Reviews

This book is excellent! I love sci-fi and have always been fascinated by the Halo Universe. I was hesitant about this book because my experience with cross-media adaptations has not been great, but I have real hope for the rest of the series! The book excellently written and really did such a good job of carefully outlining and developing the narratives present in the games WITHOUT stepping on the game play. As impressed as I was by this I was just as equally impressed by the fact that you need very little prior knowledge for this book to drive you into the universe and story of the human/covenant war. It stands on its own and I highly recommend it!

bhall237's review

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5.0

“The problem was, the Spartans couldn't take their fight into space. Every minor victory on the ground turned into a major defeat in orbit.
Soon there would be no more colonies, no human settlements-and nowhere left to run.”

This book is so damn good. It’s not just good for a video game novel or for a sci-fi novel, this is a damn fine book. Following John, a.k.a. Master Chief from his first meeting with Dr. Halsey to his first meeting with the covenant and witnessing the fall of the planets, and all the intricacies of interplanetary battle was extravagant and epic in scale. The icing on the cake that made this book even better with the added adjunct at the end that gave search crucially vital information into not only certain military strategies, but crucial plot points, including how the covenant discovered Reach. In doing some research after finishing the novel, I found out that not only was there a deadline of a few months to finish this book, it was to be finished without a complete picture of Halo: Combat Evolved. Added on is the fact that most all expanded universe novels followed the structure that is seen here just goes to show how important this book is. I cannot recommend this book enough. Being able to see the relationships of characters and the ideals and motives of people like Master Chief, Dr. Halsey, Captain Keyes, Cortana, and even the covenant for that matter, it’s such a brilliant addition that is so unfathomable as to how important this was to a series that hadn’t even released its first game yet.