The Fall of Reach

STATS

Title: The Fall of Reach

Series: HALO

Author(s): Eric Nylund

Genre: Science Fiction (Military)

First Printing: 2001 (first printing); August 2010 (Tor trade paperback)

Publisher: Del Rey (first printing): Tor (trade paperback)

SPOILER WARNING

Mild spoilers will be necessary to properly break down this story.  I will include “Heavy Spoilers” in the heading for any section where further detail is required.  I will keep the first paragraph of section as spoiler-free as possible in case you want to read the book for yourself before coming back for the full analysis.

PREMISE & PLOT

For over 20 years, HALO has been a multimedia behemoth.  Chronicling first the interstellar war between the humans of the United Nations Space Command and the theocratic alien alliance of the Covenant, then the power struggles the erupted in the war’s aftermath, it includes nearly a dozen video games, dozens of books, direct-to-DVD films, an anime anthology, and that Silver Timeline show that shows that Paramount’s questionable calls with Bad Robot Star Trek were not flukes. Before all of that, though – technically, before even the first video game, Combat Evolved, released – there was a prequel novel.

The Fall of Reach chronicles the life of HALO’s main protagonist, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 (hereafter referred to as “the Master Chief” or “Chief”), from his conscription into the SPARTAN-II Program in 2517 to the final days of the Human-Covenant War in 2542.  We meet him at the tender age of six, just prior to his abduction and training; we watch him go through his training and augmentation to become the ideal soldier.  We then ride through both the ignition and endgame of the Human-Covenant War with him.  Along the way, we become acquainted with other critical characters from the games, including Doctor Catherine Halsey, Captain Jacob Keyes, and the smart A.I. knows as Cortana.  The story ends with the destruction of the planet Reach at the hands of the Covenant, catapulting Chief into the events of Combat Evolved.

RATING: 7.5/10

The Fall of Reach makes no pretense about being anything more than a tie-in for a video game.  While it does bear the hallmarks of military sci-fi, diving into the grand battles, small skirmishes, and the endless tactical and strategic calculations of military conflict, the focus is first and foremost upon fleshing out (and marketing) the characters, ships, and weapons of the video game.  I’m not going to claim that it is objectively phenomenal literature, because the novel itself has no ambitions of such.

At the same time, this novel exceeds the expectations set for it.  There’s more to it than gear porn and convincing us that Master Chief is awesome.  It takes characters from being tropes to being fleshed-out people with flaws, doubts and individual perspectives on the setting and the conflict that surround them.  While Chief’s abilities are showcased, the story doesn’t lean upon that alone.  As for the gear porn, while it bogs down the story in a few places (we didn’t need to know that a Warthog has an Archer missile pod mounted on the back when said Warthog is just being driven through a safe installation), the focus is generally kept on the elements that would most benefit the novel itself, establishing clear limits and stakes for the action scenes.

If you are a fan of HALO or of military science fiction, I highly recommend this book. If not, I still think it’s worth a read.  It’s a good time, and I find myself rereading it every few years.

CONTENT WARNING

This book has a LOT of violence, and it doesn’t shy away from gore.  That being said, it’s nothing beyond what would be expected for a story about military conflict.

Due to the nature of the SPARTAN-II Program as an agoge-style conscription of children, there are several dark moments of child abuse that are shown or referenced, including zapping six-year-olds with cattle prods.  The SPARTAN-IIs are also very literal child soldiers, deployed for combat operations by the age of fourteen.  Again, this isn’t indulgent.  The story is taking time to acknowledge how incredibly dark it is and why the UNSC was driven to it.  It doesn’t pretend that these are good or normal things.

WHAT I LIKED

John

While The Fall of Reach has multiple POV characters this is very much a Master Chief origin story.

In the games, Chief is a stoic badass.  We never see his face – in fact, the only time his helmet comes off is the cinematic for the Legendary ending of HALO 4, and even that shot was a close-up on his eyes.  He is neither emotionless nor incapable of emoting, for his body language is quite expressive (especially in later games with better graphics), but at the time of Combat Evolved, he was not particularly deep or nuanced.  The story needed the perfect soldier, a paragon who was the last hope of humanity.  Chief succeeded in that capacity.

