned his real name because of language barrier) in The Mona Lisa, some named Jiralhanae in Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss (which I forgot about so idk if it's because it's been years or if they did not have much of a role), and an unnamed Sangheili shipmaster who's the focus of The Return. The Return & The Mona Lisa also got "animated" adaptations in the form of voice-acted motion comics you can find on YouTube.

Those are all books but maybe I might as well throw in the comics. Obviously there's the Rise of Atriox miniseries. Also not as well known but there was a small prequel comic for the first Halo Wars which features Ripa 'Moramee's origin story; I got the physical copy as part of my game copy, idk if there's a way to access it digitally. The Halo Graphic Novel includes the famous Halo story The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor feat Rtas 'Vadum and Thel in his Fleetmaster era. Haven't read it but Blood Lines has two Sangheili brothers as major antagonists. Tales From Slipspace has Atriox in Hunting Party and Avu Med 'Telcam in Knight Takes Bishop. Finally one of the more well known comics, Escalation has a few points of interest (note I haven't read all of 'em yet and going off Halopedia for this): Thel in Issues 1-3 + Jiralhanae Lydus, Jul 'Mdama and Sali 'Nyon in the Janus Key arc (Issues 13-16) and Absolute Record arc (Issues 19-24), and Ayit 'Sevi in Absolute Record arc.

And what the heck. let's get obscure: The Halo Wars Official Strategy Guide published by Prima Publishing includes some flash fiction featuring Ripa 'Moramee and The Prophet of Regret, because sometimes crumbs is all ya get. Halo: Legends - aka the official Halo anime - also has The Duel which shows an ancient Arbiter and why the title is considered dishonorable in modern Halo times.

Oh and... I guess there's the Forerunner trilogy, for like, Forerunners... tbh tho they're basically bootleggish humans to me, I rank them the lowest out of all the Halo aliens and don't really consider them most of the time when hyper-focusing on Halo aliens.

Gonna read this later

[chloristoflora]

"Very well." The dragon released me, and for a heart-stopping instant, I plummeted. Then her head shot out on her snakelike neck and she caught me up again. This time her jaws encompassed my ribs. She squeezed me, demonstrating how easily she could crush me. Then she eased the pressure and asked me, "And what do you know, little wolf thing?"

"Nothing!" I gasped, and then choked out every bit of air in my lungs as she crushed me. It would be quick, I told myself. I would not have to maintain my lie long. She wasn't a patient creature; she'd kill me swiftly. I glanced back to take a last look at my daughter.

Nettle stood, suddenly larger than she had been. Then she flung her arms wide. Her hair tossed in a wind that only she felt, and then haloed out around her face. She threw her head back. "This is a dream!" she shouted. "And it is my dream! I cast you out of it!" The last she spoke as single words, uttered with all the command of a queen. For the first time, I comprehended the strength of my daughter's Skill. Her ability to shape dreams and command that which happened in them was a manifestation of her Skill-talent.

Tintaglia flung me spinning out over an infinite void. Beneath me I saw, not the rocky chasm of my dream, but a vast emptiness without color or end. I had one whirling glimpse of the dragon writhing as Nettle dwindled her back to the size of a bee. Then I clenched my eyes shut against the dizzying fall. Even as I drew painful breath to scream, Nettle spoke softly by my ear. "It's only a dream, Shadow Wolf. And it belongs to me. In my dreams, you will never come to harm. Open your eyes, now. Awake to your own world."

An instant before I awoke, I felt the comforting resistance of bedding beneath me and when I opened my eyes to the darkness of my workroom, I was not in panic. Nettle had taken the terror from the nightmare. For a moment, I felt relief. I drew a deep breath, and as I surrendered to sleep once more, I felt a drowsy amazement at my daughter's odd Skill-strength. But as I tugged my blanket back over my shoulder and reclaimed half the pillow from the ferret, the earlier portion of my dream dragged me back to wakefulness. Swift had lied. Burrich hadn't discarded him. Worse, his leaving had thrown the family into turmoil.

Fool's Fate, by Robin Hobb (Tawny Man Trilogy #3)

[halopedia]

Did You Know that Halo: Fractures contained a short story tied to the Ferret trilogy of novels? A Necessary Truth is set 3 months after Halo: Last Light, setting up the threads for Halo: Retribution! The next book in the series, Halo: Divine Wind, released today!

