Halo: Cryptum: Book One of the Forerunner Saga
By Greg Bear
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
100,000 years ago, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings.
But one species--eons beyond all others in both technology and knowledge--achieved dominance.
They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness.
They were the Forerunners--the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe's Living Time.
And then they vanished.
This is their story.
Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting is a young rebellious Forerunner. He is a Manipular, untried--yet to become part of the adult Forerunner society, where vast knowledge and duty waits. He comes from a family of Builders, the Forerunners' highest and most politically powerful rate. It is the Builders who create the grand technology that facilitates Forerunner dominance over the known universe. It is the Builders who believe they must shoulder the greatest burden of the Mantle--as shepherds and guardians of all life.
Bornstellar is marked to become a great Builder just like his father.
But this Manipular has other plans.
He is obsessed with lost treasures of the past. His reckless passion to seek out the marvelous artifacts left behind by the Precursors--long-vanished superbeings of unknowable power and intent---forces his father's hand.
Bornstellar is sent to live among the Miners, where he must come to terms with where his duty truly lies.
But powerful forces are at play. Forerunner society is at a major crux. Past threats are once again proving relentless. Dire solutions--machines and strategies never before contemplated--are being called up, and fissures in Forerunner power are leading to chaos.
On a Lifeworker's experimental planet, Bornstellar's rebellious course crosses the paths of two humans, and the long lifeline of a great military leader, forever changing Bornstellar's destiny ...and the fate of the entire galaxy.
Halo: Cryptum by Greg Bear is a tale of life, death, intergalactic horror, exile, and maturity. It is a story of overwhelming change--and of human origins. For the Mantle may not lie upon the shoulders of Forerunners forever.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Greg Bear
Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. His father was in the US Navy, and by the time he was twelve years old, Greg had lived in Japan, the Philippines, Alaska – where at the age of ten he completed his first short story – and various other parts of the US. He published his first science fiction story aged sixteen. His novels and stories have won prizes and been translated around the world.
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Reviews for Halo
5 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I have never read or played Halo before. If you are are in the same place as i am then this book is for you. It starts at the very beginning of the HALO saga, and tells the story of the Forerunners, the Flood, the rise and deevolution of man, and the HALO devices. I love big space opera's and this has the promise of a big one. The big space opera facet of the story is also its big weakness. The story seems to ramble amoung various subplots and there is not much action. Plus the narrative style the story is written in with references to past untold actions leaves the reader confused at times.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Greg Bear is a recognized science fiction author in his own right- recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards-- and his style and prowess shine in the first installment of the Forerunner saga. From the single page prelude on the novel is fascinating, fast paced, incredibly different, and beautifully constructed. The slow unveiling of aspects of Forerunner society and the world at the time before the Halos were deployed is impeccably designed, and the combination of the Didact and Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting allows a ‘coming of age story’ narrator with much more breadth and depth of character. There are any number of incredible quotes, and both the first lines and last lines of the novel are designed to enthrall, entrance, entice any fan of the Halo franchise. I cannot recommend this novel enough to science fiction fans, even those who are not fans the Halo games.The Didact, the Librarian, the Master Builder, the Captive, Mendicant Bias… so many threads woven together into something beautiful. Bear does not reveal everything, but maintains a story that does not feel like he is deliberately hiding things from the audience. The tale flows naturally and slowly constructs a world different from our own on almost every level and yet, as with Battlestar Galactica, somehow destined to tie in to our own.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Finished several months back. It is very different than most of the other books. The pacing is slower. The scope is larger. It follows the development of the Alien culture and gives some insight into who they are. Possibly my least favorite Halo book so far but I will probably read the next one to see how the story continues to develop.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Different from other Greg bear books I have read. Have to say I like those others better than this series but that said, I have just also finished te second in this series and the story has captured e none the less.