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Halo: Cryptum (Forerunner Saga, #1)

(The Forerunner Saga #1)

Greg Bear

3.84 · Rating details · 6,617 ratings · 328 reviews

Hace cien mil años, la galaxia estaba poblada por una gran variedad de seres. Pero una especie –eones por delante tanto en tecnología como en conocimiento— predominó sobre las demás. Gobernaban en paz, pero eliminaban con contundencia a sus enemigos.

Eran los Forerunners: los custodios del Manto, la siguiente fase de la vida en el Tiempo Vivo del universo. Y, entonces, desa ...more

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Hardcover, 1st U.S. Edition, 352 pages

Published January 4th 2011 by Tor Books (first published January 2011)

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Start your review of Halo: Cryptum (Forerunner Saga, #1) (Halo, #8)

Jan 24, 2019 Ben Brown rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: halo

“Halo: Cryptum” is a tough book to read, and an even harder book to review. The first in a trilogy, set hundreds of thousands of years before the events of the original “Halo” video game, “Cryptum” digs DEEP into the lore of the Forerunners, the Flood, and the origin of the Halo rings…and it does all of that without ever once even coming close to holding the reader’s hand.

For my money, that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing, because writer Greg Bear clearly trusts that his “Halo: Cryptum” is a tough book to read, and an even harder book to review. The first in a trilogy, set hundreds of thousands of years before the events of the original “Halo” video game, “Cryptum” digs DEEP into the lore of the Forerunners, the Flood, and the origin of the Halo rings…and it does all of that without ever once even coming close to holding the reader’s hand.

For my money, that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing, because writer Greg Bear clearly trusts that his readers are smart enough to keep up with the LITANY of made-up vernacular – seriously, this book comes with an entire glossary of terms, just in case you forget what ‘ancilla’ or ‘Mantle’ or ‘metarch’ or ‘gea’ means and need to check – and murky Forerunner politicking that he packs into these 352 pages. It’s refreshing to read a book that doesn’t speak down to the reader or overexplain plot points that don’t need belabored. What’s more, reading a “Halo” story that’s set outside of the confines of the Human-Covenant War, in a time frame that’s yet to be truly explored and fleshed out, is beyond refreshing – it’s exhilarating, kind of in the same way that it was when George Lucas opened the floodgates to the Prequel Trilogy era. Getting to witness firsthand things that, up until now, had been only mentioned in vague asides is a real treat…at least, most of the time.

And that’s where my issues with “Cryptum” begin to crop up. As mentioned, this is the first book of a trilogy, and boy, does it feel like it. In my humble opinion, the best “number ones” in trilogies do two things: they clearly and excitingly set the stage for the events yet to come in Parts 2 and 3, while also telling a compelling story on its own terms. If I were grading Cryptum on how well it does both things, I’d probably say that it puts forward a B/B+ effort with the former, and a C/C+ for the latter. It’s amazing - for a book that’s so dense and at times indecipherable, “Cryptum” often feels shockingly meandering and even – dare I say it - empty

I think part of the problem is that we’re given zero characters to connect with here – our protagonist, Bornstellar – whose perspective we view the entire story through - is basically an empty cypher, one who is nearly impossible to relate to; meanwhile, all of the supporting characters are either clichés or similarly unreadable. It also doesn’t help that the entirety of the novel’s plot – without spoiling anything – ends up, by the third, being completely tangential to the REAL plot that’s clearly going to be dominating Books 2 and 3. Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched to read them and see what happens next…but it would have been really nice if this book felt less like a novel-length prelude to the real story and more like the first 1/3 of Bear’s epic saga. Throw in the fact that there are significant chunks of this novel that are difficult, if not nigh impossible to fully understand without consulting Halopedia, and it’s hard not to feel just a little but gyped by the time you reach the last page.

So, overall, is “Halo: Cryptum” worth a read? I’d say – just as I have with so many of these “Halo” novels and comics – that if you’re a fan of the franchise and are curious to know the backstory of this universe, then absolutely – there’s enough fun fan service, interesting revelations, and promises of a greater and better story to come to make slogging through the less enjoyable portions here worth it. Non-Halo fans, however, definitely need not apply.
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Sep 06, 2013 Travis Knight rated it liked it

Halo: Cryptum Review
Prequels tend to suck. That’s a fact that many a fan has had to deal with when reconciling unwelcome additions to their favorite franchises; the on-going chagrin for the Star Wars prequels is telling enough, but even more recent reactions to the Star Trek and Spider Man origin story rehashes (addendum: similar complaints are rumbling about The Man of Steel) remind us that, especially where highly elaborate fiction is involved, ignorance really can be bliss. Don’t take me wron Halo: Cryptum Review
Prequels tend to suck. That’s a fact that many a fan has had to deal with when reconciling unwelcome additions to their favorite franchises; the on-going chagrin for the Star Wars prequels is telling enough, but even more recent reactions to the Star Trek and Spider Man origin story rehashes (addendum: similar complaints are rumbling about The Man of Steel) remind us that, especially where highly elaborate fiction is involved, ignorance really can be bliss. Don’t take me wrong: surrounding a story in un-created space is akin to drowning it in negligence, but structured, intentional mystery is a welcome and necessary function of the appeal for many genre stories. It is surprising then that 343 Studios, which now controls and operates the Halo license, decided to abandon all of that mysterious charm and publish a trilogy of books that flesh out and characterize the climactic moments of the ancient inception point: the creation of the titular Halos that form the grounds for all subsequent conflicts in the series. And, perhaps not unexpectedly, the first entry in the trilogy stumbles pretty hard.

