Halo: The Fall of Reach

I originally started this book back in the summer of 2005. I read a lot of books that summer as I had just finished my first year at a new high school in which I hated pretty much everyone with which I came in contact. Anyway, I didn’t finish it. It wasn’t great. In fact, it was pretty boring. It turns out that reading a book with 90% action can be as tedious as watching a movie with 90% action. Of course, if a movie does it right and you are in the theater it can be great, but watching it at home or reading it at home can be unenjoyable. With that in mind, I restarted this thing in audio form. I don’t know that I want to start logging audio books consistently, but this one has been unfinished for me for going on 10 years.

My huge level of excitement for Halo: The Master Chief Collection was the motivation I needed to put this one to rest. What I liked most about it was that it fleshed out how John 117 became Master Chief, from his childhood into adulthood. It detailed Master Chief’s first interactions with Cortana and it gave details about the “Spartan Program” that I hadn’t know before. It gave insight into Master Chief’s relationship with Captain Keyes and most importantly. It did a lot right in terms of filling in some missing details in Halo plots and I really wish it would have focused more on character. Instead, it focused way too much on action.

Listening to action described is as boring as it seems and because of that, I will never read/listen to a Halo book again. Halo has a much more layered story than the games may suggest, but I don’t care enough to suffer through all the monotonous action… and I LOVE Halo.