Just because there are Spartans in it doesn't mean it's a history book. Sci-fi scribe Tobias S. Buckell has been tapped to write the sixth novel based on and in the Halo universe, Halo: The Cole Protocol, due this fall.

Buckell is no stranger to the genre, his most recent work, Ragamuffin, having received a 2007 Nebula Award nomination for Best Novel. According to Bungie, The Cole Protocol promises plenty of fan service, focusing on the whereabouts of the Spartan Gray Team and "an unexplored conflict of the Human-Covenant War where unlikely alliances are formed and shattered." Formed and shattered.

Although the show floors haven't opened yet, the GDC Store was packed with potential consumers. Highlights include: a teddy bear ($10) slouched over and surrounded by empty shot glasses ($5) and flasks ($10), a line of clothing for toddlers ($16 to $25) and the Outlaw Volleyball soundtrack. Check out the gallery below.

Since the inception of the video game, there have been those who would try to re-purpose electronic interactive entertainment for more ... educational pursuits. As a rule we're typically supportive of these efforts, but a recent project by students at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center has just pushed us too far. They've just used a game called Within Range to ... teach the Dewey Decimal System. [Update: It's the Library of Congress classification system. See below paragraph for more insight into how this error was made.]

We've made it clear how we feel about libraries (or as we think of them, the crappy, flammable Internet that also has homeless people), so you can understand why this is so offensive to us. That's doubled by the fact that the fun has been filed under "N" for "non-existent." Think all games deserve a fair shake? Go ahead, but don't say we didn't warn you.

[Thanks, Michael S.]

Say what you will about Mass Effect, but you've got to admit that it was a great read. In fact, the game's copious amounts of text will be spilling into dead-tree form a second time with Del-Rey Books' just announced Mass Effect: Ascension, which will be penned by Mass Effect lead writer Drew Karpyshyn, as was the first prequel book in the game's universe. (A second book had previously been hinted at with the (apparently) temporary subtitle of "Revolution.")

This second novel, Ascension, will span the events between the end of the first game (Spoiler: Rosebud is his space sled!) and the beginning of the second. There's no word on a date yet, but we're going to go out on a limb and guess "sometime before the second game is released."

If you've already blown through the single-player campaign of Halo 3, we can understand if you have a little depression. When you stare into the future of the Halo fiction, all you can see is inky blackness. ... (Yes, and Halo Wars, but play along.) Luckily for you, salvation is coming on Oct. 30 in the form of the novel Halo: Contact Harvest.

We know, we're no happier than you are about sullying our hands by touching dead trees than you are. But reseach shows that reading books about video games is a close as you can get to playing video games without electricity. Contact Harvest follows Avery Johnson through the first battle with the Covenant and is written by Joseph Staten, Bungie' s lead writer. It seems like a good purchase if you're looking for a gaming read ... or you win our Legendary Halo 3 Giveaway and want to complete your collection of everything in the world with Halo written on it.

Fans of serious games and/or snarky conservative satires should tune in to Comedy Central's The Colbert Report tonight, as faux-Republican Steven Colbert will be talking with Ian Bogost, game designer and author of the recently-released Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames.

According to Bogost's blog, he'll be talking about his book, and his company of the same name, which has been producing news-oriented games for the New York Times' online Times Select section. The Colbert Report airs tonight at 11:30 PM EST. Who's gonna post the YouTube video? Anyone?

Updated the time; thanks to everyone who corrected this.

Beware, bibliophobes! Nefarious librarians are luring gamers into their hallowed halls with promises of Guitar Hero goodness. The Fort Dodge Messenger reports that a public library in Humboldt, Iowa is using Guitar Hero as a hook to get teens interested in reading. Gaming aficionados from local schools were invited to the library to play the rhythm music game, and peers from the library's Teen Advisory Board used the opportunity to encourage reading as an enjoyable past-time. Books? Enjoyable? Who knew?

[Via GamePolitics]

When he's not busy blogging about the potentially deadly mix of urine and PlayStations, Joystiq blogger Kyle Orland has been busy at work on The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual, a ... uh, style guide and reference manual about video games. Or is that videogames?

Over a year ago, style guide coauthor Dave Thomas prompted this Joystiq poll to determine whether we'd use "videogames" or "video games" here at the 'stiq. Astute readers will certainly note that we use the latter, as determined by our savvy voters. Those who voted for that winner will be disheartened to learn that "videogames" -- Thomas' preferred variant -- is indeed the guide's preferred spelling.

So, why a style guide for games writers? Kyle attempts to tackle that question over at GameDaily, while edifying readers on the correct styling of Xbox (hint: that's the correct version). But what about PLAYSTATION 3? We don't have to write it in all caps, do we? Interested parties -- even you FAQ writers -- can request a free eBook copy of the book for a limited time -- an altruistic effort we can only imagine is intended to save each and every one of us from reading "X-BoX-360" ever again. Want to add a leatherbound* copy to your mahogany bookcase? Hard copies are available for $15 paperback and $25 hardback.

