A review by fandom4ever
Halo: The Flood by William C. Dietz

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Halo: The Flood is the novelization of the first game, Halo: Combat Evolved and the only game to receive such a novelization. I have played co-op the first three games of the series and read The Fall of Reach prior to this. And for someone like me who isn’t very knowledgeable about the series, unlike my co-op partner who knows the world inside out, I found this novelization very helpful to further sort out the story and explain parts while I’m not being shot at. 

I feel it’s unfair to say that this book is basically a play by play ‘script’ of the game. In the game you play solely as Master Chief and don’t get to see events from other characters. This novel, on the other hand, switches viewpoints often from the likes of Master Chief, Captain Keyes, other UNSC officers, and the Helljumpers, to even the Covenant in certain Elites and Grunts. I felt that this really helped to flesh out certain aspects of the story, like why the Covenant would become fixated on ‘the solider in the special armor’ and what the human soldiers’ reactions were when the Flood started showing up. It even gave information on what people feel when they’re being taken over by the Flood! 

That being said I do wish we could have seen more of the Flood from the Covenant point of view, as they seemed to know at least something about it and are rightly terrified. Along with that I think there could have more information on the backstory of Halo and its monitor, 343 Guilty Spark like with the terminals that you could find in the game. However, as the terminals didn’t factor in until the anniversary edition ten years later, I’m not sure how much info they had on the Forerunners during the first game. 

All in all, I think this novelization is worth the time of any Halo fan; particularly if you’re looking for the information in written form to help you understand further what you witnessed while in game. Sure, it wasn’t as strong a book as The Fall of Reach but as the author was only given ten weeks to write this novel (and he was the one who pushed to add the other viewpoints!) I think he did a pretty good job.