Now, it is certainly pertinent to admit that my experience with Greg Bear, the author of the Forerunner trilogy, is limited. I own several of his books, but, despite having won a plethora of Hugos and Nebulas, I’ve never felt compelled to pull one of his novels off my shelf and crack it open. Among all of my science fiction fan friends, I’ve never once had a recommendation to read a Greg Bear book--in fact, I’m the only one who owns a Bear book, to my knowledge. So I have to acknowledge that going into reading Halo: Cryptum, I was more a bit suspicious of the “star power” that 343 had been boasting since signing Bear up to write. I can safely report that the book is competently written, and successfully employs an appropriately immense scope to qualify for the Halo moniker. That’s a good start; from the outset I was curious to see where his colorful, highly personal prose was going, because it doesn’t start where you’d expect a Halo novel to begin.

Indeed, Cryptum is set 100,000 years in the past--specifically just a few years before Forerunner empire is set to implode under the encroaching pressures of the parasitic Flood. It also stars, as its main focal point, a young Forerunner named Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting, rated as a Manipular in the Builder Caste, sent to serve with Miners after failing to live up to the standards of his Second-Form father, who is a close associate of the Master Builder. Now, the untrained eye likely gave up on that last sentence, but it is a good representation of the level of jargon that clutters Cryptum’s guts. This is what I consider to be the most fundamental flaw of the book and the one that I want to discuss first and foremost, since what lies beyond the language barrier is a perfectly acceptable space-adventure novel with just enough familiar elements to tie it into the Halo milieu. Bear pulls no punches; the book is written in a limited first person voice that attempts to pass the jargon off naturally, and he does a commendable job of doing just that. However, that doesn’t mean it is enjoyable to have to constantly parse a section for relatable meaning. In seeking to make the Forerunner less mysterious and more comprehensible, the use of Jargon succeeds in a Frankenstein of success and alienating distancing.

That factor brings me to a second criticism that stuck with me throughout the novel. I consider it one of the cardinal rules of writing to never write from a non-human perspective. Being a human, and a man at that, I find it nearly impossible to authentically empathize with a non-human (and sometimes even non-male) being; I lack the equipment to do a genuine job of it, and any attempt will necessarily result in a bad analogue. My experiences are colored by my brain’s perceptions of the world and my local-ephemeral context, which means that I can sympathize, for example, with a hungry dog, I can’t really know what it’s like to be hungry for a dog. I can relate my experience to this other animal and assume equanimity in the vacuous feeling of not eating, but it isn’t a 1:1 match, and never can be. Likewise, to be frank and perhaps offensive, I can sympathize with menstrual cramps, having been kicked in the ‘nads before, but I only have ovary-analogues which lead a necessarily distinct pain from that which a woman suffers. I can’t empathize with something that I am not, and empathizing with an alien being, which hails from a civilization not thousands of years old, but millions, is far beyond my frame of reference. It seems, by that reckoning, ridiculous to write from the perspective of such a being, and indeed I would argue that it is an injustice to the fiction to assume that Forerunner mentality is so familiar to our own that it can be so casually assumed by a human audience.

The jargon, therefore, attempts to validate that empathic void left by the alien narrator’s fundamental difference from a human perspective, but it is an improper and exceptionally limited illusion. Once the real-world analogue to these concepts is internalized, they become silly, colorful synonyms that clutter the text rather than develop the character of the Forerunner civilization; I tended to read it like I do highly politicized speech: fancy words that obfuscate meaning, rather than convey nuance. I don’t like books that do that (and I’m drawing a line here between Shakespeare, which is prosey and artistic, and a modern day romance writer who bedecks the work in violet metaphor for the sole sake of drawing out the word count); I like my plot complex and rich, not the nonsense fantasy vocabulary that overlays it. Character motivation is much more important to me than the nomenclature of a character’s armor and its components.

Thankfully, there is character to be had in Cryptum. It just isn’t enough to overcome the sour impression of the jargon-filled pages. As mentioned before, the book tells the story of Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting, a Forerunner Manipular (read: child) of the builder caste (read: wealthy architectural/scholarly class) from Bornstellar’s perspective. It opens with him on Erde-Tyrene (read: Earth), crossing a sea to visit an island that his ancilla (read: AI) told him held clues to finding the Oraganon (read: buried treasure). In essence, this is a book about a young man searching for treasure. He brings with him Chakas and Riser (a “florian,” or “hobbit”; click here for more actual information on this real life (but extinct) hominid), two humans who behave very strangely when they reach the strange ring-shaped island where once Riser’s family made its home. Indeed, we learn that these two humans have a “geas” or a god-given fate to call forth the great treasure Bornstellar is after. Thus comes the titular Cryptum, wherein lies the Didact in his dreaming un-death. Ugh. The purple prose.