[monitorchakas]

Odd question.

What hypothetical plots would you want to see tackled in future halo novels?

I’ve got a few which I’ll list numerically.

1. An Epitaph-style novel for Cortana. Sort of explains itself tbh. I think that would be QUITE interesting.

2. A novel focusing on Mendicant Bias, which I do think Epitaph is slowly setting up Tbf. Like I said.

3. Anything more that serves to continue the recent trend of following up on the forerunner trilogy tbh. (There will be some overlap). Epitaph, Renegades, Point of Light, Promises to Keep and that untitled story at the end of Fractures all did this. And I love seeing it.

4. A story detailing how Jun escaped from Reach and what happened afterwards. Maybe with a few allusions to A Fistful of Arrows too.

I can say this much.

Plus I think there ought to be another short story anthology book akin to Evolutions and Fractures. I have TONS of ideas for such a book.

What about you?

I absolutely love this question, thank you.

Loved all your listed plots, some of those definitely intersect with mine. Ill expand on some

I did some brainstorming here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Got to say I'm extremely biased and Spark still being my number one means I'm dying to know what happens next in Bastion. That "are you ready reclaimer, this is how my story begins ..." got me excited to say the least. Precursors!!!!!

I don't really have a particular order for the rest so Im bulleting it

• go way back and give us the nitty gritty details of Human forerunner wars (with UrDidact and Forthencho leading ofc) I know it's been touched on, but further develop it. Set the book completely in the past.

• more on Bornstellar's son. What happened to him? The one that has Chakas and Riser's straw hat 🥺 (Like you said continuation to Fractures)

• agreed we need Mendicant Bias to return

• who crashed on installation 04 in that one terminal from halo cea? What's their story?

• can we get another unggoy focused story like Dadab and Yayap? Doesn't matter when in the timeline. And make it funny!

• since we probably are not getting halo wars 3 I want to know what happened to Prof Anders

• continuation to ferret team (-1 😭) and red team at the ark

• whats happened to the infinity? Where's Palmer? Lasky?

• more on Castor and Gadogai especially now that Castor has been enlightened

• who are the other monitors? We have Guilty Spark's backstory fleshed out, give the rest a backstory, not just name drops. I'm directly looking at Abject Testament and his "we deserve to be forgotten" quote

• I'll take more stories with "the big guy" or how he's actually called, Spartan Novak. I liked him.

• kig yar focused story? I really liked Nor Fel and I forget the other kig yar ladies name.

• wasn't sure to include this because it's very self serving, short story on Chakas and Riser's adventures together before Bornstellar showed up.

If I think of any others I'll definitely include them 😊 I'm sorry my lore desires are very weird 😅

this was incredibly fun to write 💗

* I didn't mention our boys Rtas or Thel because I think they both will be in Empty Throne ofc

[monitorchakas]

Master post for Halo Book Polls

Vote Now!!

I'll update this post daily with polls as they are posted.

[monitorchakas]

I posted 3,465 times in 2022

262 posts created (8%)

3,203 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@anarcho-gamerist

@tbonechessor

@halos2

@bloodgulchblog

@regicide1997

I tagged 434 of my posts in 2022

#halo - 73 posts

#halo shitpost - 58 posts

#westanb12 - 44 posts

#343 guilty spark - 34 posts

#youtube - 10 posts

#halo encyclopedia - 9 posts

#lmao - 7 posts

#halo primordium - 7 posts

#guilty spark - 6 posts

#long post - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#i know this will never happen but i wish the forerunner trilogy had been made into movies or tv series. probably movies is better format

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Meowter Chief ready to finish this fight!!!

86 notes - Posted January 12, 2022

#4

91 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

#3

I hope halo tv series flops

Nobody EVER asked for alternate timelines in halo. Get out of here with that overdone marvel bullshit.

You want good storytelling? Tie that new story into the established lore. Give me some rewards for reading 20+ books.

Or better yet, put the book lore on the big screen. Forerunner trilogy would be popular with the hardcore scifi nerds, ferret trilogy would be popular with detective/mystery fans. The list goes on.

