Review Of "Halo First Strike" By Eric Nylund

         I just recently finish the book "Halo First Strike" By  Eric Nylund.  It is a continuation of "Halo the Fall of Reach" Also by Eric Nylund and "Halo the Flood" By William C. Dietz so i would recommend reading those before first strike for a true experience of how great the writing in this book is.  However it is possible to understand the story through this book alone. It is like this in most of the series because of the back story and references provided.

         Halo the fall of reach was fill with never ending action and continues the Halo Story line perfectly (in my opinion) from the last books. What really sets it apart from the previous books in the series is that it shows the main characters difficulty with certain moral choices that earlier in the storyline he would have never dreamed of questioning.  The book also does a great job of characterizing almost all characters in the storyline no-matter how involved with the main storyline they are.

        Over all i would recommend this book to anyone except those that are a little squeamish with violence and sometimes in depth descriptions of the action of violence and its results (it is after all a book about a war, fictional but taken as if it were not).  Also I would recommend reading the previous books first like I mentioned above.

Context of the story ("Halo First Strike" By:Eric Nylund)

          The Book "Halo First Strike" by: Eric Nylund is set in the Halo universe  which if you don't know what Halo is here is an explanation.  The book takes place after the first one in the series called "Halo The Fall Of Reach.  The story is centered around the "Spartans" they are a group of genetically modified and heavily armed soldiers that reside in almost legendary status in the UNSC military (United Nations Space Command) as hulking, armored, robotic, killing machines.  It may appear this way in there  Mjölnir  powered armor suits that when put on the spartans stand an average of eight feet tall and the ruthless efficenci with which they operate with.  Inside though these "Spartans" beneath all of the increased bone structure and toughened organs they are human, atleast mostly on the inside. 

         As children they were screened by a woman named Dr. Cathrine Halsy.  She was the creator of the SPARTAN I, and SPARTAN II project and which the first of which failed.  Once the children where screened and the best of the best chosen they were abducted and taken to the millitary planet of Reach.  Once on Reach they were trained from the age of six or seven to become the killing machines that they would eventualy grow into.


        Eventualy after the "Spartans" had taken on a few missions against insurectionistes and criminals a bigger threat emerged The Covenent.  The Covonent is a vastly supirior alien race intent on destroying humanity so they can go on the "Great Journy".  This "Great Journy" involves activating a set of rings that once set off will kill everything in exestance, these were orginaly put into place to stop another alien species called "The Flood" from destroying all organic life.  It is up to the main charecter John 117 and the spartans under his command to save the human race from all of these threats.

Fahrenheit 451 creating suspence

The book Fahrenheit 451 is a suspenseful yet hard to understand book that has a few interesting twists and turns throughout the book  that make you want to at least keep reading until the next bit of rising action.  One moment in the second part of the book realy shined as an example the authors ability to create this suspence and buildup.  Later into the second part Montag, the main charecter, starts to lose it with his job and his boss.  This passage does, well a good example of showing this and when Montag finaly breaks "Montag only said, 'We never burned right...' ; Hand it over, Guy,' said beatty with a fixed smile. And then he was a shrieking blaze...'(Ray Bradbarry pg 113).  This shows the moment when Montag finaly snaps and ends up killing Beatty and just overall loseing it.  The build up to this was a tremendus bit when Beatty asked for Montag to give him the flame througher and goes up to the point when Montag finaly kills him.