The Fall of Reach provides the depth and nuance that Combat Evolved alone did not.  We are introduced to John, a tough and spirited boy who likes to flex his physical abilities to dominate the other children around him.  Through an efficient series of scenes that cover the training of him and his fellow SPARTAN-IIs, we see how John is gradually molded into a soldier, learning and then applying lessons that reflect his core character traits in the games.  As the story transitions into the Human-Covenant War and John becomes the Master Chief, we get to experience his train of thought through the narrative, giving us insight into exactly what goes on inside that iconic helmet of his while he’s engaged in combat.

This is one of the most efficient and effective character arcs that I’ve ever read.  This book is worth reading just to see how a character can undergo rapid growth and then reflect that growth within just a single narrative.

Combat

Both the gunfights and the space battles in this book as great.  While they are not phenomenal in choreography or spectacle, I think they are successful at building sakes and tension and at maintaining investment in the action.

Science fiction and fantasy often struggles with establishing clear stakes and tension.  This is because, unlike stories that are wholly grounded in familiar, real-world elements, these stories often introduce speculative, fantastical, or simply obscure elements that readers don’t inherently understand, making it much harder to understand what is possible and why things happen the way that they do.  HALO has to deal with this on multiple fronts: the advanced technology of the UNSC compared to our real world, the borderline fantastical technology of the Covenant, and the superhuman abilities of the SPARTAN-IIs.  Nylund does a good job of addressing this problem.  Through straightforward examples in the text, he makes it clear where different parties stand and what their limitations are.  When Master Chief or Keyes defeat a Covenant adversary, it never feels arbitrary.  The characters exist within a world of consistent and understandable rules, and they plan within those rules to achieve victory.

Building on the above is the matter of investment.  In a story without clear rules, it is hard to get emotionally invested in any conflict.  The audience doesn’t fully understand the nature of the danger, and they don’t understand what will or won’t work to escape that danger; this makes it hard to truly care about what’s happening to the protagonists, as we can count of them surviving the situation because the book is not over yet.  Because Nylund makes it easy to understand the rules, we understand when and how the POV characters are in danger.

Necessary Evil (Heavy Spoilers)

As mentioned in the Content Warning, the in-world reason that the SPARTAN-II Program was given that name was as a reference to the agoge of ancient Sparta.  The characters who conceived and operated it are fully aware that they are indoctrinating and training child soldiers.

John and his fellow SPARTAN-IIs are identified through genetic screening and abducted by the UNSC at the age of six.  By the time they are eight, they have been shocked with cattle prods, shot with paintball guns, lasted by sonic mines, and denied meals for failing grueling military training courses.  At the age of fourteen, they are subjected to horrific physical augmentations that kill or cripple half of their class; a few months after that, they have their first combat deployment, the Human-Covenant War breaks out, and they suffer their first combat casualty.

And yes, I did put their first deployment before the outbreak of the Human-Covenant War.  The SPARTAN-IIs were not conceived to defend humanity from an alien aggressor.  They were intended as weapons of pinpoint destruction to subjugate rebellions against the UNSC’s vast empire.  Their first combat mission was to breach a rebel stronghold and abduct the rebel leader.  The fact they were ready for deployment when the Covenant arrived was a happy coincidence.

What’s so brilliant about this story about child soldiers is how The Fall of Reach engages with the disturbing and unpleasant elements of it.  The issues aren’t buried or handwaved (which, given that this was marketing for Combat Evolved, there was a strong incentive to do).  The UNSC isn’t turned into a caricature of evil just to condemn it.  Instead, through the POV of Dr. Halsey, the mastermind behind the SPARTAN-IIs, we learn that the people involved in this program are well aware of how horrible their actions are … and also learn how desperate they are to condemn a human civil war that could reduce the entire UNSC into a burned-out husk of primitive, barren worlds.

Halsey doesn’t act as though her actions are justified.  She has a solid argument to do so, but she doesn’t.  Instead, she (and, by extension, the story) acknowledges both the need and the costs.  In a literary landscape where Necessary Evil is so often relegated to a villainous rationalization or a justification for heroes to do horrific things while still being presented as the good guys, this is a refreshing take.

WHAT I DISLIKED

Prequelitus (Heavy Spoilers)

While The Fall of Reach doesn’t make any pretense of being more than a tie-in for Combat Evolved, that honesty does not negate the fact that this book both struggles to stand on its own and is weighed down by the baggage that comes from being a video game prequel.

