Halo: New Blood

By Matt Forbeck

When the United Nations Space Command decide to create a new generation of Spartans to defend humanity from threats both outside and within, they come to Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck with an extraordinary proposition. With the Covenant War finally over, is it time for him to retire to the sidelines for a life he could only dream about...or is he prepared to step up and become part of the military's new blood?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Titan Books
• Release date: Jun 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781785650635

Matt Forbeck

Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author and game designer. He has more than thirty novels and countless games published to date. His latest work includes Dungeonlogy, the Star Wars: Rogue One junior novel, the last two editions of The Marvel Encyclopedia, his Monster Academy YA fantasy novels, and the upcoming Shotguns & Sorcery roleplaying game based on his novels. He lives in Beloit, WI, with his wife and five children, including a set of quadruplets. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.

Reviews for Halo

[tbones-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Halo New Blood was exciting and action packed. I think, since I played the game a little bit, a while back, I was able to visualize things better. Forbeck does a decent job of trying to describe the Halo world to his audience but for a new recruit to the UNSC or The Spartans, I'd say play the video games or look up some Halo stuff online, then attack this title.

[plappen_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set approximately 500 years from now, this novel, part of a series, is about humanity in the middle of an interplanetary war. Their opponent is a large group of species and factions collectively called the Covenant.Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck is an average soldier in that war. He and his Strike Team are part of the Orbital Deep Shock Troopers, or ODST. The relationship between Strike Team members is much more than just trusting each other. They have to know what their colleague is going to do before he does it. Even though they have the latest weapons and battle armor, the Troopers still have a high death rate.The ODST play a major role in thwarting a Covenant invasion of Earth at the end of the Covenant War. Buck has every justification for wanting to retire to someplace quiet with Veronica (who works for the Office of Naval Intelligence), his girlfriend. The Spartan program will give Buck and the other Troopers the chance to, literally, become super soldiers. Buck is very reluctant to go through the internal, and external, modifications that are necessary, until Veronica convinces him.Meantime, there are some humans who really don't like the United Nations (the name of the human planetary confederation). Now that the Covenant War is over, they can't help but think that the Spartan soldiers will be used on them, to stifle all dissent. For Buck, fighting the Covenant War, was, figuratively, easy (if a being is alien, fire away). It gets a lot harder when the enemy is human, perhaps even another Spartan.This is my first exposure to the "world" of Halo, based on the popular computer game. This novel is really good. As you can expect, there is a lot of action, but the characters are real people, too. The author does a first-rate job from start to finish, and it is well worth reading.