Start with the interconnected Nylund books (albeit The Flood which was written by Dietz) which fill in the gaps from Halo CE-3. - The Fall of Reach - The Flood (optional, it's a novel adaptation of Halo CE but has [i]a lot[/i] of extra information and side-stories) - First Strike - Ghosts of Onyx Then move onto the standalones. - Contact Harvest - The Cole Protocol - Evolutions Then the new trilogies: 1) The Forerunner Saga - Cryptum - Primordium - Silentium 2) The Kilo-5 Trilogy - Glasslands - The Thursday War (Third book has not yet been released.)

Contact on Harvest is good and has a saucey ending. The Cole Protocol is another book I really liked, especially since it talks a bit about the Arbiter before he actually became the Arbiter. Ghost of Onyx is ok, but I did enjoyed the heroism displayed by Kurt that most of the people in these forums love.

Greg Bear's books are by far the best (with Silentium being by far the best of them), IMO.

Thanks for the info guys/girls. I wanna start with first strike. I might read reach after though. Is that a good start?

My personal favorite has always been the Cole Protocol, though I don't really think there is a [i]best[/i] Halo book. The order you should read them in is: Contact Harvest (details the start of the Human-Covenant and why the Covenant have it out for humanity, shows just why the Spartans were needed due to having a fair amount of focus on the Insurrection, and gives loads of insight into Sgt. Johnson's character....it's the best place to start off) The Fall of Reach (details the origins of the Spartans and most of their early history as well as viewing some of the most important battles of the Human-Covenant War. Happens directly before the first Halo game and sort of details how they got to that point. One thing to bear in mind though is that as TFoR is ten+ years old and wasn't written with a huge, ever expanding universe in mind that more than a few things in the book are not accurate or necessarily canon anymore) First Strike (picks up where The Fall of Reach and Halo: Combat Evolved left off and is about how exactly Chief got back to Earth for Halo 2) Ghosts of Onyx (sequel to First Strike and tells what happens to the rest of Blue Team while Chief is off doing his thing during Halo 2 and 3) After that the rest of the books are pretty much just stand alone and can be read whenever you want to. A word of advice though, stay away from the Kilo-5 Trilogy (Glasslands, Thursday War, and the as yet unrevealed/unnamed third book) by Karen Traviss, it's just not good at all and contradicts pretty much everything about the whole entire Halo series before that point, so don't even bother with it. Trust me on this one, ignorance is bliss. And after reading Halo: Evolutions, Cryptum, and Primordium, I would highly suggest having nothing more to do with 343i (the people currently running the series) as they're contradicting canon just as much as Karen Traviss and are generally just ruining the whole series.

Contact Harvest is a book that every chapter or so it's someone else...and it has porn at the end...quite a surprise.

I've had Contact Harvest for a few years now, but haven't had the time to chomp into it! Have to rectify that soon.. That's the book I'd recommend, as Mr Joe Staten (Master Storyteller) penned it. ;)

Karen Travis is r­aping the lore. I'd just stay away from them at this point so you don't have everything you like be declared invalid by a terrible writer.

Read everything up until 343 took over. You'll be good.

If you are a big Halo fan, then all the books are good. Actually, Contact Harvest was crap, don't read that one.

I've only read the original trilogy (Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike). All of those were great. I eventually need to get around Ghost of Onyx and The Cole Protocol, because those are the 2 that I really want to read next.