Halo: Cryptum discussion

[Garland]

I was on io9 tonight and ran across an article on Halo: Cryptum.

Some excerpts:

For those of you who missed the original announcement, Greg Bear is writing a trilogy exploring the history of the mysterious Forerunners, creators and builders of the Halos. As the book's blurb notes:

Almost nothing is known for sure about this ancient race. Worshipped by the Covenant as gods, their engineering relics pepper the galaxy, and their connection to humanity remains unanswered. Devoted fans of both the books and games will finally get to delve deep into the era of these enigmatic beings, and discover for themselves the epic story behind one of the great mysteries of the "Halo" universe: the complete disappearance of the Forerunners from existence.
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And the fact that the cover looks more like a classic hard science fiction novel than a Halo tie-in is no accident, says O'Connor. Halo: Cryptum is intended to be "a hard sci-fi novel with a hint of space opera, very much in the mold of Banks, Reynolds and of course, Bear himself. We told him at the very first meeting, this should be a classic Greg Bear giant – in the vein of Eon, Anvil of the Stars and so on, but inspired by the mysteries presented in the Halo games and extended universe."

I haven't read much sci-fi aside from the Halo books, so maybe someone could elaborate what "hard sci-fi" is?

The article's main focus is the cover art (and it's got some good info on that), but it does talk a little about other stuff, too. Definitely worth a read. And it's got a number of pics, but the important one is the finalised cover art:

(also available in super HD-widescreen wallpaper size)

And here's the "final" cover (I use quotes because I'm a little sceptical over the simplicity):

So people, whatcha think?

 

[Roadkiller]

Greg Bear! A real SF author gets a crack at Halo! Outstanding!

"Hard SF" is generally regarded as SF where the author strives to make the science correct, or at least plausible. I suppose it could be summed up by watching the difference between the movements of space ships in Star Wars (Science Fantasy) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (arguably the closest a movie has ever gotten to Hard SF).

This should rock, but it may be controversial. The last "true" SF writer to try Halo was William C. Dietz with "The Flood". Dietz is a Military SF writer, another subgenre of SF. Apparently his book left a mixed taste, SF fans liked it, Halo fans not so much.

 

[Devious]

Battlestar Galactica fighter scenes Compared to Star wars fighter scenes will also give a good idea as to what is hard scifi.

This could be very interesting. I haven't read much scifi, but I liked IRobot (the book) and Enders game. Ill definetly take a look at this when it comes out.

 

[Tyvern]

I though The Flood was a excellant book, coming from my sci-fi fan side and Halo fan side.

this looks like the book will be pretty cool!

 

[Roadkiller]

FWIW the "Halo" structure itself is lifted from a novel by one of the hardest SF authors around, Larry Niven. Niven wrote the novel "Ringworld" in 1970. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld - CAUTION MAJOR SPOILERS AT THE LINK! )

When the Halo novels were being contracted, Mr. Niven was approached to write the first. He declined, saying he was not immersed enough in the Halo universe to be able to write something good. He's also historically refused to write military SF because he has never served in the military and didn't want to do things wrong (a sign of a "hard" SF author is this attention to detail).