Carter

Buck is just the goat I don't know what else to say he's delightful. The writing style was perfect for Buck and turned what would have otherwise been a very straightforward story into a lovely scatterbrained retelling of Buck's entire life and career. This book was charming and fun, which Halo doesn't often get to maintain for that long.

I don't really have a joke for this one it was just unexpectedly poignant. I was not expecting the depth I got in this book. I loved the way that the first part set up M'ken and Ussa as people with real goals and ambitions that were forced to be against each other by fate and chance, and then the second part delivered a beautiful ending where their ancestors were able to finally achieve those goals and help each other survive.

No one hates Catherine Halsey more than Karen Traviss and man am I glad cause it led to this banger of a book. My favorite of this trilogy. A beautiful story that delves into the consequences of Halsey's Spartan-II program. Sentzke was an incredible antagonist and the story that Traviss crafted was emotional and effective. The book had me rooting for everyone, and the ending delivered perfectly.

Man I can't wait to see what they do with this Jul 'Mdama character. This book felt a tad slower but still very good. Jul's story was the part I enjoyed the most, as he is a good example of what Halo excels at: villains with understandable and even defendable motives. Jul understandably didn't trust humanity's motives and Kilo-Five proves him right, leading the reader to question who they should be cheering for in a prisoner's dilemma.

Dude if my wife made me clone myself and then the clone cucked me and then my political opponent sent me to be killed and then an eldritch horror corrupted my mind and then it turned out I was right about how to deal with the parasite the whole time and then the entire galaxy got wiped clean I'd be pissed too. What else can I say. This book was the perfect ending to a fascinating and incredible story. Every part of it was amazing.

A bunch of cavemen walk around for about 30 chapters and then it gets really good. This book was definitely a lot slower than its predecessor, and it was a bit harder to get through. It maintained the air of mystery about the world but the plot felt lacking until towards the end. However, the last chunk of the book got incredibly good. The interrogation with the Primordial made the slowness of the book until that point worth it.

"I don't want your sadness." "It is the Mantle." Who knew the Halo 4 required reading would be so incredible? I love this book a lot. It creates such a fascinating and deep world with some of the most unique writing I've seen. I find myself re-reading parts of the book frequently because there is so much depth and thought in each piece of dialogue and character interaction.

Proof that the Covenant could've won the war in like 2 years if Truth and Regret just communicated. I loved the complexity and intrigue of the plot, though I found that other than Delgado, Thel, and Keyes, I found myself not really caring about the characters. And I already cared about Thel and Keyes so that doesn't really count.

Sergeant Johnson is overshadowed by a love story between an Unggoy and a Huragok. Johnson's story was boring and uninspired. Every other story, however, was very interesting. We got some amazing insight into the Covenant and the root of its corruption, the Huragok-Unggoy plot was delightful, and the AI love story was unique.

So brainwashing kids is okay as long as they don't have parents anymore. Kurt was a very good and compelling character. His arc was satisfying and his death was done very well. Tom and Lucy were also very important and real characters that touched into how dark and awful the Spartan experience really is.

The Master Chief blows up a 20-mile long ship with surprising ease and is then forced to solve the trolley problem. A lot of this book was not super memorable, but I liked seeing the cunning side of Halsey with the Boren's syndrome situation. The slipspace-bubble-time-stuff was weird. I liked the make-shift vibes of Chief's return home, with the Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice and the nuke they left behind.

Who would win: A millennia old parasite or a guy named Jenkins? John's side of the story did not add a lot to what we already know from Combat Evolved. Zuka's story was alright but nothing special. Jenkins' story was the most compelling, but I don't know how sound it is when compared to the modern day canon.