HALO: First Strike

By: Eric Nylund

Narrated by: Todd McLaren

Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's Summary

The New York Times best-selling aftermath of Halo: Combat Evolved featuring the Master Chief - part of the expanded universe based on the award-winning video game series!

It's 2552. The theocratic military alliance known as the Covenant is showing no mercy as it continues to assault every human world it encounters, but in the way lies humanity’s greatest champion, the supersoldier Spartan John-117 - the Master Chief. Together with his AI companion Cortana and the last remaining Spartans, the galaxy-spanning fight rages on two fronts following the destruction of the human military stronghold Reach by Covenant forces and the mysterious artificial ringworld known as “Halo” at the hands of the Master Chief.

One faction - a squad of Spartans lead by Blue Team’s Fred-104 and Kelly-087 - is trapped on the glassed surface of Reach, the only planet they’ve ever known as home. Beneath this ruined world, Dr. Catherine Halsey has discovered an ancient secret...one that could alter the course of the war. Meanwhile, the Master Chief and Cortana lead a second group toward a gathering of Covenant warships, as the United Nations Space Command’s worst nightmare has finally come true: The Covenant has discovered the location of Earth and is forming a massive fleet to utterly destroy it, as well as all who oppose the indomitable will of the Prophets....

©2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

One of the stronger Halo books in the series

Very enjoyable read for Halo fans or sci-fi lovers. I have been reading the books in order and I'm enjoying them more and more as I go through them.

3 people found this helpful

Fantastic

Reeally great listen and the voice actor is truly amazing. would definitely recommend to anyone.

1 person found this helpful

loved it.

love this book learning a lot about Halo going to try to read them all before the new Halo game comes out.

1 person found this helpful

Great read

Loved the book. Listened to it while working mostly, but plagued by the same issues I previously mentioned. nothing major though. they are nitpicking.

Great story, horrible narration.

Todd McLaren insists on wild mispronunciations and extremely jarring voice overs for most characters in this book and the others that he narrates.

Nearly perfect

Nearly perfect. the only fault is the mispronunciation of the word "Mjolnir." Otherwise a marvelous reading.

Overall Great

The only minor nitpick is the narrator consistently pronouncing "Mjolnir" incorrectly as "Mih-joel-ner." It's easier to overlook some times more than others, but since it's the name of the Spartan's armor model... it comes up a lot. It's overall an above average performance, but the little things like stick out. Fantastic follow-up to "Fall of Reach." Great for anyone who read it previously when they were in school, like I did, or always wondered about the events between Halo 1 and 2. Hard to recommend to someone who hasn't either played the games or didn't enjoy "Fall of Reach." If you weren't already into this series / world from one of those, this will likely not change your mind.

Epic

It was so good and easy to emerge yourself in the story. I loved every moment of this book!

awesome book.

this is a must have for sure. I loved every second of it!! a must for sure

Great!!

This was a story that filled the void between the games. Never knew this part of the Lore

Shame about the music theme

The whole audiobook is amazing, but the only thing that bugged me was use of Halo 5 music, instead of original Halo theme.
Seems trivial but come on hearing anything else than that epic Halo theme in the original Halo audiobook seems not right.

But that’s the only bad thing I can say about this audiobook, it is truly great and I liked it a lot.

1 person found this helpful

halo

would make a great game I would do it if I had the skill and knowledge to doit there is a lot of games that can be made oot of the rest of halo books a true halo fan played all the game's and working on all the rest of the books

amazing

any halo fan needs to get these series of books, absolutely phenomenal! very happy with my purchases!

a must for any halo and indeed sci fi fan.

this book is a treat for both discerning lore seeking halo fan and your average sci fi reader. I highly recommend

A tale of growth.

During this whole story one character seemed to stand out. They all did in a way growing into to more realistic characters. the audio quality was certainly better than most, this was because it was actually clear that other characters were speaking. Worth a listen if you enjoy the halo series.

Amazing

Possibly my favourite halo book. Eric Nylund writes Halo like no other author and really captures the themes and characters of the halo universe perfectly.
The narrator is excellent and provides a clear and entertaining performance throughout.