*Leather binding not available.

Free - Request The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual
Read - Book Excerpt: 'A Question of Style' (GameDaily BIZ)

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.

In the spirit of the book - and of Off the Grid's focus on the disparities between digital and non-digital formats - I'm going to concentrate less on the content of McKenzie Wark's Gamer Theory, and more on the differences between its web-based and treeware versions. Marshall McLuhan would be proud.

Wark - a writer, scholar, and academic - first published GAM3R 7H30RY in 2006. The text, produced with the Brooklyn-based Institute for the Future of the Book, appeared as a specially-designed, collaborative website. Divided into chapters, with each chapter divided into notecard-like sections, the "book" encouraged its readers to leave comments/criticisms on the material covered. Once moderated, comments would then appear alongside the sections. The site itself is beautifully designed, and allows users easy access to any of the 225 pages of content within three intuitive clicks of the mouse.

After collecting enough comments and feedback, Wark and the IFB closed down the response-system for GAM3R 7H30RY Version 1.1. In mid-April, they introduced Version 2.0, now called Gamer Theory, alongside a non-digital book of the same name, published IRL by Harvard University Press.

Before you lynch us for recommending entertainment that's neither electronic nor interactive (books, they're the ultimate retro portable), know that GEEK MAFIA ain't just any book. First, it's hella cheap: $5. Second, the book features as hero protagonist a video game designer who gets entangled in a comic book counterfeiting scheme and uses game design skills to pull off a big con.

Author Rick Dakan's bio includes a hint of the intrigue that may have inspired the novel. According to his bio, Dakan dreamed up the idea for popular MMORPG City of Heroes, helped found Cryptic Studios, and was fired by his business partners three years later.

The kid's got chops, the book's getting props, and the price is right. We bought one.

[Via Seth Godin]

Erudite academic and advocate for all things gaming, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins has started a blog titled "Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins." Now you can finally trash all those unofficial Henry Jenkins fansites from your RSS feed, cause this one's official. With only a couple gaming posts -- like this one on games as branded entertainment -- there's still plenty for the interested nerd to uncover and look forward to.

But the blog isn't supposed to be all about games, it's about his new book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. We could try to condense what Prof. Jenkins is gonna be writing on his blog, but we'd only be doing a disservice to you, reader. So we'll just tease you into it: "Reduced to its most core elements, this book is about the relationship between three concepts - media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence ...."

Steven Johnson, author of the excellent book Everything Bad is Good for You, made an appearance on Stephen Colbert's faux-news show last night to talk about "how today's popular culture is actually making us smarter." Johnson writes on his blog:

"... [Colbert] wasn't too over-the-top with his O'Reilly imitation in our chat last night. He played it a bit straighter than I had expected, which made the conversation a little easier. The interesting twist was that he chose not to do the 'you're destroying the youth of America' rant that you might have expected him to do; in fact, his major in character joke was that he agreed with my argument that books are a waste of time. (By the way, if you're just coming to the site for the first time, that's not my argument at all, of course.)"

Almost one year ago (to the day!) Johnson appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (video) pushing the same book and the same message. We're suckers for his argument (not that books are a waste of time, the other one: that video games aren't a waste of time), so we don't mind one bit. He name drops games like Civilization IV and Spore as games that are emblematic of his thesis that today's games are increasingly complicated. I don't know about you, Steven, but I can't stop playing UNO on Xbox Live Arcade. Not sure that counts though ...

More on Steven Johnson:
Why we should take games seriously
An open letter to senator Clinton
Video Games Are Good for You, Except When They're Just Bad

(Update: video is embedded after the break. Thanks, daneo!)

Firing Squad caught up with Ed Halter, author of From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Videogames, to talk with him about the intersection of ... umm, war and videogames. Anyone who's read Smartbomb is already familiar with the intimate and storied relationship between the two, from early Defense Department research to current Army recruitment tools. Halter says:

"The Army loves to say that America's Army is 'authentic' but only a fool would believe that real war is like that game. A more realistic form of America's Army, for example, would be one in which your soldier might lose a limb or get brain-damaged in combat, then come home to a Sims-style scenario in which you have to manage the rest of your life that way. Or maybe a game where you don't get into combat at all–you just camp out in the desert, running exercises. But I doubt those kind of game would serve as very effective advertisements."

Halter will continue to follow the topic with a blog -- as a supplement to the more traditional dead tree edition and as potential material for a new edition -- that's already full of interesting stuff. Anyone pick this up yet?

[Thanks, John]

If only I had gotten my vintage, first-edition Zelda game guide signed by the author when I had the chance. Well, I won't make the same mistake twice! I'm a gonna get my Oblivion guide signed by the author! One highly valuable collector's item coming up!

In all seriousness, who wants their strategy book John Hancocked anyhow? Is there really a market for this, or is this just misplaced promotion?