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Books Video Games

Exclusive Interview: “Halo: The Official Cookbook” Writer Victoria Rosenthal

 

The only thing harder than being a genetically-modified super soldier in power armor who’s trying to save the galaxy from a cabal of religious fanatic aliens is trying to decide what to make for dinner before the universe is cleansed of all sentient life by a giant ring hula hoop. Or at least it used to be. Now, you just have to consult Halo: The Official Cookbook (hardcover, Kindle) to find whatever you need to satisfy your universal hunger. In the following email interview, Cookbook author Victoria Rosenthal details what went into this recipe collection, and without ever uttering the phrase “out of this world.”

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “Halo: Smoke And Shadow” Author Kelly Gay

 

In 2017, science fiction writer Nancy Kress decided her novella Yesterday’s Kin needed to be expanded into trilogy of novels Tomorrow’s Kin, If Tomorrow Comes, and the upcoming Terran Tomorrow. But while fellow sci-fi writer Kelly Gay took a similar path with her novella Halo Smoke And Shadow, which started life as the short story “Into The Fire,” she says that this tale inspired by the Halo video games — which is now available in paperback after more than a year of being digital only — was originally conceived as the longer version.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Halo Envoy Author Tobias S Buckell

Like books based on movies, TV shows, and other games, the novels based on the Halo games do their best to feel like they fit in with the shooters that inspired them. But with his new novel Halo Envoy (trade paperback, mass market paperback, digital) — in which a civil war between the Sangheili threatens the peace on a world where they and human colonists are trying to make a new life for themselves — writer Tobias S Buckell has actually come up with a story that doesn’t just compliment the Halo games, it could work as a game as well.

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Books Video Games Xbox 360 Xbox One

Exclusive Interview: “Halo Fractures” Authors Matt Forbeck, Christie Golden, And Troy Denning

 

With the strategy game Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One, PC) not coming out until February 21st of 2017, fans of the Halo games are undoubtedly going through withdrawal. Thankfully, Gallery Book has a fix in the form of Halo Fractures (paperback, digital), a collection of short stories from such sci-fi writers as John Jackson Miller (Star Wars: A New Dawn), such Halo novelists as Tobias Buckell (Halo: The Cole Protocol), and even such Halo game writers as Brian Reed, who co-wrote Halo 4 and was the lead writer on Halo 5: Guardians, and also penned the comic books Halo: Initiation, Halo: Escalation, and Halo: Fall Of Reach, the graphic novel adaptation of Eric Nyland’s prequel novel, Halo: The Fall Of Reach.

To find out more about the stories in Halo Fractures, I posed (mostly) the same questions to three of the books contributors: Matt Forbeck, who wrote the novel Halo: New Blood; Halo: Last Light writer Troy Denning; and Christie Golden, who’s new to the Halo cannon, but has written novels based on the StarCraft games as well as the worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek.

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PC Video Games Xbox One

Halo’s Warthog Handles Better In Forza Horizon 3; Has Its Own Races

Along with the satisfaction of knowing you have good taste, people who buy the excellent new racing game Forza Horizon 3 on Xbox One or PC — my review of which is here — who’ve also played either Halo: The Master Chief Collection or Halo 5: Guardians will get a free M12S Warthog CST from AMG Transport Dynamics they can use in the racing game. Even cooler, the Warthog actually handles better in Forza Horizon 3 than it ever has in a Halo game, and even has its own race events. Sort of.

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Books Video Games

Exclusive Interview: Halo New Blood Author Matt Forbeck

It’s easy to think that the age of physical media is coming to an end. And for some things, it clearly is. But it seems the death of paper books may have been greatly exaggerated. Case in point: Matt Forbeck’s Halo New Blood. Though it was originally released digitally last year, the sci-fi novel — about a character from the video games Halo 3: ODST and Halo 5: Guardians — is now being released in paperback…by popular demand.

For those who missed it when it was 1s and 0s instead of paper and ink, I spoke to Forbeck about what the book is about and how it connects to the aforementioned games.

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Comics News Video Games

Dark Horse Comics Announce Halo Tales From Slipspace

Dark Horse Comics and 343 Industries have announced that they’ll release a new Halo graphic novel collection called Halo Tales From Slipspace on October 12th.

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Reviews Video Games Xbox One

Halo 5 Guardians Video Game Review

Since its inception, the Halo series has always made incremental but significant changes to its sci-fi first-person shooter tenets. But while the ones in Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One) are a bit more fundamental, this ends up being just another Halo game…albeit with all the usual good times that implies.

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Books News Video Games

“Halo Last Light” Novel To Include “Halo 5 Guardians” REQ Pack Code

Paperback copies of the upcoming Halo novel, Halo Last Light, will include a download code for a free Halo 5 Guardians “REQ Pack.”