A review by revbeckett
Halo: The Flood by William C. Dietz

adventurous tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 In this review, this was my third time reading the book. I remember when this book came out 20 years ago in 2003, just two years after the first game, 'Halo: Combat Evolved,' was released. This book is essentially just that game, though it's not a carbon copy. 
 
However, common critiques of this book are that the narrative is too close to the first game in the franchise, as if Dietz just played through the game and wrote down the game dialogue. It’s an understandable criticism, Dietz does stray from verbatim dialogue. Sometimes, it's disappointing when he does this; other times, I can understand why. In my opinion, if Dietz had completely left out all the game dialogue, it would’ve been an entirely different story from the game and, therefore, even more frustrating. Something I did find annoying is that Dietz constantly changed how he referred to John, or the Master Chief. Sometimes it was as the Master Chief, or just Chief, the Spartan, the noncom, the human, and others. Just stick with one or two designators. Most of the time, the KISS rule is best: Keep It Simple, Stupid. 
 
The best asset about the book is that there's some extra material you don’t get from playing the game that help fill in the blanks where the gamer doesn’t know what happened. For example, how the survivors of the crash landed Pillar of Autumn managed to regroup in an organised fashion, how the Covenant captured Captain Keyes after crash landing the Autumn, deeper insights into the parasitic Flood, and other interesting story beats. Sure, there is some redundancy for the gamer as they read the book, but again, without that key dialogue it would just be a different story, which no Halo fan wants. 
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