Halo: The Flood

Halo #2

by William C. Dietz, Todd McLaren (Narrator)

The Human-Covenant War, a desperate struggle for humankind’s very survival, has reached its boiling point on the mysterious, ring world called Halo. But the fierce Covenant warriors, the mightiest alien military force known, are not the only peril lying in wait.

As the fortress world of Reach and its brave defenders were bombarded to rubble, a single cruiser fled the carnage with the battle’s only human survivors—Captain Keyes, his crew of a few hundred Marines, and the last remaining SPARTAN super-soldier, the Master Chief.

With the cruiser’s artificial intelligence, Cortana, concealed in his battle armor, the Master Chief crash lands on Halo in the midst of a massive Covenant occupation. Curiously, the alien soldiers appear to be searching for something hidden on the ring. Built by a long-dead race, Halo harbors many deadly secrets, but one overshadows them all. Now the Master Chief must lead the scattered troops in a brutal race to unravel Halo’s darkest mystery—and unleash its greatest source of power.…

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Video Games, Audiobook, Military Fiction, Novels, Fantasy

Audible Audio

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

New York Times bestselling author William C. Dietz has published more than fifty novels, some of which have been translated into German, Russian, and Japanese. He grew up in the Seattle area, served as a medic with the Navy and Marine Corps, graduated from the University of Washington, and has been employed as a surgical technician, college instructor, and television news writer, director and producer. Before becoming a full-time writer Dietz was director of public relations and marketing for an international telephone company. He and his wife live near Gig Harbor, Washington.

Reviews

[T.R. Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's official, I don't get it. This book is not very well received among the fandom. Now that I've finished it, I can say y'all are on crack. This was great. I think I might like it more than Fall of Reach. As a matter of fact, I'm sure I do. Granted, the reason for this might only be because I read the newer improved edition of this book, while I read the old flawed version of Fall of Reach. One day I will reread FOR with the best edition and see if my mind changes. But as of this moment, The Flood reigns supreme. Getting to see more detail added to the Battle of Installation 04 was so much fun to read. It really paints a clear picture from start to finish of what goes down in Combat Evolved. As somebody who has been obsessed with Combat Evolved since I was young enough to be scared by the Flood (I asked my dad to turn it off the first time), I loved this damn book.

The Flood was also brutally terrifying in here. I love to see just how gruesome and horrific the Flood are. Any detail on them gets me excited. Learning more about poor Captain Keyes' possession was so sad, too. Keyes really can't catch a break. He got the worst death in the franchise, I think. Jenkins is now up there too, but Keyes really got screwed.

Still no word on how the hell Johnson got outta there, but I think it's explained somewhere in the Expanded lore. I'll get to it eventually if it is.

I do have one complaint that I must bring up, though. Master Chief was not very well written. He just doesn't act like himself at all. He just talks like 'generic soldier number 4' for the whole book. As much as the author absolutely nailed everything else in here, his portrayal of Chief was very lackluster. But that is really my only gripe. Some people might not like Zuka and Yayap, but I say those people are nuts. I thought they were an interesting addition to the universe. And Yayap is just a meme at this point. They've both become iconic whether you like it or not.

If this is as bad as the Halo books get, then I'm in for the best ride of all time. I'm fully aware that I am enjoying these books this much only because I am such a fanboy of the games, but I don't care. I'm eating up every word of these things. I'm so glad I bought a ton of them in bulk last month. This is going to be the year of Halo books for me. I'll read other things too, but it will mostly be this from now on. I couldn't be happier. It's like my mother used to say: 'I'm like a pig in shit'. Not the most graceful analogy, but I suppose it's accurate.

[Jason]

This book was such a let down and unworthy of the sequel to "The Fall of Reach". This book was a novelization of the first Halo game (Combat Evolved). That said, it reads like the author played the Xbox game and wrote play-by-play what happened, where he goes, what he shoots, etc. You're not reading a story, just a re-telling of what happens in the video game. If you play the video game, it's fine, because you're playing the video game, not reading a page of words of what someone did in the video game without any stunning detail. It's that boring. Very boring



I was originally going to give this book half a star, but there were some good tidbits of info scattered in the book like the events of the UNSC people while Master Chief was running around Halo shooting everything that moved.



Stay away from this book. Stay very away. The good thing is the next book in this series ("First Strike") is authored by the guy who wrote "The Fall of Reach" so at least you'll know the series gets right back to where it's supposed to be.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

All told, this is just pure action with the Master Chief from the first Halo game. It's literally ... the game.