All of this requires enormous context to understand, but it happens very quickly in the book; what is related above is just the first half of the first act within the novel. Because Riser and Chakas are ignorant, filthy little humans, Bornstellar has no one to discuss these concepts through dialogue: no audience stand-in, and so much of the necessary back-story comes through often clumsy info-dumps that take the form of imaginative and introspective soliloquies that spring ex nihilo. For big fans of the franchise, these will read like nuggets of gold, for sure; they hearken back to the Terminals that are scattered through the Halo games’ campaigns. But as a literary function, I found the writing in that regard to be sloppy and ugly. It has the effect of drawing out what was, in reality, a very brief period of time within the novel into a long and dry side-bar.

Once the Didact is awakened and restored to healthy strength, he kidnaps Bornstellar and his human companions and drags them around the galaxy on some unknown mission. During this odyssey, Bear stretches his sci-fi legs; we hear of enormous battles filled with thousands of ships, of solar-system sized quarantines fenced off by trillions of drones swimming in and out of slipspace (read: hyperspace), and of the true might of the Forerunner Civilization. A lot of what fills the second half of Halo: Cryptum is genuinely fun. It’s a swashbuckling space adventure, wherein a band of hapless heroes undertake a quest they don’t truly understand. Bornstellar’s ignorance relative to the ancient Didact flips the novel on its head; his smarmy know-everything attitude that colors him wise at the beginning is soon revealed to be a sham: he’s a twelve-year old (literally (in earth years? Not sure)) compared to the Didact’s ten thousand year life, the last thousand of which has been spent in near-death suspension within the Cryptum. The concepts get big and broad, as befits a Halo novel, but, unlike my experience with the extraterrestrial conglomerate, the Covenant, which serves as the antagonist in other Halo books, the more I learned of the Forerunner culture the less interesting I found it.

In very brief, Forerunner civilization is a distended, time-dilated amalgam of caste-based life and pseudo-democracy. Their reach spans more than three million worlds, and tens of millions of years; they’ve noted more than 127 species of intelligent life and waged a wild, reckless battle with the ancestors to Humans. Yet, each Forerunner we meet appears to be a total self-centered schemer, or else a hopelessly romantic ignoramus lost in the “glory days.” And we do meet precious few; there are no teeming cities filled with Forerunners, no city-ships akin to Iain Bank’s GSV’s which house hundreds of millions of souls. Indeed, for a massive, nearly omnipotent civilization, the Forerunner are remarkably absent from their own affairs. The effect reminded me of the representation of Asgard from the 2011’s Thor: a rich set of splendid structures utterly devoid of a real populace. That’s lame. Forerunner civilization lacks the impressive strides taken to flesh out and characterize the other races within Halo. It’s almost as if they’re already dead.

As a reader, it made the entire episode feel melodramatic; whenever the “Forerunner civilization” was threatened, especially in the climactic final chapters, I had no stake in the game. There was no Thessia, crisscrossed with beautiful amphibious cities, no Vavitch Orbital that hadn’t yet evacuated its half-oblivious populous. Just empty halls as crypt-like as they are in the Halo games themselves.

So, while the book is a competent novel, it lacks the character and personality present in many of the other, earlier novels, and doesn’t hold a candle to the first entry in Karen Traviss’ Halo: Glasslands, which is the first in another trilogy within the series. I can’t help but think that Bornstellar is something of a wasted opportunity, for all of his intrigue and Bear’s genuine skill in building him out to be a living narrator goes to waste on a story that feels at once distended and over-thin. Indeed, having read so many other game books for the Games as Lit podcast, I find it hard to believe that this wasn’t a committee-chosen contract job. It takes many of the right steps towards a genuinely interesting, but it feels machined rather than crafted. For example the Forerunner perspective seems angled specifically to introduce and crash-course readers in Forerunner jargon to prepare them for Halo 4. A human’s perspective--especially a diminished Human--would have a similar perspective of the Forerunner from that of the current characters: that they’re aloof, long-lived demigods parading in armor and playing out their arcane politics on the scale of galaxies. And to an extent, that is true even with Bornstellar as a narrator. I just couldn’t really come to grips with the justifications for how Forerunners treat one another, or why such a massive civilization has the problems that it apparently does.

I find it a shame that the book leaves such a bad first impression, but I can’t help but feel that this is the final product of some calculated committee that was tasked with deciding how the book would pan out. It is an acceptable read that doesn’t know how to unravel its own mysteries with anything like the grace of the first three games. Thankfully, Cryptum is part of a trilogy with an arc most fans already understand. That gives Bear what I think is a considerable advantage; the first book can (and is) largely an introductory but expendable installation used to set the stakes. By Cryptum’s end, players are familiar with the expanse of Forerunner civilization and power, however, ridiculous, and with the basic politics of the events that lead up to the rings being fired and the Forerunners being eliminated. Aya. ...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Fred Hughes rated it it was amazing

This is the start of a trilogy detailing the rise of the Forerunners in the Halo world. The first book is by Greg Bear as is the second.

