I don’t know about the rest of you, but 3 of my favorite things in the world are books, movies, and video games (more or less in that order.) You’d think the only way any of these things could get better is to combine with one or both of another of these elements. Unfortunately, many of us know that the product of this incestuous relationship is usual quite tragic. Twilight was a mediocre book series that became a sub-par film series. The [original] Star Wars movies were excellent films made into not-so-excellent books. And Prince of Persia was an awful video game based on a movie that was based on an earlier video game. But that’s what makes the successes stand out so much more. The Lord of the Rings is an inspiring book series and a jaw-dropping, tear-jerking, academy-award-winning film series. As a previous blog post points out, so is True Grit (but as single entities, not series.)

On the other hand, I’ve only just gotten into the Halo games this past summer, a side-effect from having my sister’s boyfriend stay with us over the summer, bringing his X-Box with him. I’ve been a Nintendo girl for all of my video-game-playing life, and the closest thing to any violence I’ve ever encountered was fantasy sword fighting in Zelda (which, incidentally, I think would make top-notch books if crafted by the right hands.) But in point of fact, my first breach of the video-game-to-book world came with my sister’s boyfriend’s Christmas present to me, a trilogy of Halo novels.

If any of you have never played Halo, it begins about 500 years in the future, when humans populate other planets beside Earth, notably the planet Reach. However, the humans are being systematically wiped out by an alien race called the Covenant because humans are seen are infidels to the Covenant religion. In order to slow the gradual extinction of the human race, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) initiates a plan to train genetically advanced soldiers called SPARTANs. One of these super-soldiers is the Master Chief, the character players of the video games control.

I was very excited to read these stories because I wanted to get more familiarized with the Halo world and thus become more knowledgeable of the games themselves. At first I was worried, though, because the opening scene was a battle ground describing military tactics and guns and vehicles from the game, things I was only cursorily familiar with. But as I read on, the descriptions went into more detail and I caught on pretty fast, corroborating what I already knew with what I was newly learning. These books are interesting in that they both satisfy the desires of a newcomer like me, as well offer enjoyment to someone who already knows the games inside out.

For me, it was also different going kind of backwards in the production process. For instance, I am so used to reading a book and then seeing the story pared down to the bare minimum for a movie. But in this case, it takes the existing material and adds so much more background and just plain story to it that the player of the video game wouldn’t get in a fighting style RPG. I haven’t finished the series, but so far I would recommend it to anyone in search of something new.