Of course, if you want the same cool locations, cool aliens, cool AIs, and action on a Ringworld, then this is still a COOL translation of the game.

Just come in with the right mindset and you'll be tight. I cracked open my console and got right into playing it as I listened to this book and the two were quite complimentary. A bit more story in the novel, more explanations, while the game gave us the visual and visceral. It was fun.

I'm NOT saying this is high literature, but it is definitely popcorn literature if you know that you want tons of gloopy explosions in your MilSF.

[TempOcean · Rating 5 out of 5]

In order to understand this book, you have to read the first book in the series and play the Xbox game Halo: Combat Evolved. Even if you don't get it half the time, it's a good read!

This book is set in 2552, in the middle of a great war between humanity and a collective of alien races calling themselves the Covenant. This war reaches its peak intensity when a human ship discovers an ancient ring-world named Halo (hence the name of the book). The ship crashes there, and among the survivors is SPARTAN-117, the Master Chief. He is a bioligically enhanced cyborg-soldier clad in special armor. He traverses the ring with the remaining Marines, fighting the Covenant and unlocking the secrets of the ring. But when the Master Chief finds a subterranean laboratory in the middle of a swamp, the galaxie's greatest horror is unleashed . . .

Read it for yourself, and discover why this book is called "The Flood". To this day, I still have nightmares about them. When you read this book, you will, too.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one wasn't nearly as enthralling (or well written) as the previous novel. Now, I'm not saying Dietz is a bad writer, just that he didn't have a lot to work with with this book. Why? Because it's the goddamn game in written format! It's like a freakin' walkthrough! Hell, I played the game YEARS ago and I still remembered most of the plot, so while reading this I had these moments where I actually remembered a certain scene in the book from the game. That's why I didn't really like the book - I like adaptations of video games that show a different perspective or are a prequel, not reading the damn game as a novel. I like guns and action and all, but frankly, I didn't need a play-by-play of every single battle. I wasn't exactly bored, because Dietz had a blisteringly fast pace that kept me reading, but it was a little annoying to know what was going to happen next, but, mainly I didn't like the characterization. There is no depth to the characters at all. Unless you're playing an RPG like Final Fantasy, you don't really care about the characters' motivations or background. This is true with Halo - it's a fun FPS. Fall of Reach was great because it gave substance to the characters. This novel did absolutely nothing of the sort. Chief neither grows nor extrapolates anything in this novel, and no one else was all that deep either. Hell, Yayap was the only character who had an interesting perspective. McKay was awesome, but only because she was badass - we learn nothing about her personal life or feelings. Same with everyone else! They might have one or two characteristics that made them stand out, but overall they were worse than cardboard cutouts - they were stock photos.

I'm still going to read the next one, because, quite frankly, these books are fun, but this one wasn't really my cup of tea.

[Melisa Ramonda · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 40% percent.
If I ever get this over, I might come back and tell you why I couldn't take it anymore.

--------------------------------

Ok. I'm back. I will review this book with a single, definitive and utterly accurate phrase:

OUT OF CHARACTER.

That's it.

John is portrayed like your ordinary Terminator: a trigger-happy douchebag focused only in engrossing his kill-count. Cortana? So forgotten that whenever she talks, nobody cares, not even the Chief. Her best lines are the ones transcripted from the game.
I hardly doubt that UNSC Marines are that rude with everyone. Seriously, there's no respect for anyone or anything. So much unlike the previous story. All the Marines seem to be retarded assholes, even the commanding officers -scratch that, ESPECIALLY the commanding officers-
Keyes, protrayed in Fall of Reach like a genius battle-strategist... well, he lacks completely of genius in this one.
There are scenes that are unbelievable even for a sci-fi story, and others are plainly stupid and nonsensical.
I mean, come on. There was probably a more interesting way to write a novelization of a FPS game without overloading it with blasts, fires, grenades and shooting. It gets tiresome and boring after a while.
It was just awful. Awful-awful. I only read it because I thought I'd miss something if I just jumped straight into First Strike. Trust me: you won't.

I'm off.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay I suppose you can only get "really involved" in a story based on a video game for so long. This isn't really a bad book. For what it is it can be fun. The fight for Halo has begun...and the search to find out what Halo is of course.

Lots of explosions, some human drama (sort of) even some prejudice involved in the story. As I said, not bad but not one I think I'll follow up. If you're looking for action and science fiction combat this may be your cup of tea. I love action books, but I like a little more story than we get here...

To each. If you like it enjoy.