In this start to the Forerunner Saga we meet a very young Forerunner named Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting who just can’t sit still it appears. He is obsessed with the past and sneaks away to look for lost treasures.

Contrary to his Dad’s instructions he strikes out for a planet called Erde-Tyrene where it is rumoured that ancient Forerunner and Precursor tech ...more

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Feb 09, 2014 Richard A. rated it did not like it

Greg Bear completely destroyed my fond ideology of an advanced, peaceful and selfless alien society in this book by interpreting the Forerunners as a species more closely resembling modern day humans with an appetite for politics, control and war. Mindless techno babble dominates seemingly every page as if readers are engineer experts on this fictional technology. Lack of a antagonist makes for a boring read as well as the awkward historical revelations of humankind's war with the Forerunner's w ...more

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Nov 30, 2012 J. rated it really liked it

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS AGO, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species—eons beyond all the others in both technology and knowledge—achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners—the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe’s Living Time. And then they vanished.This is their story.” – from the back cover of Halo: Cryptum

This book has started me on a great reading journey ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS AGO, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species—eons beyond all the others in both technology and knowledge—achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners—the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe’s Living Time. And then they vanished.This is their story.” – from the back cover of Halo: Cryptum

This book has started me on a great reading journey. The embarrassing fact is that I picked this up simply because it was a Halo book by a major science fiction writer. I’ve ever read any Greg Bear material until this book. I knew of his work and knew that he was widely read. Halo Cryptum was a great entry work into a a great writer.

Greg Bear’s ability to frame cosmic level events and actions into a tangible form is stunning. Halo: Cryptum has the forerunners as its primary characters. If you’re not a Halo fan, you should know that the Forerunners presence is ubiquitous in the Halo games but that none of the characters in the games are of that race . . . the Forerunners died out millennium ago and we are just discovering their impact and technology. Halo: Cryptum is the start of this back story. The Forerunners are characters that are nearly immortal and their reach is galactic in scope. Creating a book that has humans as only peripheral elements and that the main characters are immortal and almost god-like makes a major difficulty in establishing story. Story is usually defined around the limits and dangers of humanity . . . death and our inability to actually do much beyond our physical bodies. Greg Bear does a phenomenal effort in bridging this gap and creating a god-like creature of a god-like race and making you care about him. The story is told from a young Forerunner (only a few centuries have passed). Like most youngsters, he’s brash and unsure of his future.

There are significant plot elements that happen early on in the book and it is difficult to discuss the various points of the story without giving away too much. If you want a plot review (full of spoilers), visit Halo Nation’s review. Simply to say, the scope of the story is vast . . . crossing galactic spaces with ease. The events that happen are excellent. Only rarely does Bear seem to falter in explaining such cosmic concepts. He does a remarkable job overall and those few areas with the technical detail begins to build too much are rare.

My one primary issue is the length of the book and the ending point. It is stated early on that this is the first novel of a series. When I put the book down, I was sure that Greg Bear submitted his original manuscript, the publisher wanting some additional income, said, “Hmmm. tell you what — let’s make this three novels, make the font bigger, and make three times as much money. Good job, Mr. Bear.” This book starts and the last page appears before the book has even developed. This isn’t even a first act– it’s the first three scenes of the first act. I’m seeing this trend more and more in books and it concerns me. It’s harder to find the large tomes of Rowling and King length. Instead, publishers are providing the big tomes into multiple novels, creating a serial type reading effect. It’s irritating at the least. I doubt it’s Bear’s fault– the plotting feels distinctly as if it was cut off mid-action and a chopped paragraph to summarize and link to the next novel was inserted at the end as a last second thought.

Knowing this now, I would’ve purchased this as an e-book instead of in the store. It’s a great book but I’m not sure that it’s length justifies the hardcover price. A $9.99 Kindle price seems much more favorable and justifiable. This book was definitely engaging enough that I turned around and picked up Eon by Greg Bear and read that cover to cover in two days. And the journey rolled out from there. ...more

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Jun 26, 2020 Kelly Fugate rated it it was ok

DNF. There were less than 20 pages left to read and yet I couldn’t muster up any f*cks to see how it ended.

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Nov 13, 2012 Tina rated it liked it

Recommended to Tina by: Hunt

I really enjoyed this book when I first started reading it, because it was different in tone and style from all the other Halo books I've been (devotedly) reading. The only problem was about halfway through when it started to get a little dry. I just found that Bornstellar wasn't the most engaging of characters. He was more interesting when he was confused, because he had emotions even if they weren't very deep ones (like curiosity or the need to rebel), and when he started to change and became ...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Travis L. rated it it was ok

I had the hardest time following this storyline. I love Halo and was particularly interested in the Forerunner Saga, but lord does this book have a high learning curve. There are times where I would get so frustrated with all these unexplained (and conveniently Alien named) objects that my imagination would be working overtime in order to create an image of what the author was trying to write about. The best I can say about this book is that it takes work to read, even for me and I have a fantas ...more

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Sep 21, 2013 DarthLolita rated it really liked it

Halo is probably among my most important and influential science fiction epics. If I hadn't played the original trilogy as a child, I don't think I'd be into science fiction at all, let alone have it be my genre of choice as a writer.

