Yes, there are a ton of threads dealing with this subject; however, they aren’t unnecessary. 343i needs to know that they’ve upset over half of the Halo fan base with KT’s novels, and that she shouldn’t come back to write any more Halo. She ruined Star Wars for many of its fans (I’m not a SW fan), and she doesn’t get much praise from Gears of War’s fanbase either.
Traviss was not just writing what 343 told her to, unless for some reason Lucasarts and Epic Games decided to trash their franchises at exactly the same time they hired Travis, and 343 is continuing that incredible coincidental killstreak.
Storywise, Traviss absolutely succeeded (except for Mortal Dictata); 343 has a place they want the Reclaimer saga to go, and Kilo-Five helped push the story leading up to Halo 4. This is all well and good.
Where Karen’s books fell flat on their face was characters and ideas. I’m fairly certain Frank O’Connor and his fellow 343 storytellers didn’t sit Karen down and tell her “we want every single character to hate Halsey with a flaming passion, to drag her name into every conversation whether or not it’s necessary, and make sure she’s always referred to as a b**ch or -Yoink!-. This is an essential part of our story, and you need to include it regardless of what other elements you ignore,”.
We’re obviously supposed to sympathize with the Kilo-Five team; however, I found myself disgusted with Naomi’s weakness (an emo-SPARTAN? Really?), frustrated by Osman’s complete denial about Parangosky and Halsey, and flat-out livid about Vaz. Livid about everything about Vaz, most particularly his self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and total ignorance of facts right under his nose. Personally, I suspect the reason he was so outraged about the S-II program is that he had a crush on Naomi and wasn’t thinking straight, in which case his version of “justice” should be ignored.
BB wound up being like Shaun Hastings from the Assassin’s Creed series; a character who’s smarter than everyone else and likes to shove that detail in everyone’s faces, isn’t nearly as funny and witty as he thinks he is, and is ultimately just annoying. Plus the way he irrationally hates Halsey. It isn’t even his own hatred, either- it’s residual memories from his donor, who also irrationally hated Halsey. Don’t even get me started on the “AI killer” routine.
The way Kilo-Five’s characters hate Halsey is somewhat understandable. Somewhat. They are being fed strongly anti-Halsey propaganda by their saintly boss, Margaret Parangosky, so their thinking will be affected accordingly. However, nobody in the group aside from Osman and Naomi were affected directly by the SPARTAN-II program. Oh, wait, they’re still alive. I guess Halsey’s work did affect them, ha-ha.
Plus, the SPARTAN-II program took place forty years before. Would Naomi and Serin still be traumatized after forty years of fighting a losing war against genocidal aliens? I don’t think so.
Basically, Kilo-Five is OK as a continuation of the Halo universe’s overall storyline, but it’s a lousy character-based storyline.
Traviss shouldn’t come back to Halo unless she rethinks her writing style.
Eric Nylund needs to return and give us another good Halo novel.