Halo: Primordium
The Forerunner Saga, Book Two
By Greg Bear
Tor
Release date: January 3, 2012
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle

In his second book in the Halo: Forerunner saga, the prolific sci-fi author Greg Bear begins Halo: Primordium where he left off in Cryptum, the first book. While Cryptum was told from the point of view of Bornstellar, Primordium is told in first person by Chakas, one of the humans Bornstellar hooked up with on Edyre-Tyrene, a.k.a. Earth, during the events that took place in Cryptum.

Chakas is no longer human, though, as he explains to the ones he calls the Reclaimers in his new form as an AI construct – actually, a failing duplicate of a Forerunner monitor. The Reclaimers, an ONI science team, try to retrieve information from Chakas on the Didact, a Promethean who was the supreme commander of the Forerunner military, and on the human-Forerunner war. Chakas begins his story recounting his childhood friendship with Riser, a tiny human called a Florian, and the events covered in Cryptum, where he and Riser, both following their “geas” (a sort of biological GPS installed by the Librarian to guide humans toward doing the bidding of the Forerunners) on a treasure hunt with Bornstellar, the Forerunner equivalent to a human teenager who rebels against his Builder father, to Djamonkin Crater on Earth where they rouse the Didact from hibernation.