A must for halo fans

Having read many of the halo books I wasn’t sure what to expect from one without the chief or Spartans, but I absolutely loved it. A captivating sci-fi story through the halo universe, and incredibly well written and performed

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Fantastic!

Loved it! Kelly Gay nailed 343 Guilty Spark and his transformation into something between Human and Forerunner construct. Never in a million years did I think I would get emotional over the bastard that killed Sgt Johnson. Tim Dadabo is an awesome narrator and I'm so glad he lent his voice to such an amazing character once again!

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Fantastic story and performance

Timonthy did a great job with this story especially with sparks voice. It brought authenticity to the story. The story continues be excellently written and expanding the universe for the fans

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Great story and narration

Really interesting story running somewhat parallel to Halo 5, narration was brilliant with such variety in the voices and inflection. I normally prefer to follow the master chief storyline but I found this series of stories adds some more depth to Halo.

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The more I think on it, the more disapointment.

It was a good book, but not a great one. This might actually be the first Halo book I've been disappointed in. It shouldn't have ended like that. It should have tied in heavily with Halo: Infinite, It should have had Something surrounding The Flood- instead we get mere mentions that it exists. Unless the main character comes back to save the day with a massive object- then no, this was poorly done. You don't lay a character to rest (without dying) that way in such a famous universe, that's already hanging by a thread.

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Chapter 33 is a disaster

Next time skip the repetition of the name designations when you’re reading out an interrogation transcript. That was unbearable.

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Narrator is awesome

I’ve listen to a lot of the Halo books and I think that the narrator in this would have to be one of the best so far. he manages to make a different voice for nearly all the characters that takes extreme talent.

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Well read, but..

The book was a great continuation of the crap of the Ace of Spades.
I was delighted to hear that the narrator was the voice of 343 Guilty Spark, and he did that voice well. But I didn’t like how he made Rion so… girly. The previous narrators made her sound confident and head strong. This narrator put way too much of a high pitch to her voice.

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Good... but... not

I've got mixed feelings on this one, so if my opinion matters to anyone thinking about if they'll enjoy this or not, I hope my review helps you decide.

Firstly, Tim Dabado.
He's an excellent voice actor, and of course I enjoyed his role in this when voicing 343/Chakas, and also the other male characters. But it took me fully 75% of the book for me to not find his renditions of women grating and awkward to listen to.
Perhaps that is just my perception, but I felt like almost all the woman sounded nearly the same and more or less like children.
His pace of reading was good though. If he only did the male voices and there was at least a woman to do the female parts, then the performance would have been a 5, but as such, it's a 3.

If anyone from the Halo writing/producing team happens to see this, why or why will you not just go and get R.C Bray to narrate your damn books?
Do you have any idea how friggen awesome that would be?
Or that lady who voiced the Starwars Phasma novel. She was incredible at men and women.

Chap 33 was a total S**t show though. Those transcripts were a pain to listen to. I honestly did my best to zone that out.

Story. . . I feel extremely... Hmm.. Perturbed? Yes, perturbed.
The build-up through the whole thing was great. I was excitedly thinking that these ancillary characters were going to be working their way into the primary Halo storyline and directly effect the Chief in Infinite.
But the ending... I'm not so sure.
The Librarian got strange treatment in the end. I don't think I should write too much on that, because I could go on for a while about it.
The way this ended made me feel like this is either setting up for further sequels or to perhaps be included to some extent in a possible future DLC addition to Halo: Infinite.
It was all in all a very open ending, and I was left feeling disappointed by it.

Little miss not entirely charismatic Forge (and thus not living up to the likability that her father had that made him a fan favourite) struggled to solidify herself in my mind as a character I really care about or want to see their future.
But of course, as a sucker for the Halo franchise, I will read sequels in the hopes that they are more meaningful to the overall universe.
I liked that the Builder was the continuation of the Easter egg from H:5, but had hoped that would amount to something more directly meaningful in this story.

343/Chakas was... underdelivered. And I mean that from a perspective where he is one of my favourite characters in the whole franchise.
So he's an ancient human (but not the ancient'ist), who saw the Forerunners at their height, and then at their lowest. He became 343 and someone absolutely important to that narrative, and then in recovering his Humanity, he became essentially the most powerful AI in the Haloverse, and yet... Why does he not enter the central narrative?
There were so many points in this story where that could have and should have been the case.

But I also know why, unfortunately... The ability to milk his character for more in new stories or forms of media. Perhaps I'm being cynical... But ultimately this entire story felt like a massively missed opportunity, and as such I'm left feeling that way.

Just.. Just... Gahh! I had such high hopes, all of which only grew the closer to the Librarian they drew, until that fizzled into something so bleh.
I want to give this a better score for the things that it got right, but it got more integral elements wrong.

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1 person found this helpful