A lot of what makes Halo great is the lore, the size and scale of the universe and the depth of the characters and their actions. So going into the backstory of the Forerunners--arguably one of the many great mysteries that hold up the original trilogy--is a bit ris Halo is probably among my most important and influential science fiction epics. If I hadn't played the original trilogy as a child, I don't think I'd be into science fiction at all, let alone have it be my genre of choice as a writer.

A lot of what makes Halo great is the lore, the size and scale of the universe and the depth of the characters and their actions. So going into the backstory of the Forerunners--arguably one of the many great mysteries that hold up the original trilogy--is a bit risky.

I'm actually surprised this book came out before Halo 4. It feels like I wouldn't have enjoyed the game nor this book as much if I'd read Cryptum before playing H4. I was not expecting the Didact to show up, let alone to find out his true relationship with the Librarian. (Which is actually kind of awesome, in my opinion).

Greg Bear is a great writer. Though he's already established himself in the sci-fi community, this is the first time I've ever read anything from his, and I'm glad he was given the chance to explore the Forerunners. The book's best moments are toward the end, when Bornstellar actually experiences the change brought on by the mutation the Didact forced him to go through, and when it gets to some of the backstory of the Halo constructions, it does feel pretty incredible.

The book does have some problems though. Even as a Halo fan it took me a while to really get into the beginning, as I wasn't sure how long ago in the past this was taking place in or what events had or hadn't occurred already. (Like, yeah, I knew it was a prequel, but how far into the last era of the forerunners was this taking place in--that had been my main question). The pace is also a tad on the slow side, which is difficult to really get into when Halo's built a reputation as a story that's constantly in motion, wars breaking out, terror everywhere, the need of a hero, you get the gist.

And we did not need to wait 260+ pages for a female character who was a) not related to Bornstellar, b) an A.I. of an armor, and c) actually named. Glory of a Far Dawn is a pretty cool action girl, but he does seem to admire her and praise the simplest of her actions too much. It's like, book, I know she's cool. If you actually let me see her, I'll see she's cool. You don't need to overdo it for me.

Biggest problem is that Cryptum very much feels like the set-up for something bigger. It's a great set-up, mind you, but even the first part of a prequel trilogy needs to stand on its own, some way or another.

But at least I am definitely excited to read the other two books. This isn't an easy story to tackle, but it's certainly worth the effort.

And the ending is so jaw dropping good that I'm awarding it an extra star. The last 100 pages or so really spike up in quality, action, and character development. I have a newfound appreciation for the Halo 4 plot now that I've been given a closer look at its origins.

It really is incredible.

(Oh, but I would NOT recommend it to people who aren't Halo fans. You are going to be wayyyy lost if you've never played the games.

As for the fans: Go right ahead and dive in. I hope you like it. I certainly enjoyed it~) ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 tENTATIVELY, cONVENIENCE rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf

review of
Greg Bear's Halo Cryptum The Forerunner Saga
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 4-8, 2018

In general, I avoid reading bks that have obvious product tie-ins. In particular, I avoid bks that are written as game side-merchandise. I unintentionally made my 1st exception to that w/ Barrington J. Bayley's Eye of Terror. I gave that one of my very rare negative reviews. I didn't initially realize that there was a tie-in to Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop miniature wargame. I found Eye of Te ...more

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Jul 18, 2019 Ned Armstrong rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

I was blown away by how massive the story is. Huge expanses of time stretching millions of years. A race of aliens who have reached a lifespan and culture far outside the scope of anything imaginable. Character's who live hundreds of millennia and have planets for backyards. Technology that truly makes everything else I've read about in science fiction seem like small potatoes. Completely unimaginable, except still somehow envisioned and expressed by this author. Not just expressed, but somehow ...more

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Jul 16, 2019 Niklas Braun rated it it was ok

It was very bland. It felt like an intro to a series that I needed previous knowledge to get on the inside with. Much more do than previous Halo books--i just couldn't get into it, and then there wasn't much action. It finally got interesting about halfway through the book then fizzled again. ...more

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Jun 14, 2020 Alex Caravaggio rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. As many other reviews have stated, one of the most frustrating things about this book is all the Forerunner jargon you are assumed to be familiar with (scrip, dazzler, baffler, ancilla, manipular, contender, aya, chamnune, hamanune, Erde-Tyrene, etc). Next is how I struggled to relate to any character in a meaningful way. Born has a brief moment with his family on his home planet, but I feel like this book leaves a lot to be desired on how Forerunners think and feel and what a standard mutation ...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Callum Shephard rated it really liked it

Halo: Cryptum is a hard book to review as there is a lot here to both praise and criticise.
On the one hand it is well written, has a good pace, had likable characters and feels like the beginnings of a complex science fiction trilogy. On the other it introduces a lot of elements which serve little purpose in the overall universe, is utterly disconnected to the Covenant war and in all honesty seems like it’s Halo in name only.

