I got it when it came out…read about 30-40 pages and put it down, haven’t picked it up since. Didn’t like the style, not like the other books… I’ve been reading different reviews…most of them bad. Don’t want to waste my time. any advice? Does it get better?
I’m about a hundred pages in and I love it.
However, I’ve loved it since the start. The political stuff in this part of Halo’s timeline is really interesting to me, and I hate politics.
Maybe it’s just not for you. :\
yea, I dont know. I’ve destroyed all the other books in a matter of days. loved em. Just cant get into this one.
> I’m about a hundred pages in and I love it.
>
> However, I’ve loved it since the start. The political stuff in this part of Halo’s timeline is really interesting to me, and I hate politics.
>
> Maybe it’s just not for you. :\
Wait until you get to “NO! NO NO NO NO!!!”
My favorite part.
That and when Halsey and Mendez finally go toe to toe.
goosebumps
Wait until you get to the part where everyone hates Halsey and she is evil. All 200 pages of it.
To the OP, don’t even bother. Nothing really relevant happens and it doesn’t branch out any further than the closing ceremony at the end of Halo 3. Honestly, I’d say it’s the worst Halo novel released to date.
Traviss just tries and tries to cram the “Halsey is evil!” viewpoint at you. Hell, the basis to the ‘Halsey is evil’ claim is simply because she used clones to replace the kids that she took for the SIIs. Makes me irritated just thinking about it. Not to mention that Traviss ignorantly said in an interview that she wanted the reader to make up their own mind about the situation. Sure Traviss, I’m sure those couple of hundred pages that paint Halsey as -Yoink!- 2.0 really give the reader a fair and unbiased view of things.
Not only is it annoying to read, she wrote the book knowing next to nothing about the Halo universe - to which she has admitted.
There are even Brutes working with the Elites still. Great Schism says what?
I will not be buying the sequel, but rather I’ll just read a plot summary on Halo wiki or something. I suggest the OP do the same with Glasslands, because that’s all it’s worth.
I want Eric Nylund back.
No it does not really get better. Nothing is resolved and there are no major revelations either. However, since you have bought it you may as well finish it, unless you have other books to read.
> I got it when it came out…read about 30-40 pages and put it down, haven’t picked it up since. Didn’t like the style, not like the other books… I’ve been reading different reviews…most of them bad. Don’t want to waste my time. any advice? Does it get better?
The book is very different from anything else because it deals with issue of post-war reconstruction, and espionage. A lot of people complain about the fact that Halsey is painted as a villian, and the fact is, she did a lot of monsterous things.
So, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I absolutely loved it. It is the only Halo book I read in a single day.
Since you have it, you may as well finish the book.
40 pages isnt really a fair wind for a book. Give it 100 and if youre still not feeling it then fine.
I liked it overall. Very wordy, dialogue heavy and character driven, perhaps about 50 pages too long, maybe 2 action sequences in the whole thing. I cann see how its a shock to people used to the event-driven technical military scifi the books have been so far. But it occupies its own niche, one that hasnt been explored in halo literature yet, and thats not a bad thing. The people who want more of the same forever is exactly why Reach matchmaking is a mess right now, id rather not replicate that situation in the literature side of things.
Also i think most of the inconsistencies and “OMG canon breaks!” can be explained by saying, things aint black and white no matter how much you want them to be. Thats politics.
The elites keep some jiralhanae as slaves, so what? Theyre dumb muscle, and the elites need quite a lot of that to rebuild an empire. Doesnt mean they have a shred of respect for them and wouldnt slaughter them all at the first sign of defiance. Look up the history of American slavery, a lot of them were reasonably well treated and kept by landowners, as long as they knew their place and didnt step out of line. But if they did, lynchings were common.
There are other examples of character or whole factions seemingly behaving out of character, but this is hat happens after a messy war. Things get complex and unpredictable, fast. Traviss would have experience of this being a war journalist. Look up how things played out after v-day and leading into the cold war and beyond. Allies suddenly become enemies. Tense stand offs, the cuban missile crises etc, lots of other little examples. The missiles nearly flew on more than one occasion, once it was only because a russian missile officer refused to press the button that were here talking about it, turns out the alert was a false alarm. Screw ups on the American side too. People (and aliens) are irrational.
I think Traviss is just trying to show you how deep this rabbit hole can go, and some people cant really handle it when the lines blur.
Halsey got a hammering yes, but thats because she actually isnt a good person. To do the things she did, she would have to be as cold as ice and has been for 35 years. Now the war is over, the pressure is off and suddenly people have time to think about whats gone down, what theyve done and what others have for the “greater good” and when they do things get ugly. Fingers are pointed, accusations are thrown, recriminations abound. Nothing is black and white.
Its just a book about shades of grey i think. Not to everyones taste, but thats ok.
In my opinion it was terrible.
Well in my opinion, if you are a big time fan of the Halo series, then I dont see how you woudnt want to continue wanting to know what happends next.