This book doesn’t have a plot so much as a series of events – training sequences and battles – stitched together.  The titular fall of the planet Reach isn’t something that the book builds towards: it is foreshadowed in one scene about 75% through the book and then serves as the climax.  Master Chief’s story, while being a wonderful piece of character work, effectively plateaus once he clears training.  If you did not know that this was all setup for the opening of Combat Evolved, I think that this would be unsatisfying as a stand-alone story.

The worldbuilding is very sparse – I’d dare say it’s superficial, much like Notorious Sorcerer.  You can tell that Nylund was handed a worldbuilding bible for an incomplete game and told to work with what was in it.  To his credit, he does a wonderful job within those limitations.  He makes the action and the characters work, and he doesn’t put too much weight on the worldbuilding to support the weight of the story.  HALO fans will also be aware that there is indeed substance under the shell.  Taking the book in isolation, though, there’s a sense of fragility to the world.

On the flip side of this, anyone with a modicum of HALO knowledge (and after all these years, anyone who casually picks up this book is probably already a HALO fan) knows the outcome of the story.  Master Chief, Cortana, Keyes, and Halsey will all live through this book.  Reach will be destroyed.  The Pillar of Autumn (the hero ship from Combat Evolved) will escape the battle.  All SPARTAN-IIs except Chief will be MIA or KIA by the end so that he can be “the last” one.  The Pillar of Autumn will discover Installation-04 at the end of the story.  Again, to Nylund’s credit, he keeps the focus on character work and personal stakes, preserving as much tension as possible, but that’s like saying that Shadow of the Conqueror provides internal conflict to offset the void of external conflict.  We are promised an action story on the back of the book.  The action may be great, but the plot that goes with that action is lacking.

Instruments of the Gods

Building upon the issue of fragile worldbuilding, the Covenant are not good antagonists in the story, at least not in a literary sense.

While HALO does have deep themes and ideological conflicts, the main selling point is getting to shoot hordes of exotic alien soldiers in the face (often with guns claimed after shooting their comrades).  That aspect is successfully conveyed into the book.  However, unlike in the game, there is no spectacle.  There are no pretty graphics, fast-paced button pressing, or comedic screaming from the Grunts to provide entertainment.  The Covenant are just The Bad Guys.

Again, I want to give Nylund credit.  He played into that sense of mystery.  In this book, the UNSC (at least, their military) doesn’t know why the Covenant wants to exterminate humanity.  Nylund effectively turns the Covenant into a force of nature, one the audience doesn’t need to understand to fear.

Also again, that doesn’t erase the inherent problem here.  There’s nothing memorable or remarkable about the Covenant as presented in this book.  They could have been replaced by swarms of space spiders or a zombie rage virus without fundamentally altering this story.  This story gets a lot less interesting when the Human-Covenant War breaks out.  Ironically, the SPARTAN-IIs’ original purpose offered a more nuanced and engaging story.  The scenes where John leads a handpicked squad to destroy a rebel cell are far more interesting than any battle with the Covenant, because at least one can easily fill in the blanks about the rebels based upon their opposition to the UNSC.

LESSONS LEARNED

Condensed Character

A character arc can be effectively condensed into just a handful of sequential scenes.  It’s all about providing proper context.  Master Chief’s development in this book is worth studying, and I recommend reading this book just for that.

Flex the Limitations

The flaws of this book are not Nylund’s fault.  He did the best with what he had.  I think that anyone who is writing a prequel or gets commissioned to write some form of franchise tie-in can follow this example to make the most of both limitations and gaps in the lore.  It’s just that, at the same time, you want to detour so far around potential pitfalls that you miss the turns that you need to take.

FINDING JADE

Who’s up for a wuxia gangster saga?

The Greenbone Saga, a trilogy written by Fonda Lee, wrapped up in 2021.  I picked up the first book, Jade City, on a last-minute bookstore run before I flew to Japan.  I am very happy that I did.

Jade City is the best thing I’ve read since the Licanius Trilogy.  While it is not flawless, its flaws are only noticeable because everything else is so phenomenal.  I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys martial arts, gangster stories, or fantasies set in more modern settings.  If I were to write a glowing review that praised everything this does right, it would easily be 30,000 words.  I’ve cherrypicked my favorite points for my review.

It's all coming on June 8th.  I hope to see you all then!