Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (2007)

Halo: Ghosts of Onyx is a military science fiction novel by Eric Nylund, based on the Halo series of video games. The book was released in October 2006 and is the fourth Halo novel; Nylund's third contribution to the series. Onyx was also the first of three Halo novels to be published by Tor Books, rather than the previous publisher, Del Rey.

Ghosts of Onyx details the creation of a group of supersoldiers known as the SPARTAN-IIIs to defend humanity against the alien collective known as the Covenant. After the events of Halo 2, the SPARTAN's training world of Onyx is beset by robotic attackers. The SPARTANs and their trainers must fight the robots and the Covenant as they work to uncover the planet's secrets.

Upon release, Ghosts of Onyx garnered generally positive reviews. The novel debuted on The New York Times bestseller list and became an international bestseller.

Background and writing

Ghosts of Onyx author Eric Nylund had previously written two of the three past Halo novels, The Fall of Reach and First Strike, and went to Halo's developer Bungie with an outline of what he wanted to do next. According to Nylund, Bungie gave him room to write the story as long as he accomplished some "very specific [story] goals", sometimes making changes to the Halo universe to incorporate his ideas. However, he acknowledged the difficulty of fitting his story into the rest of the Halo universe was far greater for Ghosts of Onyx than the other novels as more of the story had been made public and was no longer able to be modified. Nylund mentioned in an interview with IGN that writing a Halo novel had both its positive aspects and drawbacks. "It's better because I have all these great toys and characters to play with," Nylund stated in an interview, "It's not so good because I have to work and play well with other parts of the intellectual property so everything meshes."

Ghosts of Onyx, originally known as Ghosts of Coral, was the first Halo novel to be published by Tor Books instead of Del Rey. Nylund had 15 weeks to write the book, as opposed to the 7 weeks for The Fall of Reach, but he claimed he still "lost sleep... ate a bunch of chocolate and drank too much coffee." Tor's editors also had more time than those of Del Rey and helped "untangle" the complicated plot of Onyx. On writing, Nylund pointed out that "tension is the cornerstone of any good story", and that Ghosts of Onyx would be no different.

IGN's reviewer, Douglass C. Perry, found that by using short paragraphs and many jumps in time "[the novel's] style of writing keeps the pace going, even when nothing much is going on." This technique is used deliberately by Nylund to hasten the pace to avoid "fatiguing the reader and losing them."

Synopsis

Setting

Ghosts of Onyx takes place in the 26th century, where humanity, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command, has developed faster-than-light travel and colonized hundreds of worlds. Without warning, an alien collective known as the Covenant attacks the outer human colony of Harvest. The Covenant begin to hunt down human colonies, vitrifying the surface of each world. Humanity's best weapon against the technologically superior Covenant are the SPARTAN-IIs, supersoldiers equipped with biomedical augmentation and powerful armor; unfortunately, there are too few of the SPARTANs to turn the tide of the war.

Characters

Kurt-051

Kurt is a SPARTAN-II who serves in John-117's squad. Kurt is known for his sense of intuition, which saves his team on several occasions. Recruited to train a new series of Spartans, Kurt is devastated by the massive casualties his trainees suffer. In response, Kurt begins instituting illegal brain modifications to give his soldiers a better chance at survival. Due to the secretive lengths taken by his superiors to recruit him to the program, none of Kurt's former colleagues know he is alive.

Franklin Mendez

Mendez is one of the SPARTAN-III project's trainers. In Nylund's previous novel, Halo: The Fall of Reach, Mendez is the SPARTAN-II's trainer and leaves shortly after humanity's first encounter with the Covenant to train the next generation of Spartans. After the next batch of SPARTAN-IIs are postponed, Mendez returns to active duty fighting against the Covenant before training the SPARTAN-IIIs.

Catherine Halsey

Halsey is the creator behind the SPARTAN-II project. In order to train the young recruits whom she has selected for the program, Halsey abducts the children and replaces them with clones. Though her soldiers are phenomenally successful, Halsey abruptly leaves with the injured SPARTAN Kelly in Halo: First Strike on an unspecified mission. After years of willingly manipulating her "children", Halsey decides to attempt to save them all instead of throwing them into a war she believes humanity will lose.

James Ackerson

Ackerson is a Colonel in the Army, and a fierce opponent of the SPARTAN-II program; during The Fall of Reach, Ackerson goes as far as attempting to kill John-117 in a training exercise. Ackerson proposes his own SPARTAN program, which would attempt to duplicate the SPARTAN-II's operational record at a lower cost—creating "disposable Spartans." The existence of this program is kept a secret from the public and much of the UNSC, especially Halsey.