Alternate timelines is just an excuse for the writers to be LAZY

131 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

#2

135 notes - Posted January 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

218 notes - Posted April 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[doom-dreaming]

piggybacking off your tags, a lot of this is what I was going to bring up in A Bigger Post in the future about the Gammas' character development:

I also love how Kelly warms up to them, the little moments between her and Ash where she validates his actions or planning are so sweet and this one in particular is my favorite:

...and then in the next paragraph his internal monologue is just "I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up" it's so good.

I wish we got to see a continuation of that in the Ferret books. Alas.

But speaking of the Ferret trilogy, I'm about a hundred pages away from finishing Divine Wind, and this is so far the only exposure I've had to Denning's Halo writing...he's very much a banter writer. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, it's fun to read (usually), but I feel like sometimes he bends the characterization in a way that facilitates the banter vs. bantering in a way that seems accurate to the character voice. (I can't criticize too hard because I probably do this too.)

Again, a lot of this comes down to personal preference and I think he does a fine job developing the Gammas further than what they got in Ghosts (I can't speak to how they were portrayed in the book(s?) between Ghosts and the Ferret trilogy, but I can't imagine it's worth mentioning, given the author), but it's like you said: he dialed up the immaturity. They go from being portrayed as "these soldiers are teenagers" to "these teenagers are soldiers," if that makes sense. Nylund and Denning put stronger emphasis on different aspects of their characters, which again is fine, it's just a noticeable tone shift.

I already kind of mentioned Mark becoming the "second-in-command" in the other post and Ash's leadership traits being downplayed quite a bit, but it's really noticeable for me with Olivia. In Ghosts, she's quiet. She's the stealth specialist, she hardly ever speaks (and when she does, it's usually a whisper) and Ash can't even see her in that one scene where they're all trying to outrun the Sentinel, she's so good at going unnoticed. She's talkative in the Ferret trilogy.

Part of me wants to believe this is a natural shift from being front-line Spartans to an ONI undercover unit, but these characterization changes are happening before the Ferret team is even created. I don't know exactly where I'm going with this and I'll be able to make better points when I have page numbers to back me up, but it's been interesting trying to reconcile two significantly different portrayals into something I can use in my own writing.

I came across an interesting callback during my reading/research; in Ghosts of Onyx, Kelly is skeptical of the S-IIIs' battle-readiness and refers to them as "kids" - a statement that Kurt immediately refutes:

and then in Last Light when Lopis is saying something along the lines of "these kids need medical attention," Fred tells her the exact same thing:

...which I thought was an interesting response, because I remembered him being sympathetic to the Gammas at the end of Ghosts...

and the events of these books are only about seven months apart in the greater Halo timeline (not accounting for the slipspace/time-continuum fuckery going on with Onyx) so it seemed a little uncharacteristic to me at first (and you can chalk some of it up to author characterization, sure) but honestly? It's basically the same situation in both cases: someone close to the S-IIIs is defending their status and capability against a skeptical "outsider" opinion (Kelly is obviously less of an outsider than Veta, but the comparison holds up) and vouching for them in the face of doubt. It's a fun little parallel to draw.

[monitorchakas]

I hope halo tv series flops

Nobody EVER asked for alternate timelines in halo. Get out of here with that overdone marvel bullshit.

You want good storytelling? Tie that new story into the established lore. Give me some rewards for reading 20+ books.

Or better yet, put the book lore on the big screen. Forerunner trilogy would be popular with the hardcore scifi nerds, ferret trilogy would be popular with detective/mystery fans. The list goes on.

Alternate timelines is just an excuse for the writers to be LAZY

[bloodgulchblog]

Good news I finished The Cole Protocol in two (2) days because the knowledge it’s taken me almost half a year to get only a third of the way through the Halo canon motivated me.

Bad news, now I have to decide what to read next and it’s probably going to be the first short story anthology because making choices is hard.

Analysis of uncompleted halo novels in a roughly chronological order:

Evolutions Anthology Pros:

Immediately next if going by year of publication, so I don’t have to think about it

I don’t think I read every short story in the anthology back when I first got it, so there’s some new ground in there

Nylund wrote one of the stories

Stories are short

Cons:

Lot of pages

Random mixed bag of things

I recall being mad about some of them?

