Halo: The Fall of Reach

Eric Nylund

Jan 2019 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The New York Times bestselling origin story of the Master Chief—part of the expanded universe based on the award-winning video game series Halo!

The twenty-sixth century. Humanity has expanded beyond Earth’s system to hundreds of planets that colonists now call home. But the United Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command is struggling to control this vast empire. After exhausting all strategies to keep seething colonial insurrections from exploding into a full-blown interplanetary civil war, the UNSC has one last hope. At the Office of Naval Intelligence, Dr. Catherine Halsey has been hard at work on a top-secret program that could bring an end to the conflict…and it starts with seventy-five children, among them a six-year-old boy named John. And Halsey could never guess that this child will eventually become the final hope against an even greater peril engulfing the galaxy—the inexorable confrontation with a theocratic military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant.

This is the electrifying origin story of Spartan John-117—the Master Chief—and of his legendary, unstoppable heroism in leading the resistance against humanity’s possible extinction.

Ratings and reviews

We like to read books in our home, although I often prefer to read personal development, academic, or business (in general, non-fiction). So I'll admit that I wasn't particularly interested, and more than a little bit sceptical, when my sons asked me to read Halo to them at night. Now here I am admitting that it is a good, non-fiction book that is read again. aside from being well written (and easy to read), it is full of action, has an interesting storyline and doesn't have any bad language or sexual content. Overall it was a fun book to read with my boys, and one is be willing to read again (and will read the next book, the Flood, as well).

This book is an action packed and in-depth look at the beginning of the Spartan 2 program, following John 117 as he faces a covenant invasion and becomes the legendary Spartan we know today. REMEMBER REACH!

The Fall of Reach is probably one of the most influential video game novels ever made. It elaborates so much on the source material for its time to the point where it was borderline unrecognizable. The book has definitely aged very well in the past 21 years.

About the author

Eric Nylund is the author of many novels, including the New York Times bestselling works Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, and the World Fantasy nominated Dry Water. As a writer for Microsoft Game Studios, Nylund helped develop such game franchises as Halo and Gears of War. He has also helped shape the intellectual property for some of the world’s best videogame developers, including Bioware and Epic Games, and also worked with Amazon’s game studios. Nylund lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, award-winning science fiction/fantasy writer Syne Mitchell, and their son.