[Amie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's taking everything in me not to just finish the next two books...neow. If I'm not thinking about Halo, I'm probably asleep.

Despite my concerns starting The Flood, which were validated in a sense, this was still highly enjoyable, well-written, and emotional in the right ways. On the brightest side, Dr. Halsey isn't in this one, Cortana doesn't piss me off for existing, and the cast is expanded; we even get POVs from the Sangheili. Not Zamamee and Yayap becoming some of my favorite characters. And, we discover a secret that the internet doesn't know bc I searched....for 45mins.

Unfortunately, the character depth Eric Nylund established with John-117 wasn't reflected as much as I'd like. I've been living my life asking ✨what would Master Chief do✨ since playing The Master Chief Collection on Xbox when it came out 10 years ago. There were some things that Master Chief did that he would, in fact, not do. 😂

I've been putting off reading this series bc I look up to John-117; however, Eric Nylund brought everything I know and love about him to life. William Dietz, while not able to mirror the quality that John was written in book 1, is not a bad writer by any means; he's just different, and I guess I can't hold that against him. Literally everything else in this book is sensational. And the horror elements were such a brilliant touch.

Listening to this was a pleasure. My discipline is being tested.

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a mediocre book. I don’t think it was particularly good, I don’t think it’s particularly bad, it’s just ok.

There were some cool moments in the book. I liked reading from Keyes and McKays perspective, and I also enjoyed the twists in the second act. And the final sequence of the book was pretty cool.

But the majority of the book was action, and the majority of the action was not appealing and just felt like gameplay in written form.

The character of “Spark 343” was great though, and Cortana was interesting here.

Overall, a mixed book that mostly just feels ok. 5.5 out of 10.

[seemsbleak · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate myself for reading this book.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Halo: Combat Evolved, the video game version of this book, is easily worthy of 5 stars. However, its novelization, Halo: The Flood, is the definition of a 3 star book. I don't hate the book; I don't love the book; I'm left in the middle thinking the book was okay overall. It had its moments, for sure, but it also had its share of problems. Being as how this was a novelization of my favorite video game of all time, I expected a lot more out of it. Although I wasn't wholly disappointed, I wasn't totally impressed either.

The book shifts between four perspectives that build upon a grander narrative. The first perspective follows the Master Chief and Cortana, his A.I. companion, as they venture across Halo to complete a litany of missions and objectives. These scenes were taken straight from the video game, Halo: Combat Evolved, and were rarely altered for the book. The only times the Chief's story changed was when it intertwined with the other side stories being told in the book, which weren't included in the video game. Also, I noticed that many of the lines from the game were altered slightly for no apparent reason. The changes were minor enough to not affect the story, but also noticeable enough to peeve me, as I know virtually every line of the video game verbatim and felt the need to recite the lines properly in my head during my read through just to atone for these pointless changes. On the plus side, we were treated to additional dialogue between the Master Chief and Cortana which helped to flesh out our protagonists in a way the video game was not able to accomplish. Although this was the main story in the book, I found it to be a bit dry at times, especially as it concerned the battle sequences. There are only so many ways one can describe a gun being fired or an enemy being killed before it gets really old. The lengths taken to describe these moments went way too far, and they detracted from an otherwise strong story.

The second perspective followed Captain Keyes and his crew after evacuating the downed ship, the Pillar of Autumn. These parts were some of the most interesting to read for a few reasons. For one, I think Captain Keyes is a great character, and he is written very well in this book. Following him was also a new experience for me because the video game only extended so far as to include him in three levels out of ten, therefore he was seldom involved in the major happenings of the game. In Halo: The Flood, we get a much more in-depth account as to what happens to Captain Keyes after landing on Halo. Apart from the Master Chief and Cortana, I found Captain Keyes to be the best character in the book and was disappointed to find that more of the book was not dedicated to his storyline.

The third perspective, the worst of the four, followed a group of surviving ODST soldiers after abandoning the Pillar of Autumn. The bulk of their story took place on a makeshift base called Alpha Base and entailed very little in the way of meaningful story. They take their interim base from the Covenant early on, hold the position down for 90% of the time, and complete one reconnaissance mission to their downed ship close to the end of the novel. They don't do much, and whenever something big happens with them, it ends up being a very long, overly drawn out, poorly written battle sequence that I recommend glossing over lest you wish to be bored to tears. When this particular side story came to a whimpering end, I was relieved beyond belief that they wouldn't be returning in the next installment of the Halo book series.

