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A review by accidentalmuse
Halo: Cryptum by Greg Bear
4.0
3.75/5
As a huge halo fan, when my boyfriend first mentioned this trilogy to me it sounded incredibly interesting. An opportunity to see a more fleshed out Didact, and just to learn more about the Forerunners, your classic 'ancient mysterious very-advanced race of aliens, that we know nothing about'.
I'll start with some of the main things I liked about this book:
Our main character, Bornstellar, was very likeable. Throughout this book you got to see him really grow and mature as a character, and that was lovely to see. Being with him as he overcame his prejudices, and found out what mattered to him, where his loyalties lay, was something I immensely enjoyed. Sure in the initial chapters he was lacking a bit of personality, I'll put that down to him being a young protagonist.
The setting was also wonderful, I really got the impression of how advanced life was in the Forerunner galaxy, but it was all made understandable enough to visualise.
A third thing I liked about this book was the politics which we began to get into towards the latter half of the novel. Greg Bear doesn't attempt to paint the Forerunners as a perfect society with perfect politics, instead he showed us that these people could still be flawed, especially those with the most power, and it led to an interesting plot.
My last big plus for this book was of course, The Didact. One thing to note, is this trilogy was released before Halo 4 came out, however I played Halo 4 first. If it hadn't been for the time I spent looking at terminals and talking to my bf about the lore, The Didact would've been an incredibly one dimensional character. So, when I heard he was in this trilogy I was really looking for an expansion and a deeper dive into his character. And that's exactly what I got.
The Didact was a really great character in my opinion, we also see growth in him throughout the novel as he spends time with his former enemies, and overcomes some of the harsh opinions he had of them. You can tell he really does care about his people, the Mantle, and the trust he has in his wife. I can't talk too much about the specifics without spoilers, but I just really like the way the Didact was characterised.
There are some things that could have been tweaked or improved about Cryptum so let's get into a few of those:
Firstly, female representation. Now, for the majority of the book our cast of characters is very small. I don't mind at all, that there aren't many women in the book, my problem arises with the way they're written when they are included.
There are effectively two women the main character interacts with outside of family in this novel, and both of them are painted as love interests. These two characters are Glory and The Librarian. I found it frustrating that two strong characters such as these (one a warrior, and one an incredibly respected forerunner) had virtually no descriptions, no meaningful page time, except when Bornstellar was talking about how hot they were/how his body reacted to their presence.
The only other real 'female' presence throughout this book are the ancillas, who are subservient personal AIs. No strong or complex female characters.
The second thing was the treatment of supporting characters. From the beginning of the novel Bornstellar has two companions. While these companions are deemed as 'lesser' in Forerunner society and am surprised by how quickly they disappeared into the background of the story.
We spend quite some time travelling between planets, and for almost the entirely of those sections, the companions are locked in their room, rarely spoken of, rarely spoken to. It just felt like a bit of a shame after we'd spent the early chapters getting to know and love these characters.
Overall I enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading the second. Cryptum has allowed me to solidify my views of The Didact, it has filled in some of the holes left from Halo 4, and it's set up an interesting world and atmosphere leading into book 2.
I'm curious to see where Bear will go with the plot threads he's woven,and if/when our supporting cast will be given more time on the page.
As a huge halo fan, when my boyfriend first mentioned this trilogy to me it sounded incredibly interesting. An opportunity to see a more fleshed out Didact, and just to learn more about the Forerunners, your classic 'ancient mysterious very-advanced race of aliens, that we know nothing about'.
I'll start with some of the main things I liked about this book:
Our main character, Bornstellar, was very likeable. Throughout this book you got to see him really grow and mature as a character, and that was lovely to see. Being with him as he overcame his prejudices, and found out what mattered to him, where his loyalties lay, was something I immensely enjoyed. Sure in the initial chapters he was lacking a bit of personality, I'll put that down to him being a young protagonist.
The setting was also wonderful, I really got the impression of how advanced life was in the Forerunner galaxy, but it was all made understandable enough to visualise.
A third thing I liked about this book was the politics which we began to get into towards the latter half of the novel. Greg Bear doesn't attempt to paint the Forerunners as a perfect society with perfect politics, instead he showed us that these people could still be flawed, especially those with the most power, and it led to an interesting plot.
My last big plus for this book was of course, The Didact. One thing to note, is this trilogy was released before Halo 4 came out, however I played Halo 4 first. If it hadn't been for the time I spent looking at terminals and talking to my bf about the lore, The Didact would've been an incredibly one dimensional character. So, when I heard he was in this trilogy I was really looking for an expansion and a deeper dive into his character. And that's exactly what I got.
The Didact was a really great character in my opinion, we also see growth in him throughout the novel as he spends time with his former enemies, and overcomes some of the harsh opinions he had of them. You can tell he really does care about his people, the Mantle, and the trust he has in his wife. I can't talk too much about the specifics without spoilers, but I just really like the way the Didact was characterised.
There are some things that could have been tweaked or improved about Cryptum so let's get into a few of those:
Firstly, female representation. Now, for the majority of the book our cast of characters is very small. I don't mind at all, that there aren't many women in the book, my problem arises with the way they're written when they are included.
There are effectively two women the main character interacts with outside of family in this novel, and both of them are painted as love interests. These two characters are Glory and The Librarian. I found it frustrating that two strong characters such as these (one a warrior, and one an incredibly respected forerunner) had virtually no descriptions, no meaningful page time, except when Bornstellar was talking about how hot they were/how his body reacted to their presence.
The only other real 'female' presence throughout this book are the ancillas, who are subservient personal AIs. No strong or complex female characters.
The second thing was the treatment of supporting characters. From the beginning of the novel Bornstellar has two companions. While these companions are deemed as 'lesser' in Forerunner society and am surprised by how quickly they disappeared into the background of the story.
We spend quite some time travelling between planets, and for almost the entirely of those sections, the companions are locked in their room, rarely spoken of, rarely spoken to. It just felt like a bit of a shame after we'd spent the early chapters getting to know and love these characters.
Overall I enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading the second. Cryptum has allowed me to solidify my views of The Didact, it has filled in some of the holes left from Halo 4, and it's set up an interesting world and atmosphere leading into book 2.
I'm curious to see where Bear will go with the plot threads he's woven,and if/when our supporting cast will be given more time on the page.