So I just finished the Fall of reach and that got me way interested in the Halo fiction. Are there any other books that I should read? Preferably with covenant and John-117
 
Also which rank is higher? Master Chief or Captain?

Have you read the rest of the series The Flood, First Strike, etc?

Interesting. I didn't know they had any books.  They don't seem to have the 
whole set on the Kindle just yet. I wish they did though.  I think I'll pick some
of these up.
 
Space opera is usually fun to read.  There are probably thousands of books 
on space opera out there to which I've read a few (just recently completed
the Right Ascension/Declination books as of yesterday).
 
Still need to read the Mass Effect books too (possibly EVE too)

The Flood is definitely the worst one I've read, part of the book is new content from the covenant side but all the parts from Master Chief's perspective are pretty bad. The other two I've read are First Strike and Fall of Reach which both were pretty good, unfortunately Reach contradicts some of what happens in the books which makes it even harder to keep the fiction straight. It's a shame because if they are just going to contradict what the books say I don't want to read them anymore.

I recommend reading the other two Eric Nylund books. 
 
First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx are almost direct sequels of Fall of Reach. All of them feature the Blue Team, but the Master Chief is absent in GoO.

"Why read a book based off of a videogame? "

You should read them all (well Flood sucks) They are really entertaining even without the Chief, to be honest Masterchief is probably the most boring charachter in the Halo universe. Fall of Reach, Contact Harvest and Cole Protocol are my personal favourites.

I would say Contact Harvest and Ghost of Onyx are my two favorite of the series. Have yet to get in to cole protocol yet.

" The Flood is definitely the worst one I've read, part of the book is new content from the covenant side but all the parts from Master Chief's perspective are pretty bad. The other two I've read are First Strike and Fall of Reach which both were pretty good, unfortunately Reach contradicts some of what happens in the books which makes it even harder to keep the fiction straight. It's a shame because if they are just going to contradict what the books say I don't want to read them anymore. "

" @CaptainCody: Why play a game based on a book? "

I just started Halo Evolutions, it is a short story collection that has a little bit of everything and it's like $5 on Amazon right now, so how could you go wrong... :) 

" The Flood is definitely the worst one I've read, part of the book is new content from the covenant side but all the parts from Master Chief's perspective are pretty bad. The other two I've read are First Strike and Fall of Reach which both were pretty good, unfortunately Reach contradicts some of what happens in the books which makes it even harder to keep the fiction straight. It's a shame because if they are just going to contradict what the books say I don't want to read them anymore. "

To answer your other question: 
 
From what I understand, John-117's rank is pretty far beneath that of Captain. He's just a Master Chief Petty Officer, which means he's not really very esteemed at all. In fact, if I'm looking at this correctly, Noble Six in Halo Reach is actually of a higher rank (Lieutenant) than the Master Chief. Which means he'd be able to boss the Chief around, had the two the opportunity to fight together.  
 
But the rank of Captain is extremely high up the chain. The only thing above the Captain rank are the numerous Admiral ranks, and the way Admirals are treated in the Halo fiction, you'd think they were demi-gods of some sort.  
 
The only hitch here is that the Master Chief carries a certain gravitas symbolically. As the last official Spartan, he's basically the vanguard for all human hope, regardless of his rank. So when he's around everyone sort of assumes he's got the shit taken care of. 

" @CaptainCody said:

"Why read a book based off of a videogame? "

Dont discount them so easily, they tend to be far better than Video Game to Movie conversions.  Halo books are pretty good, I was also a fan of the Myst novels.   If you like the fiction, read the books. Reading is FUN! "

" The Flood is definitely the worst one I've read, part of the book is new content from the covenant side but all the parts from Master Chief's perspective are pretty bad. The other two I've read are First Strike and Fall of Reach which both were pretty good, unfortunately Reach contradicts some of what happens in the books which makes it even harder to keep the fiction straight. It's a shame because if they are just going to contradict what the books say I don't want to read them anymore. "

The Halo books aren't that great.  The only one I would even consider to be "good" is The Fall of Reach.  Even then, there are some glaring, and I mean GLARING, continuity flaws between all the books and the games. 
 
