Book review: Halo Ghost of Onyx

The spartan-II program has gone public. Tales of super- soldiers fending off tousands of covenant attacks have become the stuff of legends.

While the Master Chief defends a besieged Earth, and the myriad factions of the Covenant contiue their crusade to eliminate humanity, an ultrasecret cell of the Office of Navel Intellignce knwon as “Section Three” devises a plan to buy the INSC vital time. They’re going to need hundreds of willing soldiers, though… and one more spartan to get the job done.

The planet Onyx is virtually abandoned and the perfect place to set this new plan in motion. But when the Master Chief destroys Halo, something is triggered deep within Onyx: Ancient Forerunner technology stirs, and fleets of UNSC and Covenant race to claim it to change the course of the Human Covenant War/

But this reawakend and ancient force may have plans of its own…

Halo: Ghosts of Onyx written by Eric Nylund is a great book for true Halo fans. This story does not focus mutch on the main character of the game Master Chief, but more on  SPARTAN-II supersoldier Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose formerly known as SPARTAN-051 and the SPARTAN-III program. It was a very intresting book that allowed you to see diffrent sides of every character.

The book starts immediately in a battle setting the tone for a true action adventure story. Then it goes on with introducing the main character Kurt Ambrose. I have to say that this was a very well written character and it showed the more human side of the Spartans. The story goes on to show the audience how much power ONI (The Office of Naval Intelligence, the intelligence service of the UNSC Navy)has and how corrupt it is. Then the Spartan-III get introduced, from here on the story takes on more form and things become more clear. The story really start to get intreesting when the Covenant get introduced in the form of a splinter faction of the Covenant: Joyous Exultation Covenant.

There were some part in the story that were a little to long and took the passe out of the story. People who have played Halo 1,2,3 will get certain reference to the game. Overall it was a great book not my favorite Hallo story but definitely one  to check out. especially if you have played Halo: Reach. I would not recomed this book to anybody, because a lot of things will not make sense if you have not played the games of any of the other books.

 

 

Appleseed

Appleseed is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The series follows the adventures of ESWAT members Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires in Olympus.
Appleseed merges elements of the cyberpunk and mecha genres with a heavy dose of politics, philosophy, and sociology.
It has been adapted into an OVA, three feature films, a 13 episode TV series, and two video games.

Appleseed takes place in the 22nd Century, after the non-nuclear Third World War has decimated the Earth. The main characters are Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires, former SWAT members of the LAPD. They are found in the desolated city and invited to join the prestigious ESWAT (Extra Special Weapons And Tactics) organization in the utopian city of Olympus, the new world’s most powerful state. Roughly one half of Olympus’s population are bionically augmented.

The series follows Deunan and Briareos as they protect their new home from both foreign and domestic threats to its security.

The movies that I have seen are Appleseed, Appleseed Ex Machina and Appleseed Alpha.
I really loved Appleseed Alpha it looked really great and I would recommend the Manga and this movie to anyone who loves good well developed stories. You can watch Appleseed Alpha on Netflix.

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Childe Roland to The Dark Tower came

The Dark Tower is a book series written by Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and Western. It describes a “gunslinger” and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King has described the series as his magnum opus. In addition to the eight novels of the series proper that comprise 4,250 pages, many of King’s other books relate to the story, introducing concepts and characters that come into play as the series progresses. It is said that all Stephen King’s stories are related to The Dark Tower series.
The series is inspired by the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning, whose full text was included in the final volume’s appendix. It also identifies with The Lord of the Rings, Arthurian Legend, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He identifies Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” character as one of the major inspirations for the protagonist, Roland Deschain. King’s style of location names in the series, such as Mid-World, and his development of a unique language abstract to our own (High Speech), are also influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien’s work. The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole; published in 2012, served as an interquel between the fourth and fifth books of the series.

The story is about, Roland Deschain the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of “Arthur Eld”, his world’s analogue of King Arthur. Roland’s quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland’s world is said to have “moved on”, and it appears to be coming apart at the seams. Mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Sometimes, even the sun rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland’s motives, goals and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries.

So why do I love this series so much?
Well, that is easy, First of all I personally think Stephen King is a master writer. His stories are always intriguing and compelling, like a story should be.
Second, I love fantasy, science fiction and horror and The Dark Tower gives me all that.
Of course the story was well written, interesting, original and a real adventure that sucks you right into the world of Roland Deschain, but what was most extraordinary about the story for me was that when I finished the story I felt it the story slip away from my mind like it became a dream or a vague memory.
If you have read the story you get what I mean about that.
The last thing I can say is that if you have not read this amazing series, you should. Like right now! It is worth your time.

The Dark Tower

Review Predator: Forever Midnight

A while back I had read Predator forever Midnight one of the DHB Predator novels written by John Shirley. The story revolves around a UNISC platoon with their commander Randall Ness, the colonists from the planet dubbed Midnight by humanity (were the story takes place) and off cores the Predators and in this case Clan Kuk with their clan leader Shesh- Kuk. It is set in the year 2117 A.D. and humanity as engineered alien technology an has moved into space. The predators have been a dim memory and are no longer a threat to humans but that is about to change. On the eternal daylight planet Midnight thousand of colonist live in peace building a new home. But the predators are back and they are ready for the hunt. In twenty- four chapter John Shirley takes you on a hunt that you will never forget and you get a good insight in the predators mind and behavior.

First of I have to say I am a huge predator fan I love the films, the books, the comics, just great. But I am going to say if you are not a fan of Predator series in a whole you probably are not going to like this book. Well the human characters were okay sometimes it was not that interesting listening to their drama’s and past lives and for some reason I found the native humans living there were really annoying sometimes. Because this is a novel from Dark Horse Books the predators are different from the other novels. They are the Hish. Well I personally like the Hish ( loved the moment were one of the sex changing warriors was hitting on Shesh-Kuk) there were some things that bother me. That the technology they had was stolen from another race that they now used as slaves. The Hish came across  as weak and not scary at all. That I found such a waste predators are scary they can break you like you are a twig or something and they are intelligent. But for most of the story I loved it. If you are a fan of Predator i recommend ready this story. I give it 3 starts out of 5.