Halo Encyclopedia

My whole family plays Halo together, and my son has read all the Halo books. This is a must have reference for any self-respecting Halo fan, and it makes a nice coffee table book. It is an in-depth look into the environment, characters, weaponery, enemies, vehicles, etc...

great read, tons of intel into the Halo lore, I loved the presentation/layout -more artistic than past encyclopedia's I have owned(starwars/marvel etc...) I found myself reading it for hours upon arrival... very interesting!

This is a nearly complete listing of everything found in the Halo Universe - of that I was very happily surprised. There are a few timelines that are completely astounding with the level of detail they go in, as well as the linearity that they follow in the often-confusing details and stories littered throughout the creatively crafted Universe. This is a great, interesting read for any Sci-Fi junkie and any level Halo fan. Don't go too far into that though - I am [admittedly] a giant Halo nerd who has the fan website, on forums, and constantly debates with friends regarding minute details and dark corners of the franchise. This book, however, does not go into the level of detail I was hoping for in a lot of categories. It has pretty visuals, some new concept art, but it just sometimes slaps a few text blocks of commonly-known facts about something without creative insight. Some of the entries (the engineers for one) almost word for word copied and pasted from the Halo Beastarium that came with Halo 3, and if you feel like you know a lot about the Halo Universe, this feeling will become quite common the more pages you turn. On a side note: this book is somewhat difficult to read in a plane - it is almost too wide to fully open up. But that's a great thing when reading in my living room. I have to give this 5 stars simply because of the craft and history involved and because of what another reviewer stated - all the years of work put in here would be a shame to see anything less. It IS nearly complete of facts *near*the time of Halo 3: ODST coming out, but offers relatively little NEW information beyond that. Don't hope for Reach spoilers.

I just started playing Halo a few months ago. After falling in love with the series, I decided I needed to educate myself and this book is great for that. For all Halo enthusiasts, this book has amazing pictures, images, and drawings that beat the graphics of a monitor or TV any day. Highly recommend for anyone who enjoys Halo.