First Strike (Halo #3)
by Eric Nylund

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Book Reviews of First Strike (Halo #3)

Book Review: Thinking Out of the Box
Summary: 5 Stars

In this novel, the Master Chief and Cortana are lurking in the vicinity of Halo in a Longsword attack craft. They have repeatedly scanned the volume for other survivors, but none have been found. However, they do discover an oversized Covenant ship coming out of slipspace. Quickly powering down most systems to avoid detection, they discover that the Covenant flagship is using the same frequency bands as their equipment and Cortana manages to analyze the scattered returns sufficiently to register an object that they find to be a trio of cyropods.

Using thrusters only, they maneuver the Longsword near the cyropods and the Master Chief goes EVA to bring them back inside. Two Covenant cruisers enter the vicinity and start to move toward them. However, a previously unnoticed Pelican drop ship hidden on an asteroid fires three missiles at the Covenanters and the cruisers turn to chase the Pelican. The Master Chief hustles the pods onboard and Cortana seals the hatch and fires their engines. As the Covenant ships lose the Pelican in the surrounding debris, the Master Chief takes the cruisers under fire and Cortana starts an evasion run.

The Master Chief, Cortana and those on the Pelican are at large, but unable to escape, since neither craft has a Shaw-Fujikawa drive. In fact, the only slipspace capable vessels in the system are Covenant. The Master Chief starts making plans to take over the Covenant flagship.

Meanwhile, in a flashback to the fall of Reach, it appears that the Covenant forces didn't glass the whole planet with plasma fire. The area occupied by the top secret ONI facility, Castlebase, was not hit from orbit, but Covenant ground forces were starting to dig their way into the underground facility. Several SPARTAN survivors from the orbital generator facility battle rally nearby, infiltrate the enemy, hijack two Wraith tanks, destroy the digging equipment, and then slip inside the base through another entrance.

In this story, the Master Chief and a few other survivors from Halo return to Reach in the captured Covenant flagship. Cortana has gathered valuable information on Covenant weapons and slipspace technology. Moreover, she has determined that the local Covenant forces are gathering ships to attack Earth in the very near future. Somehow, they have to get all this critical data back to Earth as soon as possible.

This story is typical of the series, in that a lot of 7.62mm ammo is expended to take out an unbelievable number of Covenant troops. How they carry all that ammo and other munitions is a puzzler. However, there is a semblance of a plot and a higher mission. Best of all, some of the characters that were thought to be lost with the fall of Reach are now discovered to be alive and shooting, but the list of MIAs and KIAs is still long.

The story also displays aspects of Covenant society that were not mentioned in the previous books and gives more hints about the forerunners. However, this installment ends with humanity on the edge of destruction. The last scene hints of at least one more volume.

Highly recommended for Halo fans and for anyone else who enjoys nonstop firefights with a variety of horrifying and powerful opponents.

Summary of First Strike (Halo #3)

Action & Adventure Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Action & Adventure
• Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Adventure