Halo Evolutions

Noonish today I was in Breckenridge (or Breckinridge, spelling varies). There at the Ole Man / Old Man bookstore, which hosts many many used books, I found Halo Evolutions.

Only eight dollars! Plus the eight dollars spent parking there, on account of the Duck Race. And the five gallons of petrol to get up there and back which set me back $15-20. Well at least I got to see some scenery and be out of the heat. ANYWAY.

I have played Combat Evolved but not very far into it, just so far as to hear of the Cole Protocol and to enter the eponymous Halo, also to see some of the Covenant - the setting's Dominion, for Trekkies. So I was looking for lore but avoiding spoilers, best I can.

I got as far as "Headhunters" before I found the Lutheran Column. As usual with such writers I find their views intriguing but will not necessarily subscribe to all their theses. Here I learn that "Headhunters", involving the "Spartan III" as it does, constitutes - technically, to me - a Spoiler. Although: not much of a spoiler. The story would work about as well with earlier models.

The Lutheran (who does his best to avoid spoilers of his own) did warn me sufficiently to beware mention of "Cortana" and "High Charity". That means I don't yet get to read "The Mona Lisa", which is as he points out 120 pages: almost a book in itself and 20% of the content here. So I skipped from "Blunt Instruments" right to "Cole". Which unfortunately had some MAJOR spoilers at the end.

As to overall quality these stories are good, rated by military SF standards. They stack up well against Warhammer 40k literature; more Abnett than Mitchell. Personally I'd rather read a Mitchell book over an Abnett book, but for the shortstory form I can take some grimdark grit. The main theme in such stories as precede the Halo games is that the grit is grimdark: the hoomies are losing. That sets up the stakes of that first game (which I haven't finished).

Standouts are Nylund's "Cole", which uses the scattered-document frame of Bram Stoker and HP Lovecraft; and O'Connor's "The Heart of Midlothian", which Isaac Asimov himself must now be wishing he'd written first. Evenson's "Pariah" gets us started with a look at the Traag Draconian of the Spartan project - also at Mendez and Halsey. I also appreciated Buckell's "Dirt" as a take on how Starship Troopers might end up Firefly to the extent that Minear and Whedon hadn't done that already.