Halo: Hunters in the Dark by Peter David

On 01/02/2016 at 04:02 AM by KnightDriver

Just finished this book today. I liked it. It tells the story of a crisis that happens after the Covenant/Human war where Elites and Humans have to cooperate on a mission to the Forerunner Ark. The Ark is like the mothership of the Forerunners. It's where the Halo rings were made and managed.

Image used for the book cover.

This book could easily be made into a video game script. As I read it, I could see the various settings as levels and each set of enemies you'd have to fight along the way to the final boss battle and resolution. It's kind of weird to think of video game level design influencing writing, but here's a clear example of it.

Peter David's written for like every media form you can think of like comics, video games, and TV and film. I read his Fable novel a few years back and some of his comics like Halo: Helljumpers. I've been satisfied by what I've read so far.

My one issue with this Halo: Hunters in the Dark novel is the shift in focus from the expert in Forerunner technology, Luther, to the communications expert Vale about half way through the book. Luther seemed like a Gordon Freeman (Half-Life) type character and the book kind of shoves him to the side in the last third of the book with Vale taking center stage in the final conflict. I would've liked to have seen Luther stay as the central character.

So, it was fun. Read like a video game script. I would love to play it.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

01/02/2016 at 04:30 AM

I remember Peter David. He used to write X-Factor for a while. I remember when he started it was an "event". I think he wrote Hulk for a bit too.

KnightDriver

01/02/2016 at 04:35 PM

Yea, Hulk for like 12 years according to the bio in the back of the book. He also did the script for Shadow Complex I saw.

Super Step Contributing Writer

01/02/2016 at 01:45 PM

Hmmm ... wonder what else he has written I'd enjoy, since he's so spread out.

01/03/2016 at 03:14 AM

He's done so much stuff, you've probably caught some of it without knowing.

01/03/2016 at 12:02 PM

So he's an STD, then?

goaztecs

01/06/2016 at 10:48 AM

I've never read stories based on video games. Overall do they follow the storyline presented in the game, or do they go with a completely different storyline but use the characters from the game?

01/06/2016 at 04:18 PM

This one isn't directly based on any specific game. It just takes place within the Halo universe and references story elements from the games. This one doesn't have any characters in the games that I could tell.

Most of the Halo books are not directly about the games, and most of them introduce new characters rather than stick with the ones in the games. Exceptions would be Fall of Reach and The Flood. The former is all about Master Chief, though, it's quite different than the game Reach, and the latter is based directly off Halo: Combat Evolved. This one is like a write up of a playthrough of the game. That one was less interesting than the others.

I read one of the Mass Effect books once. It was a prequel story to the first game, if I remember right; and I read a Fable book, which was a kind of side story to Fable II.

01/07/2016 at 10:37 AM

Oh ok. I like that they expand the universe but at the same time reference events within the game.

01/08/2016 at 01:27 AM

Yea, I'm reading Halo: Last Light right now and it has several Spartan II's from Master Chief's original team, but it's on a different world and is a murder mystery.

PixlBit

Halo: Hunters in the Dark by Peter David

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