As you might have guessed from the cover, the book looks into the live Halo: Cryptum is a hard book to review as there is a lot here to both praise and criticise.
On the one hand it is well written, has a good pace, had likable characters and feels like the beginnings of a complex science fiction trilogy. On the other it introduces a lot of elements which serve little purpose in the overall universe, is utterly disconnected to the Covenant war and in all honesty seems like it’s Halo in name only.

As you might have guessed from the cover, the book looks into the lives of the Forerunners, the mysterious race who created Guilty Spark and the titular halo devices seen in the video games. In this case the book specifically follows the tale of one of the race, Born (Born Stellar Makes Eternal Lasting), who records the final years of his species’ existence. While this will likely answer a lot of questions about the games over time all I kept asking while reading it was “Do we really need to know this?”

The Forerunners were like Mass Effect’s Protheans. They’re a long dead race of aliens who we know little about and were involved in a major event which threatened the very existence of the galaxy itself. This works well on its own, expanding upon their lives removes a lot of the mystery behind them which makes their civilisation so interesting. If this was not bad enough there are many aspects relating to humanity which are quickly brought up, we have seen no sign of until now, and actually had me stop to check I had the right book only a few pages in. Yes, humanity is in this and yes they feel very out of place but it gets much stranger later on, trust me.

To give the book some credit the story itself is very well written. As the book is told through a first person narrative from Born the reader gets a good feel of how different his species from humanity without pages being spent trying to show just how alien they are. The only problem with this is that the style in which the first person narrative is written can be initially off-putting, helped in no small part by the author, Greg Bear, spending little time easing the reader into the novel. Bear in mind the book opens up with a Forerunner standing on a steamship filled with choirs, a crew of human subspecies going over a sea of kraken. Did I mention this doesn’t feel something from Halo?
It doesn’t get any easier to read in chapters following this, all of them feel slow and plodding, before thankfully picking up once the first big reveal is made. From there on it starts to get very interesting, expanding greatly upon the Forerunners and, despite the lack of action, has a feeling of major events being in motion. This is primarily due to the frequent hints about the Flood and the exploration of that antagonist’s origins.

This is a book which was enjoyable but it might have been better suited as a standalone series rather than a prequel to Halo. If you can manage a number of odd creative choices, major changes to the history of a number of species, big reveals and fewer explosions than usual, you might want to give this one a shot. If you’re a Halo fan who wants to preserve the sense of mystery behind the Forerunners and is more interested in the war between the UNSC and Covenant, then I’d suggest buying the novel Ghosts of Onyx over this.

One final warning I will give about Cryptum is that it’s not something you can read casually. Despite the short chapters and large font you need to concentrate to read this one, it did prove to be hard to focus on events taking place in the novel. It’s nowhere near as hard to follow as Frank Herbert’s later Dune novels or similar stuff, but it’s much harder to follow than other Halo novels like The Cole Protocol. ...more

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Feb 13, 2012 William Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: since-joining-goodreads, 2012

With the exception of a final 20 pages in which the plot gets a bit too heavy, the complexities get too, well, complex, and the motivations get confusing, this book is a science fiction tour de force.

Greg Bear wisely decided to get involved with the portion of the Halo property that is virtually undefined. This way he can utilize his very unique writing style and his excellent world building skills without damaging the 'canon' of the Halo games.

Consider the Halo games main storyline is a jumbled ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 David rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Anyone who has at least a modicum of knowledge about the HALO games.

Shelves: science-fiction, aliens, warfare, game-novels

This is a combined review of all three of Greg Bear's Forerunner Saga novels and is the same for all.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bear's fleshing out of the Forerunner backstory to the HALO games. He weaves a rich tapestry of the Forerunner caste society, its achievements and flaws, its greatness and its limitations. Of millennia-old plots and plans, and of how the longer those plots and plans run, the more they mutate beyond the control of the original authors. Of the shortsightedness of blind loyalty, ...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Michael Castro rated it really liked it

This book is the prequel to the Halo series, and to the Halo universe in general. "Halo: Cryptum" explains the Forerunner race, the Didact who appears in the Halo games, and what we thought was the beginning of mankind. I would recommend this book again to anybody who is interested in the history of the Halo games, wants to know what happened before the first books, and possibly anybody who just wants to read a good book. This book would probably be confusing for anybody who hasn't played the ga ...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Brad Hotelling rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Halo Cryptum was first shown to me through a friend. I am a fan of the Halo series and i wanted to see what it was like. The book take place thousands of years before the main Halo Series, it is through the perspective of the Forerunners (a long dead race during the original halo series). The Forerunners are dealing with some problems at which if left unchecked would bring ruin to their civilization and way of life. At first I struggled to get through the first couple of pages which turned me o ...more

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Mar 17, 2011 Mack rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Halo fans, sci-fi

Shelves: halo, series, fiction, sci-fi, good-coverart, own

A wonderful addition to the origins of the Halo Universe. The novel goes deeper into the history of the Forerunners and sheds some light on my key elements to the Halo storyline. In addition, other mysteries are unraveled, such as the beginning of the Flood outbreak and the appearance of the Halo superweapons. I cannot wait for book two.

