Teaser

Captain Rion Forge of the Ace of Spades is a woman with a mission: to uncover the fate of her missing father. It is a mission that will bring her face-to-face with the darkest secrets of the Forerunners, and pit her against the ruthless Office of Naval Intelligence . . .

Review

There is a tendency, when discussing tie-in fiction and expanded universes, to rate them by how they interact with the original medium. People rarely compliment Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy on its own merits, for example, but rather on how it serves as a natural continuation of the original Star Wars trilogy. Likewise, the Star trek novel Rogue Elements is a great novel by itself, but what people remember is how it fleshed out a character from the TV show Picard. So far in my readthrough of the Halo universe, I’ve praised the extra development afforded to Master Chief John-117, and more generally how the Covenant War has been followed through in literary form. The Rion Forge trilogy doesn’t do a whole lot of that. It reaches straight for the other end of what I enjoy about tie-in fiction, and creates new characters and locations. At the same time, though, it relies more heavily on having read previous books in the saga than any other I’ve come across. Let’s dive in.

These books (the first is really a novella, expanded from a short story in the truest form of science fiction storytelling) are my first experience with Kelly Gay, and I can immediately say that she is the best of the Halo writers I’ve encountered so far. Even as full novels, the stories are quick and punchy, the prose fluid and easy to process. So good is the structuring of these books that I actually didn’t mind the mix of first and third person perspectives between chapters. Both perspectives offer their own unique insights, and the insertion of in-universe text is an added bonus. The lightning quick pace, accomplished by many very short chapters, plays well to the chase narrative that runs through a lot of the series. This is a frenetic adventure and no mistake. A classic tale of space salvagers and their tiny little ship thrown way out of their depth. All but one of the major players are new characters to the franchise, which allows for less rigid development, while also meaning that people can be maimed and killed off with fear of offending the canon.

There is one character who returns, however, and it is a very old name. 343 Guilty Spark originated in the very first Halo game, and while the version we see here is very much changed, it’s still recognisably the same old Spark. What is more remarkable, however, is how well the Rion Forge trilogy builds on and expands the revelations from Greg bear’s Forerunner Saga. It’s not only Gulity Spark we must reconcile with, but Chakas the ancient human that he once was. As someone who enjoyed Bear’s work, Gay’s mining of it comes across as one of the great things about expanded universes. They are not only in sequence with one another. They are in conversation with one another. This does mean that people who haven’t read the earlier novels won’t get anywhere near as much out of the book, but it also makes the universe feel more alive. An ever evolving thing rather than a list of disconnected stories.

That interconnectivity does come back to bite. The first book in this series is a very fun adventure. the middle instalment is the best Halo book I’ve read. The third part, however, is easily the weakest. The writing is still great, and the time we spend with now-familiar characters as excellent as ever. But, because this is a tie-in book and therefore must tie-in to the larger universe, the book reaches a climax not because of natural developments in the plot, but because the timeline dictates it. I haven’t played Halo 5: Guardians, but the events of that game come crashing into the book without warning or explanation. It’s a somewhat sour end note to a series that otherwise had my unequivocal recommendation. But then, if you’ve played all the games, maybe this would all make perfect sense to you.

In spite of the rushed ending, this is still a highpoint of the universe. Gay has written another Halo novel, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll get to it with all the context I need to get the most out of it.

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