Halo: Glasslands, out today, is the first novel in an all-new Halo trilogy based on the Xbox Halo videogame series. Karen Traviss, who has penned number one bestselling novels in the Star Wars universe, as well as bestselling novels for the Gears of War franchise, explores the events following Halo 3 in a novel continuing the story begun in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx.
In Halo: Glasslands, The Covenant has collapsed after a long, brutal war that saw billions slaughtered on Earth and her colonies. For the first time in decades, however, peace finally seems possible. But though the fighting’s stopped, the war is far from over: it’s just gone underground. The UNSC’s feared and secretive Office of Naval Intelligence recruits Kilo-Five, a team of ODSTs, a Spartan, and an eccentric AI to accelerate the Sangheili insurrection. Meanwhile, the Arbiter, the defector turned leader of a broken Covenant, struggles to stave off civil war among his divided people.
Across the galaxy, a woman thought to have died on Reach is actually very much alive. Chief scientist Dr. Catherine Halsey broke every law in the book to create the Spartans, and now she’s broken some more to save them. Marooned with Chief Mendez and a Spartan team in a Forerunner slipspace bubble hidden in the destroyed planet Onyx, she finds that the shield world has been guarding an ancient secret—a treasure trove of Forerunner technology that will change everything for the UNSC and mankind.
As Kilo-Five joins the hunt for Halsey, humanity’s violent past begins to catch up with all of them as disgruntled colony Venezia has been biding its time to strike at Earth, and its most dangerous terrorist has an old, painful link with both Halsey and Kilo-Five that will test everyone’s loyalty to the limit.
“We’re excited to share Glasslands with the Halo audience, mostly because it’s a really incredible read, but also because for the first time, we’re using the Halo novels to take the game fiction forward in time, rather than exploring historical moments,” said Frank O’Connor, Franchise Development Director at 343 Industries. “These are the foundational elements for the next Halo game trilogy and Karen has captured and created them masterfully.”
“Halo’s got some interesting moral dilemmas for me to explore,” says Traviss. “It’s also an opportunity for me to examine the UNSC personnel who don’t get all the limelight that the Spartans do, like the ODSTs, and of course the ones who’d run a mile from the spotlight anyway—the Office of Naval Intelligence. But you do get to see a side of the Spartans you haven’t seen before.”
On January 3, 2012, Tor Books will also publish Halo: Primordium, the second novel in the Forerunner Saga by science fiction icon Greg Bear. The highly-anticipated Halo 4 was recently announced for release in fall of 2012.
You can read excerpts from Halo: Glasslands here on Tor.com and at Halo: Waypoint.
Chapter 2 (at Halo: Waypoint)