Seriously people i im getting really upset with all this hate no relevance to this book has any one missed the fact that there is clear indication of a Spoiler <mark>spartan IV program or the fact that they out active forerunner ships and the fact that Naomi has mjolnir mark VII</mark> Armour and that fact the Frankie has stated that time has passed between halo 3-4 and that his Armour has a reason and the fact that from the concept art has UNSC in it. i think it all links together very well hole are deff filled and that fact that i can truly say that i have just recently reread all the book comic and replay almost all the game i can safely say this is worth a read and deff get awesome and make want the sequel to cryptum and this novel as well it is very interesting to get some info on Parangosky and her protege. i rally don’t see why people dislike this movie so much.
I dont get why this book has so many haters, seems like all these Halo “fans” can do is whine about everything new that has come out recently. I greatly enjoyed Glasslands and it really does get better as you read. The beginning is a little slow but you have to get into the story.
*Overabundance of Halsey hatred
*Overabundance of pointless drama between Halsey and Mendez
*Lack of any real characterization of the the Elite characters, they are all anti-human
*Not much depth regarding the Shield World
*Blue Team has a small role in the book with barely any dialouge
Yeah, it’s just garbage.
You should definitely read it through. True, like voiced earlier, it’s a book with quite a different tone than Eric Nylunds ation-packed, technical writing, but it’s a very interesting read indeed. Definitely one of my favorites.
As to the hating on turning Halsey into a villain; you need to keep in mind previous characterizations of her. She is not evil. She is painted the way she is, because she lacks the insight to see that lot of what she did was immoral, and in cases, unnecessary(Halsey’s Journal is a great supliment for this).
However, she is not a one dimentional character; she has redeemable qualities, but those are not highlighted in Glasslands, which is why you need to keep in mind her highlighted qualities from previous novels, where her negative sides have been present, but not painted in big red blinking neon letters. The same goes for the Admiral. In GoO, she is painted as fully evil, but in Glasslands, she is shown to have a good side as well, with her dark side occationally showing. The reason for it not showing as much, is because her screentime is focused on dealings with people she like.
This is what Traviss ment by having to decide for themselves; is Halsey essentially good for creating the S-IIs, and saving humanity by accident, and is Admiral Parongasky a one dimentional evil monster and an excuse for human being?
I’m not going to touch on how a lot of people assuming that all elites should be biased towards hating the Brutes, and biased towards thinking the humans are honorable, and vice versa and whatnots. Things just doesn’t work that way. Too many have explained this, to too many people, too many times.
> *Overabundance of Halsey hatred
> *Overabundance of pointless drama between Halsey and Mendez
> *Lack of any real characterization of the the Elite characters, they are all anti-human
> *Not much depth regarding the Shield World
> *Blue Team has a small role in the book with barely any dialouge
>
> Yeah, it’s just garbage.
>_=
Yes.
You can choose to love or hate the book after you’ve finished but the threads from this story will have an impact on the future of the franchise. If you like Halo and genuinely care where the series is heading then you should read it.
> *Overabundance of Halsey hatred
> *Overabundance of pointless drama between Halsey and Mendez
> *Lack of any real characterization of the the Elite characters, they are all anti-human
> *Not much depth regarding the Shield World
> *Blue Team has a small role in the book with barely any dialouge
I just finished it today and I actually agree with all of these points, especially the bolded ones, but I still really enjoyed the book. I liked the way it focused on it’s plot and story, though I disagree with the way some of the lore went.
I don’t really get the Halsey hate, we all already knew all the kidnap/clones/augmentation stuff she did… I don’t get how that was supposed to set Halsey up for the reader to hate. Sure Halsey did come off as a slight ego maniac and kidnapping kids is never good, but in the end her actions were totally necessary for the survival of humans.
I too disliked the way Elite’s seemed to be portrayed… it seemed the majority hated humanity. I liked how they weren’t 100% honour driven, because in the end, playing fair is not a tactical mindset. But I also disliked how they all seemed to want humanity exterminated, even though previous lore (convo’s from the uni) and such stated that there was some significant admiration for humanity and this was before the Elite’s were betrayed.
You should read it and come up with your own opinions but:
I hated how in this book, the Great Schism seems to have become irrelevant to the Elites in favour of exterminating the race that stood with them against the Prophets and Brutes. That makes sense, right? And how ONI is trying to make the Elites destroy themselves… In fact, I hated pretty much everything ONI did in this book.
> You should read it and come up with your own opinions but:
>
> I hated how in this book, the Great Schism seems to have become irrelevant to the Elites in favour of exterminating the race that stood with them against the Prophets and Brutes. That makes sense, right? And how ONI is trying to make the Elites destroy themselves… In fact, I hated pretty much everything ONI did in this book.
The Great Schism was about the collapse of the Covenant. The Alliance with Humanity was solely out of necessity and it was only the Elites who rallied with the Arbiter that formed the Alliance. Note in Ghosts of Onyx the separatists Elites who were unaware of the Arbiter still being alive, went out of their way to kill Humans on Onyx.
But what did Humanity actually offer to the Elites to help them against the Covenant at the Ark? A Spartan and a Frigate which couldn’t help with the space combat, not that helpful. Really, the only advantage was that Humanity could activate the Forerunner Tech. Doesn’t seem that necessary for them to forge an alliance to me.
Altough I do see your point about the other Elites still viewing Humanity as enemies in GoO.