Scan barcode
A review by vigneswara_prabhu
Halo: Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten
4.0
Halo: Contact Harvest, doesn't have Spartans, or the forerunners (at least not in forefront). But it manages to recapture that familiar elements which made the series beloved (sans a 7 ft. tall, half a ton weighing walking tank).
As the title suggests, contact harvest tells the tale of Humanity's first formal contact with the alien collective known as the Covenant, who were hell bent on genocide at a galactic scale. The story is largely told from the POV of the beloved Sergeant Avery Johnson, back when he was kicking ass of the Innies. For the covenant side we have yet again a bunch of one off characters, who, as the convention goes are dead by the end of the book. So goes the tradition of Halo books, giving interesting arc to the lowliest of the Unggoy, literally the grunts, and killing them off, just as fast as their meat shield brethren in the games.
On a similar note, is there some rule which says that the UNSC AI introduced in the story need to be killed off by the stories end? Seeing the unfortunate end of the two Harvest administrative Ai Sif and Mack/Loki, that seems to be the case.
Johnson is not his usual gung-ho, one line spewing smartass we've come to expect; rather a more somber soldier who is mulling over the consequences of the lives he has had to take. Though he is still a force to be reckoned with in the battlefield. In that respect, the arrival of the covenant, gave him a clear picture as to what he, they were all fighting for. Rather than wars borne out of political or ideological differences, this was a clear case of us versus them, them being the much more unlikeable aliens.
On the alien side, we get to see a much more detailed look into the history and working of the covenants, as well as the three San-Shyuum officials who would eventually rise to be the Prophets Truth, Regret & Mercy.
Even when we know how bad, the diplomatic efforts between humans and covenant will go, and the clusterfuck that will be the human-covenant(-flood) war, the opening engagements still makes you wish if only things would've gone different.
Towards the end, As the dust of the initial battle for Harvest, and the subsequent evacuation settled, we also have the sobering knowledge that this was but the first salvo in a decades long war, where the UNSC and humanity were pushed to the brink of extinction.
All in all, Contact Harvest succeeds as a military science fiction thriller, playing to the strengths of the series to make a pretty much self contained story, which nonetheless connects to the larger events in the lore.
As the title suggests, contact harvest tells the tale of Humanity's first formal contact with the alien collective known as the Covenant, who were hell bent on genocide at a galactic scale. The story is largely told from the POV of the beloved Sergeant Avery Johnson, back when he was kicking ass of the Innies. For the covenant side we have yet again a bunch of one off characters, who, as the convention goes are dead by the end of the book. So goes the tradition of Halo books, giving interesting arc to the lowliest of the Unggoy, literally the grunts, and killing them off, just as fast as their meat shield brethren in the games.
On a similar note, is there some rule which says that the UNSC AI introduced in the story need to be killed off by the stories end? Seeing the unfortunate end of the two Harvest administrative Ai Sif and Mack/Loki, that seems to be the case.
Johnson is not his usual gung-ho, one line spewing smartass we've come to expect; rather a more somber soldier who is mulling over the consequences of the lives he has had to take. Though he is still a force to be reckoned with in the battlefield. In that respect, the arrival of the covenant, gave him a clear picture as to what he, they were all fighting for. Rather than wars borne out of political or ideological differences, this was a clear case of us versus them, them being the much more unlikeable aliens.
On the alien side, we get to see a much more detailed look into the history and working of the covenants, as well as the three San-Shyuum officials who would eventually rise to be the Prophets Truth, Regret & Mercy.
Even when we know how bad, the diplomatic efforts between humans and covenant will go, and the clusterfuck that will be the human-covenant(-flood) war, the opening engagements still makes you wish if only things would've gone different.
Towards the end, As the dust of the initial battle for Harvest, and the subsequent evacuation settled, we also have the sobering knowledge that this was but the first salvo in a decades long war, where the UNSC and humanity were pushed to the brink of extinction.
All in all, Contact Harvest succeeds as a military science fiction thriller, playing to the strengths of the series to make a pretty much self contained story, which nonetheless connects to the larger events in the lore.