I know, I know: "Game Canon takes priority", but it's still pretty jarring in a lot of ways.  I feel consistency is important, and if they're just going to disregard established story points, then there's really no reason to read the books at all.

" The Halo books aren't that great.  The only one I would even consider to be "good" is The Fall of Reach.  Even then, there are some glaring, and I mean GLARING, continuity flaws between all the books and the games.   I know, I know: "Game Canon takes priority", but it's still pretty jarring in a lot of ways.  I feel consistency is important, and if they're just going to disregard established story points, then there's really no reason to read the books at all. "

" Why read a book based off of a videogame? "

In my opinion:

The Flood is garbage, First Strike is OK, Ghosts of Onxy is excellent, Contact Harvest was meh, the Cole Protocol is also meh, and Evolutions is good. I can get into more detail if you want me to. That's just the quick and dirty version.

" @yinstarrunner said:

" The Halo books aren't that great.  The only one I would even consider to be "good" is The Fall of Reach.  Even then, there are some glaring, and I mean GLARING, continuity flaws between all the books and the games.   I know, I know: "Game Canon takes priority", but it's still pretty jarring in a lot of ways.  I feel consistency is important, and if they're just going to disregard established story points, then there's really no reason to read the books at all. "

 Well the canon is usually one-way.  Game canon flows into book canon but never flows back.  Book canon is basically a sink.  Just don't bother trying to distinguish between the continuity.  People may change the story for dramatic effect, bring somebody back from the dead, whatever it takes to better the story being told.  Most of the time books based on video games can be pretty crappy. Not sure I've ever read one, but it also depends on who is writing it & the quality of the writing. Sometimes it can be a treat.  I'll have to download some of these books in sample form on my Kindle & see if I'll enjoy them. "

Only read the stuff by Eric Nylund. The rest is pretty bad.

" @Lind_L_Taylor said:

" @yinstarrunner said:

" The Halo books aren't that great.  The only one I would even consider to be "good" is The Fall of Reach.  Even then, there are some glaring, and I mean GLARING, continuity flaws between all the books and the games.   I know, I know: "Game Canon takes priority", but it's still pretty jarring in a lot of ways.  I feel consistency is important, and if they're just going to disregard established story points, then there's really no reason to read the books at all. "

 Well the canon is usually one-way.  Game canon flows into book canon but never flows back.  Book canon is basically a sink.  Just don't bother trying to distinguish between the continuity.  People may change the story for dramatic effect, bring somebody back from the dead, whatever it takes to better the story being told.  Most of the time books based on video games can be pretty crappy. Not sure I've ever read one, but it also depends on who is writing it & the quality of the writing. Sometimes it can be a treat.  I'll have to download some of these books in sample form on my Kindle & see if I'll enjoy them. "

Contradicting oneself does not a better story make.  It pulls me out of the experience more than anything.  Fall of Reach was genuinely interesting to me and now a good portion of that book is rendered moot.   Bungie are the lore-keepers of the Halo Universe, it's not out of the question to expect them to tell a story within it without tripping all over themselves.  Yeah, I know they didn't write the books, but Halo is still their creative property, and that's obviously the universe they wanted to create, otherwise they wouldn't have greenlit the book.    I guess its just confusing because I didn't find the story in Reach too compelling, and I could have easily thought of a different perspective on the fall of reach that would not have retconned the canon.  I probably wouldn't be so annoyed if Reach's story was actually great, but it's not, so all I see is making the Halo lore even more of a mess than it already is.  Good thing I'm not one to overly care about story in a video game, though. "

" The Halo books aren't that great.  The only one I would even consider to be "good" is The Fall of Reach.  Even then, there are some glaring, and I mean GLARING, continuity flaws between all the books and the games.   I know, I know: "Game Canon takes priority", but it's still pretty jarring in a lot of ways.  I feel consistency is important, and if they're just going to disregard established story points, then there's really no reason to read the books at all. "