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ianpauljones 's review for:
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
by Eric S. Nylund
This is the fourth novel in the Halo series and it overlaps with the first three volumes. This volume is written by Eric Nyland, who wrote the first and third novels in the series so can be counted on to get the continuity right in terms of plot and character.
Like the previous volumes, this novel is firmly focused on rapid, violent action with little in the way of character development. However, we do get some background. For example, we learn about Colonel Ackerson’s secret programme to develop a new generation of Spartans, making use of the veteran trainer, CPO Mendez, and one of Dr Halsey’s Spartans, Kurt, who is posted as missing in action. In fact, he and Mendez spent twenty years on the obscure planet Onyx training the Spartan-III generation. They are similar to the original Spartans but Ackerson sees them more as suicide squads rather than as special forces. In their development they’ve been dosed up with a new cocktail of drugs that make them more like berserkers when the chips are down. They also have different armour from the original Spartans: camouflaged but physically much less robust than the MJOLNIR variety.
This novel was first published in 2006 and you can’t help thinking that the author was influenced by was happening at the time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus we have starships that can jump through space faster than the speed of light. We have AI beings that can process information millions of times faster than a human being. But we also have twentieth-century style guns that fire bullets and vehicles that sound like tanks and armoured cars. Much of the action feels contemporary rather than 26th century. For example, at one point a team of Spartans infiltrate a rebel base. Kurt switches on a monitor and notices that the password needed to log in to the base’s surveillance system is on a post-it stuck to the monitor! That kind of sloppy practice might have been common in 2006 but by 2023 we are so attuned to cybercrime and hacking that only a complete fool would leave put their password on a post-it stuck to their device. Yet we are to believe that this action takes place in 500 years’ time!
In theory, the technology is there to run this war as a proxy war with AI directing drones and robots against the Covenant while the human beings hide out in a bunker somewhere. But that would mean the humans wouldn’t be able to display their guts and determination and the action scenes would all be fairly sterile with no human lives at stake.
I will continue reading the Halo series for escapist reasons, but so far it is not in the same league as my benchmark, The Expanse. It’s exciting though.
Like the previous volumes, this novel is firmly focused on rapid, violent action with little in the way of character development. However, we do get some background. For example, we learn about Colonel Ackerson’s secret programme to develop a new generation of Spartans, making use of the veteran trainer, CPO Mendez, and one of Dr Halsey’s Spartans, Kurt, who is posted as missing in action. In fact, he and Mendez spent twenty years on the obscure planet Onyx training the Spartan-III generation. They are similar to the original Spartans but Ackerson sees them more as suicide squads rather than as special forces. In their development they’ve been dosed up with a new cocktail of drugs that make them more like berserkers when the chips are down. They also have different armour from the original Spartans: camouflaged but physically much less robust than the MJOLNIR variety.
This novel was first published in 2006 and you can’t help thinking that the author was influenced by was happening at the time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus we have starships that can jump through space faster than the speed of light. We have AI beings that can process information millions of times faster than a human being. But we also have twentieth-century style guns that fire bullets and vehicles that sound like tanks and armoured cars. Much of the action feels contemporary rather than 26th century. For example, at one point a team of Spartans infiltrate a rebel base. Kurt switches on a monitor and notices that the password needed to log in to the base’s surveillance system is on a post-it stuck to the monitor! That kind of sloppy practice might have been common in 2006 but by 2023 we are so attuned to cybercrime and hacking that only a complete fool would leave put their password on a post-it stuck to their device. Yet we are to believe that this action takes place in 500 years’ time!
In theory, the technology is there to run this war as a proxy war with AI directing drones and robots against the Covenant while the human beings hide out in a bunker somewhere. But that would mean the humans wouldn’t be able to display their guts and determination and the action scenes would all be fairly sterile with no human lives at stake.
I will continue reading the Halo series for escapist reasons, but so far it is not in the same league as my benchmark, The Expanse. It’s exciting though.