Halo - the Flood

Edward Mai #22

01/21/05

HALO:The Flood

By William C. Dietz

Today I am going to tell you about a great book I read lately. It is called HALO:The Flood.

The Flood is based on the award-winning Xbox game, Halo. This book was interesting because it tells the story through several different perspectives. Some of the perspectives include: the super-soldier, Master Chief, an alien, another alien, a sergeant, and a few soldiers. Although some new character perspectives are introduced in some chapters, the characters die later in the chapter.

The story opens with the marines aboard their battle cruiser, The Pillar of Autumn. Suddenly, an alarm sounds because an alien race, known as the Covenant, has invaded the ship. Then the marines open up a cryo-tube. [a tube one can sleep frozen in] Inside the tube is the genetically enhanced super-soldier, known as the Master Chief. The Chief then defeats the aliens aboard the ship. After the invasion, the marines discover the ancient ring-world, called Halo. They then decide to search for weapons and other supplies on Halo. Unfortunately, the Covenant is also searching for something: Halo's control room, which can activate a weapon capable of wiping the universe clean of all life.

When the marines crash land on Halo, they discover a deadly parasite called Flood living under the surface of the ring. But instead of being carried by bacteria, it is carried by bulbous, blob-like things. When a living organism [including the Covenant] gets infected by it, they quickly start to mutate into rotting, deadlier versions of their former selves. The entire human exploration squad, including their captain, Captain Keyes, gets infected, and mutate into Flood combat forms. All except for, that is, Captain Keyes, who mutates into a huge, stationary Flood form, and later dies. When the rest of the marines lose contact of Captain Keyes and his crew, they suspect something is wrong and send the Chief off to investigate.

Like the exploration squad, he soon encounters the Flood. After dispatching the first wave, he then fights his way through Halo to get to its control room so he can disable Halo. After doing that, he finds and fights his way through the