Halo: New Blood

So this came out today (yesterday? sheesh time flies) and i read it. The story is narrated by former Gunnery Sergeant Buck from the game Halo: ODST and tells various tales from his past as well as some things that may lead into the events of Halo 5. One of those things that we haven’t really heard about yet is the creation of spartan IVs which I was excited to read about. The rest of it however was a mystery to me. As I mentioned it’s told from the perspective of Buck in first person, I was disappointed to learn that there’s no audiobook narrated by Nathan Fillion out right now which is something that desperately needs to happen. Otherwise is was a pretty good read, I had fun reading it in Fillions voice in my head. I’m not sure how much of it ties directly in to anything that could possibly be in Halo 5. I think the important bits from it are that Spartan Jun is a member of the spartan program and one of their recruiters. Its plot dealt heavily with the entity known as the United Rebel Front, a human faction that opposes the UNSC, which leads me to believe that we might have human opponents in Halo 5. Spartan IV’s will obviously be major characters in Halo 5. I don’t think we’ll see Buck in Halo 5 but hey who knows. The other parts of the story deal heavily with Bucks life and the events of Halo: ODST. Buck talks about how he got into his fling with Veronica Dare, and remarks about her throughout the story providing it with a fun to read romance aspect. He talks about what happened to your player character “The Rookie” in ODST and the rest of his squad. If you’re a fan of ODST this is an easy pickup. Overall I was very satisfied with New Blood. It served it’s purpose in advancing the lore of the Halo Universe in dealing with how Spartan IVs are made while adding a fun story to it on top. I’d give it an 8/10 since some of the writing is sketchy at some parts, there was one part I read that didn’t line up with the continuity of the rest of the book, but in the end I enjoyed the experience and it was worth my five dollars. New Blood is available only in ebook format.