Forerunner Trilogy Pros:

Known quantity, I read these in the Forgotten Times

Bonkers in a good way

Delicious Forerunner lores

Cons:

Not related to anything I'm working on currently

I recall the middle book is kind of a slog

Kilo 5 Trilogy Pros:

For better or worse I liked a lot of Glasslands when I read it in the Forgotten Times

Jul ‘Mdama and Sangheili lores

I always did want to know what happened re: Naomi

Getting the Nylund squad out of the Forerunner shield world

Cons:

Karen Traviss

Karen Traviss writing the Nylund squad

Karen Traviss writing Dr. Halsey in particular

Serin Osman, Karen Traviss’s very special OC

Did I mention Karen Traviss?

I usually find insurrectionist-heavy plots boring, and I think the latter two are big into that. (And it sounds like ripe territory for more Karen Traviss Karen Travissing.)

Alpha 9 Duology

Pros:

New territory

The second one talks about what’s up with Fireteam Osiris after Halo 5 I think, which is relevant to a vague idea for a future project

Cons:

I don’t really care either way about Buck

I also don’t really care about the summaries of the plots I’ve seen

Remaining 2 Ferrets Books

Pros:

New territory

Relatively recent canon that will probably tell me more about what Blue Team has been up to and I care about them

I care about the Gammas

Cons:

My nemesis, Troy Denning

Books bullying me for not bothering with Halo Wars 2

My nemesis, Troy Denning (again)

Veta Lopis, Troy Denning’s very special OC

The monkey’s paw of me getting characters I care about but Troy Denning is writing them

Saint’s Testimony and Shadow of Intent, the Novellas

Pros:

Novellas are short

Staten wrote Shadow of Intent and I think I read and liked that.

Saint’s Testimony sounds like it’s rich in AI lore.

Cons:

Novellas are short.

Saint’s Testimony ties into a comic I haven’t read and I have been studiously avoiding the can of worms that is what I will do to myself if I start reading the comics too. (I’ll get to those eventually....)

Hunters in the Dark

Pros:

I already know I thought this one was okay

Swords of Sanghelios!

Zeta Halo lore!

Olympia Vale and Usze ‘Taham should kiss with tongue.

My Boy N’tho ‘Sraom

One book is a brief commitment as opposed to a big chunk of books

Cons:

Not new territory, I could be putting the time somewhere else

Merely okay

Fractures Anthology

Not even considering this one until I get caught up to a place later in the canon

There’s an incredibly bad Denning story in here

Rion Forge Books

Pros:

New territory

Ties into Forerunner Lores

SPARK?????

I want to see if I like Kelly Gay’s writing

Cons:

I want to reread the Forerunner Trilogy first.

I’d feel compelled to revisit Halo Wars first.

Legacy of Onyx

Pros:

I’ve heard this one is charming and fun, it is about Halo Youths.

The Youths are friends across species lines

Onyx????

Cons:

Standalone, disconnected from anything else I’m currently interested in.

Silent Storm & Oblivion

Pros:

Son John!

Cons:

Troy Denning....

[bloodgulchblog]

That's my instinct about it too. I kind of divide Halo novels into clusters for my own purposes.

Like... in no particular order: Original Trilogy Era (Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx, I kind of personally don't really include the Flood but I think for most people it's a better choice to) Grey Team (Cole Protocol and Envoy) Anthologies (Evolutions and Fractures, though I guess the Graphic Novel and Tales from Slipspace can fit under this header too instead of the overloaded comics cluster) Comics (FoR adaptation, Uprising, Blood Line, Helljumper, Initiation, Escalation, Rise of Atriox, Lone Wolf... I think that's all of them) Forerunner Trilogy (Cryptum, Primordium, Silentium) Kilo Five Trilogy (Glasslands, The Thursday War, Mortal Dictata) Alpha Nine (New Blood and Bad Blood) Rionn Forge Trilogy (Smoke & Shadow, Renegades, Point of Light) Ferrets (Last Light, Retribution, Divine Wind) Denning Chief (Silent Storm, Oblivion, Shadows of Reach) Disconnected Books (Contact Harvest, Broken Circle, Hunters in the Dark, Legacy of Onyx, Rubicon Protocol)

So that's probably doable?

I guess another classification system could be which-game-was-current-at-the-time.

I want to pit the halo books against each other to see which the community thinks is best but polls aren't long enough for that. I might start spamming a bunch of polls then pit the winners against each other.