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Jan 10, 2011 mookie kong rated it liked it

Shelves: own, ebook

Not bad. A good addition to the Halo universe and a good start for the history of what happened before the events of the Halo games. The book starts off a bit slow, but quickly picks up pace. At the end, I found myself wanting to learn more.

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Jun 11, 2015 Curtis rated it really liked it

Great beginning to the mystery of the Halo rings. I think Greg Bear did a very good job showing us the point of view from a Forerunner. I feel like he got a little too wordy and complex sometimes though.

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Aug 07, 2016 Emir Girgin rated it it was amazing

First book of the trilogy, it's mostly about the character introductions, and the state of the galaxy at the time. It also includes some of the events leading up to the time of the book.
A good read for those who're interested in the forerunners and the creation of halos
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May 16, 2019 Nick rated it really liked it

Shelves: halo, great-cover-art, sci-fi

Coming from someone who knows very little about the Halo universe, and who hasn't played a single Halo game, I thought this book was a wonderful introduction to the world of Halo!

This book is a first person narrative told from the perspective of a forerunner named Bornstellar makes eternal lasting (Born for short). Born has a passion for adventure and treasure hunting, rather than fulfilling his responsibilities as a young builder in forerunner society. His father grows impatient and trades him Coming from someone who knows very little about the Halo universe, and who hasn't played a single Halo game, I thought this book was a wonderful introduction to the world of Halo!

This book is a first person narrative told from the perspective of a forerunner named Bornstellar makes eternal lasting (Born for short). Born has a passion for adventure and treasure hunting, rather than fulfilling his responsibilities as a young builder in forerunner society. His father grows impatient and trades him away to another family. The story begins with Born on a human planet, traveling to find an important piece of lost forerunner technology that he believes can activate any artifact made by the precursors, an ancient race that mysteriously went missing. What he finds is truly more exciting but also dangerous, and sets the stage for the rest of the story.

I thought the author did an excellent job at incorporating the history, technology, and culture of the forerunners into the actual story line. It's not really lore-heavy as some reviews have made it out to be. It's a narrative first and foremost. The book is very readable for all ages, kids and adults alike. It has aspects of comedy, mystery, suspense, action, and even some romance, which made it a hard book to put down. My jaw dropped while reading the very last page and finally learning about the mystery.

I'm amazed that some have called this book slow, or that the plot was "just necessary to build a stronger foundation for subsequent stories." (A few spoilers ahead) In this book, you get the explanation of what halos are and learn key information about the precursors and forerunner characters that are important in the games. You also learn about the flood, and quite a bit about forerunner culture. I don't know what more people wanted, this was a great start to the series and I can't wait to read books 2 and 3 (end of spoiler).

I gave 4/5 stars because some parts of the story were unnecessary, drawn out, or rushed. I had a difficult time trying to visualize some of the descriptive scenes in the beginning of the book, when characters make their way to the Cryptum. I wish that was more clearly written. I thought the part about "the confirmer" later on in the story was unnecessary and just filler. The end of the book was a little bit rushed for me, but was still enjoyable. Lastly, there were some parts of the lore I didn't quite grasp, or that weren't explained 100%. I think this was an intentional thing, leaving it to the reader's imagination or set aside to be explored in subsequent books.

This is definitely worth reading for anyone remotely interested in Halo. It does a great job at both telling a story and weaving in history important to the saga. ...more

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Jul 01, 2019 Mitch rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-2019

3.0 Stars
I find Halo: Cryptum to be an equal parts fascinating and frustrating book. One of the first big video game tie-in books to snag a very high profile author in the SF book community, the story has a more clarkian type of feel to it, eschewing the more typical military science fiction we expect from a book set in the Halo universe. I think this is actually a cool thing to do: take a familiar universe a put a different spin on it.

The problem is the execution of that idea.

The main criticism 3.0 Stars
I find Halo: Cryptum to be an equal parts fascinating and frustrating book. One of the first big video game tie-in books to snag a very high profile author in the SF book community, the story has a more clarkian type of feel to it, eschewing the more typical military science fiction we expect from a book set in the Halo universe. I think this is actually a cool thing to do: take a familiar universe a put a different spin on it.

The problem is the execution of that idea.

The main criticism I can throw at the book is that it's just kinda boring. Not terribly written per se or having uninteresting ideas on it's own but the decision to have a main character who is so far removed from the main action of this world at this time is baffling. I can't count how many times things are explained to our main characters rather than shown. Entire wars and civil wars are started and ended without the main character or the reader witnessing any of them. We usually only get a lengthy exposition of what happened after the events have already happened. It's maddening. We read stories to experience events and upheavals with the people involved in those stories, not those on the sidelines who hear about it later.

This criticism also doesn't take in account some of the other problems with the story, like a lack of any memorable characters or character development. A distinct lack of connection between the reader and the characters only makes the lackluster plot even more apparent.

One point I will praise is the use of memory as a theme. A number of the characters are subjected to their ancestor's memories, which causes a reemergence of old grievances between species. This ties in well with the main characters ultimate fate and I found the thematic resonance one of the few well implemented aspects of the novel.

