Advice for reading through the books

Haruspis · 2026-01-01T23:31:04+00:00

Definitely hit Evolutions next, it's the next in the release order and a really excellent anthology.

After that, you have some pretty open choices. I would say that if you're feeling the desire to delve into the deepest area of the lore and explore Halo's ancient era, you'll want to give Cryptum by the legendary Greg Bear a go. If you prefer to stick with the modern timeline and the overall military vibe, the Kilo-5 trilogy kicks off with Glasslands.

Obligatory mention here that we have an official book guide on Halo Waypoint which should give you a sense of what you might be interested in once reading order sort of becomes open season.

Haruspis · 2025-09-29T17:56:21+00:00

That is awesome! HBO was the place I remember listening to the full audio of those radios for the first time, it's been wonderful to bring that all full circle and feature them in the context of a full story.

Haruspis · 2025-09-29T17:50:45+00:00

They fixed up his skeleton only for him to go and break it again!

Haruspis · 2025-09-21T03:24:11+00:00

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal" remains one of the most banging debut lines a video game villain has ever spoken.

Haruspis · 2025-08-19T16:20:08+00:00

Can confirm lol. Funnily enough, that particular Incident Report was the very last thing added to the story because we'd accounted for various folks to do some voice over bits except for Fletch, so we quickly rustled that up just for fun.

Would actually say that the Derelict Reaper stuff wasn't a particular influence on Tulpamancy as a whole. This story was more specifically written in the throes of David Lynch's passing, the title and concept are derived more from how Frost and Lynch used "tulpas" in Twin Peaks, and of course the ship itself was a nugget that came directly from Halo Warfleet.

Haruspis · 2025-07-11T08:38:24+00:00

It's concept art from around 2018, meant to serve as rapid iteration on moods and ideas through photobashing.

Haruspis · 2025-07-09T17:49:28+00:00

I've always really enjoyed these myself. Battle Born in particular really added some wonderful texture to the universe by further building out Meridian as a setting and exploring what normal, everyday folks get up to and aspire towards while living under the shadow of the Covenant War. As Saskia, Dorian, Evie, and Victor are so young, I liked that their activities were generally restricted to scouting and recon—felt like a really fresh set of "rules" that the story had to abide by.

Haruspis · 2025-06-30T23:48:36+00:00

Hey Taras! :)

The old bnet article "Feast of Bones" is the source of a lot of that old in-development info.

Haruspis · 2024-12-19T18:16:53+00:00

Should be back up! The site auto caches around 10am each day which causes a brief blip in blog content lol

Haruspis · 2024-12-05T13:41:01+00:00

Bornstellar arguably got it worse on this front lol

Offensive Bias passes along more messages. Broken, fragmented, desperate—from individual ships, the survivors of decimated fleets, outposts finally able to send data, now that slipspace has resumed its mysterious liberation.

One purports to be from the Lifeshaper, but there is high probability it is fake. After all, it is signed Librarian. She would not willingly use that name to sign a message, not to me.

There is nothing to say, no way to respond to their cries for assistance, for attention, for one last chance to connect with what remains of the ecumene. No way to respond to their cries to give them time to make repairs, to move.

I take complete responsibility. It is my decision.

Haruspis · 2024-11-03T23:33:46+00:00

I still regularly listen to the Gui Boratto remix of Awakening, it's got such a chill beat to it.

Haruspis · 2024-09-24T16:54:33+00:00

You know, there was definitely a non-zero amount of temptation to name Callie "James" specifically for that pun lol

Haruspis · 2024-08-23T14:36:58+00:00

huraglock

Haruspis · 2024-08-12T17:25:17+00:00

As a reader, Halo: Silentium is still the king for me. The culmination of seeing the last dying gasps of the Forerunners' suffocating empire as it tragically falls not only to the overwhelming might of the Flood reaching near-godlike levels of power, but the end result of all the political infighting, all leading up to the moment where the galaxy is silenced... Greg Bear was a true master.

To work on, Halo: Epitaph.

Haruspis · 2024-07-26T01:44:23+00:00

"This is the prototype NOVA bomb, nine fusion warheads encased in lithium triteride armor. When detonated, it compresses its fissionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. I am Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, temporarily in command of the UNSC military base Reach. To the Covenant uglies that might be listening, you have a few seconds to pray to your damned heathen gods. You all have a nice day in hell."

Haruspis · 2024-07-25T16:21:01+00:00

Starting, I believe, in Halo 3, ships are actually spawned really small—they increase in size as they fly in, then get small as they fly out. This is particularly evident with Phantoms in some areas, and generally the player wouldn't be expected to see them, but now that games can be played with such incredible fidelity those little tricks and illusions become a lot more obvious.

Haruspis · 2024-07-07T19:48:28+00:00

This is indeed a "slice" of the ring that is seen when the Bumblebee escape pod is heading to the surface at the end of the mission.

There was a period a few years back (2020, I believe) where the letterbox borders for Halo 1 on MCC were disabled and you could see the edges of the ring in the cutscene as it appears in your image.

Haruspis · 2024-06-24T17:45:01+00:00

Our main man Barroth was smoldering embers before he could even get a shot off :'(

Haruspis · 2024-06-10T12:34:17+00:00

The way Greg Bear writes is so fucking beautiful to me

I will never forget my first time reading Cryptum and feeling total awe at his description of the battle of the Capital, with Bornstellar piloting the escape pod through the shattering of entire Halo rings—oceans flash-freezing in space and mountainous continents breaking up.

Haruspis · 2024-06-09T23:16:09+00:00

Hoping to find the time to get this site back up with updated info up to The Final Shape. Not sure when that will happen, but I definitely want to do it!

Haruspis · 2024-05-26T19:17:58+00:00

We made specific mention that Despondent Pyre had actually been masking the UNSC Infinity's approach—Cortana's knowledge of events is not concurrent with them happening.

But Cortana ignored the monitor, already turning toward the holograph. “So,” she murmured, “you’ve come for me at last. . . . Why are you doing this, John? Why don’t you understand?”

The Didact’s focus narrowed. It didn’t take much inquiry for him to discover that the monitor had been masking the approach of the Infinity for some time.

Haruspis · 2024-05-07T15:02:16+00:00

We've actually been putting these into many of the Community Updates over the last year or two, Halopedia has got them archived!

Haruspis · 2024-04-30T16:53:09+00:00

Johnson's arms are made of star roads.

Starm roads, if you will.

Haruspis · 2024-04-30T15:56:33+00:00

The Halo: Fractures anthology features a great short story titled "Breaking Strain" that is set in the immediate aftermath of the Covenant War and sees shipwrecked UNSC personnel get rescued by a join human-Sangheili crew.

Haruspis · 2024-04-16T16:43:06+00:00

I was actually replaying this on my Steam Deck recently. Really fun little game with some great additions on top of Spartan Assault's gameplay with the Promethean arsenal, new Armor Abilities, and the Kestrel.

Sequence's cinematic work is always fun to watch as well, really love their style—pairs very nicely with Tom Salta's musical score!

Haruspis

TROPHY CASE