With four previous novels based on the Halo games under her belt, it’s not surprising that writer Kelly Gay’s newest, Halo: Epitaph (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), would connect to the other novels she’s written about the titular sci-fi shooter series.
But as she explains in the following email interview, this installment is actually more connected to someone else’s Halo novels than her own.
One of the breakout stars of the original Halo was 343 Guilty Spark. And like all good celebrities, Sparky parlayed his notoriety into a media empire that included a reality show [Keeping Up With The Reclaimers], a perfume [Eue De Digits], and even a line of decorative dish towels. And now he’s back, reuniting with his old pal Rion — and writer Kelly Gay — for the new novel, Halo: Point Of Light (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), the sequel to Gay’s Halo: Smoke And Shadow and Halo: Renegades. In the following email interview, Gay talks about how the Sparkster inspired her to write this sci-fi space opera story.
Unlike most of the stories inspired by the Halo video games, understanding Kelly Gay’s novella Halo: Smoke And Shadow doesn’t require you to have played Halo 5: Guardians et al. to completion. Now Gay is continuing where her novella left off with the novel Halo: Renegades (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Gay discusses what inspired this story and how it connects to the Halo cannon (and not just the games, either).
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.