Overall, this whole book feels like a frustrating misfire. I think this was such a great opportunity to take a familiar world and to put a new spin on it, moving away from the military SF to something more cerebral and thematic. Instead, what we get is a mediocre attempt of hard SF that has been done much better in many other works. ...more

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Jan 07, 2021 James Loone rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2021

"They understood the universe in ways we never will."

I've been on a huge Halo kick recently -- I played through all of the Master Chief Collection along with Halo 5 over the course of the last year with my partner and my excitement for Halo: Infinite keeps growing despite it being probably 11 months away. Thanks to all of this hype I decided I wanted to dive deeper into the lore and world of the series, replaying all of the games as well as reading the books, comics and watching all associat
"They understood the universe in ways we never will."

I've been on a huge Halo kick recently -- I played through all of the Master Chief Collection along with Halo 5 over the course of the last year with my partner and my excitement for Halo: Infinite keeps growing despite it being probably 11 months away. Thanks to all of this hype I decided I wanted to dive deeper into the lore and world of the series, replaying all of the games as well as reading the books, comics and watching all associated short films over the course of this year -- chronologically. That journey starts here, with Halo: Cryptum, taking place one hundred thousand years before the original game and giving us a lot of information on the Flood, Forerunners and the Halo rings themselves.

Despite being based in the world of a video game which to many may make it seem like a breeze, Cryptum is a tricky read because of all the terminology, info-dumps and history, but I had a great time with this one -- despite having to hop onto the Halo Wiki to recap things right after reading. It's very alienating because it makes a pretty simple and strong story trickier to follow when it didn't necessarily need to be that way.

Our main character goes through a strong, very interesting arc, especially with the position he finds himself in at the end, and I really love the Didact as a character and am interested to see how he evolves throughout this trilogy to reach the point he's at in Halo 4.

Spending so much time with the Forerunner's and their civilisations, learning about the different classes and diving into the history -- I just had a great time being in this world, but I think I would have appreciated the book even more if I had better knowledge prior to going into it. There's just so much do digest in this world that it becomes overwhelming -- the main story here is easy enough to follow but all of the history included is daunting, but reading this now it becomes obvious how important it is in fully appreciating what 343 did with Halo 4 and 5. ...more

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Feb 12, 2021 Steven Lee rated it did not like it

The Halo series will always have a soft spot in my heart. I think the novels portray artificial intelligence characters in a really interesting light. The space battles depicted in The Fall of Reach and elsewhere are unlike others I've read before. As a result of my fondness for the series I have picked them up one by one and read them when I could.

I think my appreciation for the series peaked Halo: First Contact, and quickly eroded from there.

I like to think of myself as a fairly sophisticate ...more

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Nov 22, 2020 Zack rated it liked it

I've always loved the lore of Halo, and the careful way that details are meted out to continue the intrigue set out in Eric Nylund's initial novel and the first game in the series. And as much as I love the mystery of the series, I also tend to be ok with big secrets being revealed and answers being provided. So, in some senses, this Forerunner Saga ought to have been the perfect thing for someone like me. But what I got instead felt like a messy, unwieldy story with too many loose ends and ill- ...more

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Feb 05, 2021 Pat Kuhn rated it it was ok

This book is not for the faint at heart. It was undoubtedly written for fans of the Halo franchise, and there is little for anyone not interested in learning more about the franchise's lore. I played the Halo games since there were Halo games, and even I had a tough time reading through Cryptum. The author is a skilled wordsmith, but I got nothing of substance from this book that I could not have gotten from a Wikipedia page detailing the events. Most of that is due to the unbelievably dull prot ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 Sacha Valero rated it really liked it

Shelves: halo, fiction, sci-fi

This was a fantastic journey to the very foundations of the Halo Universe. Bornstellar, a young Manipular is on a quest to find Precursor treasure (artifacts) and he winds up with two humans, a Florian named Riser who is about half the height of regular humans, and Chakas. The Librarian essentially manipulated the the meeting in order to locate, and free her husband the Didact, from his Cryptum and thousand year exile.

After he's free, the Didact takes them to the planet of Charum Hakkor, a place ...more

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Jan 01, 2021 Matthew Johnson rated it really liked it

3.6
It's good, not great, but it exceeded my expectations and I'm still glad it exists.
For me, the Halo universe is my favourite science fiction universe, because it feels the most real. I like to imagine that this is human kinds most likely future. We begin to colonize the solar system with the moon and mars in 2080, interplanetary war necessitates a United Nations Space Command, we move toward a united earth government to administer the solar system until we discover faster than light travel a ...more

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About Greg Bear

Greg Bear

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Greg Bear is one of the world's leading hard SF authors. He sold his first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's Famous Science Fiction.

A full-time writer, he lives in Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. He is the son-in-law of Poul Anderson. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gregbear ...more

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The Forerunner Saga (3 books)

Books by Greg Bear

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“They understood the universe in ways we never will. We can't unlock their secrets—but now, apparently, we can destroy all they ever made. That's what I call progress.” — 0 likes

“There are points in life when everything changes, and changes in a big way. The old sophistic texts refer to these points as synchrons. Synchrons supposedly tie great forces and personalities together. You can’t predict them and you can’t avoid them.” — 0 likes

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