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A review by sjlee
Halo: Cryptum by Greg Bear
1.0
The Halo series will always have a soft spot in my heart. I think the novels portray artificial intelligence characters in a really interesting light. The space battles depicted in The Fall of Reach and elsewhere are unlike others I've read before. As a result of my fondness for the series I have picked them up one by one and read them when I could.
I think my appreciation for the series peaked Halo: First Contact, and quickly eroded from there.
I like to think of myself as a fairly sophisticated science fiction reader. When I read the first trilogy of novels in the series and a few of the others, it seemed to me that the talented writers hired for the job fleshed out and created depth for the series. Reading Halo: Cryptum it feels like dense, boring lore and clichés from sci-fi that are well-worn.
The book focuses on the ancient past with the Forerunners. It features humans and Covenant species at the mercy of the god-like aliens that oversee their world. The culture of the Forerunners is not particularly interesting or nuanced. It reads more like an explanation of RPG classes than a functional society.
There is very little to ground the story and pull in the reader. They bounce from location to location, piecing together 'the mystery' and uncovering items that I think are supposed to speak to fans of the later Halo games but mean nothing on their own. Having a stoic race of elder aliens is fine, but it makes them hard to relate to or care about. None of their concerns seem to matter.
The book also feels a bit like a criticism Asimov once made. He said that alien societies would be so different that they would naturally beg to have unique language to adequately describe them. However, writing it for a human audience means translation and bridging. So much of the book just seems like surreal technology-is-magic and breaks plausibility.
I'm sure fans of the series (video game or novelization) may take something away, but this ends my journey with the books.
I think my appreciation for the series peaked Halo: First Contact, and quickly eroded from there.
I like to think of myself as a fairly sophisticated science fiction reader. When I read the first trilogy of novels in the series and a few of the others, it seemed to me that the talented writers hired for the job fleshed out and created depth for the series. Reading Halo: Cryptum it feels like dense, boring lore and clichés from sci-fi that are well-worn.
The book focuses on the ancient past with the Forerunners. It features humans and Covenant species at the mercy of the god-like aliens that oversee their world. The culture of the Forerunners is not particularly interesting or nuanced. It reads more like an explanation of RPG classes than a functional society.
There is very little to ground the story and pull in the reader. They bounce from location to location, piecing together 'the mystery' and uncovering items that I think are supposed to speak to fans of the later Halo games but mean nothing on their own. Having a stoic race of elder aliens is fine, but it makes them hard to relate to or care about. None of their concerns seem to matter.
The book also feels a bit like a criticism Asimov once made. He said that alien societies would be so different that they would naturally beg to have unique language to adequately describe them. However, writing it for a human audience means translation and bridging. So much of the book just seems like surreal technology-is-magic and breaks plausibility.
I'm sure fans of the series (video game or novelization) may take something away, but this ends my journey with the books.