The last and most unique perspective of the novel followed a commando Elite name Zuka 'Zamamee and his Grunt companion Yayap. 'Zamamee is nearly killed by the Master Chief at one point in the story and is rescued by Yayap. Given a new lease on life, 'Zamamee is assigned to track down his assailant and take him down. As you could probably guess, this plan does not go too well for him, but it was still fun to read a Halo story from the Covenant's perspective. Despite this story not amounting to much, it was interesting to read because of the insight given into the hierarchy and operations of the Covenant side of the war. These parts were pretty bare at times, however, so I hope future Halo novels take more time to tell the Covenant's side of the story.

The persisting problem of the book is that it attempts to novelize a sci-fi shooter that was scarce on story from the start. The video game did a well enough job conveying its simplistic story without all the extraneous material. The author tried to artificially imbue more substance into the main story with the addition of side plots and new characters, but it just felt out of place to me. Truth be told, Halo: The Flood was an unnecessary read in the grand scheme of the Halo series and is better substituted with a playthrough of Halo: Combat Evolved. You will get the same general story out of the game as from the book, but you will no doubt have more fun playing the game. Yet, its flaws notwithstanding, I still managed to enjoy reading Halo: The Flood to some degree – but that's just a testament to my love for Halo. If you do not have a similar passion for the series, then I fear you may not be as lenient towards this book as I managed to be.

[Ebenezer Arvigenius · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boy this was a stinker.

After the very good last book in the series that surprised me with above average characterization this was a severe disappointment. Apparently both books have been written at the same time for there are a multitude of continuity errors regarding both story and characters. From Master Chief starting to crack bad army jokes over Cortana forgetting that she already saw Halo both books don't mesh very well.

Even more damning - and I'm aware that this is not the writers fault - is the fact that the story basically retells the story of Halo I. The problem here is, of course, that video games rarely have good scripting and that rolling out this paper thin story to full book length shows off both its conceptual weaknesses as well as forcing the author to make something of all the long stretches of repetitive combats that comprise a shooter but are irrelevant to a story.

As a result we get a lot of boring combat and inventory management sequences that read like even the author has given up on this thing.

Example: "Having broken through the perimeter of the battle, the Master Chief was able to follow the nav indicator into a second valley where he came upon a group of dead Marines, loaded up on ammo, and tried to decide whether to stay with the scatter gun or trade it in for a sniper’s rifle or a rocket launcher. It would have been nice to have all three, but that many weapons would be unwieldy, not to mention damned heavy. In the end he went with the rifle and shotgun and hoped it was the right decision. [...] He pulled back, switched to the assault weapon long enough to ice a couple of overly ambitious Grunts, and switched back to the S2 as he rounded the opposite side of the big boulder. [...] [Tank encounter] which meant there was only one thing the Spartan could do: hike back to the weapons cache and trade the rifle for the launcher. It was a major pain in the ass, but he didn’t have much choice, so he pulled out. It took a full half hour to make the round trip between the valley and the weapons cache [...]"

Gripping, right?

There is pages and pages and *pages* of this shit. "And then he shot at the grunt using the S2 and then he shot the elite in the head with the shotgun and then ...". It's been a while since I have read such a hackery. The few attempts by Mr. Dietz to bring in some variance are limited to renaming the Master Chief every few sentences (we get "the soldier", "the Master Chief", "the noncom", "the Spartan" and "the Master Chief" respectively). Unfortunately, especially if there are other soldiers around, this adds more confusion than fun.

To top things off there is a completely unnecessary "and then everyone dies" ending which made this book a real chore to read. My personal count of "There are still pages left? I have been at this thing for ages." moments was around six iirc.

The only point of light is the side story of an Elite/Grunt team sent to kill the Chief. In all honesty I would have preferred a full story about them instead of the dross I got. A total waste of my time.

[هادی امینی · Rating 3 out of 5]

از یک نظرهایی نسبت به کتاب اول بهتر بود.
هیجان داستان حفظ شده بود، صحنه‌های درگیری نسبتا خوب توصیف شده بود. اما داستان هرچند اولش قشنگ بود ولی معلوم بود از یک سناریوی آبکی یک بازی قدیمی نوشته شده و نویسنده مجبور بوده اتفاقات بازی رو جا بده توی داستان. مخصوصا آخر داستان خیلی آبکی شد.
جان، نفر ارشد اسپارتانها و تنها اسپارتانی که از سقوط ریچ زنده مونده با یک سفینه فرار میکنند و توی یک پرش فضایی درست کنار فضایی‌های مهاجم و یک ساختار حلقه‌ای مصنوعی ظاهر میشند و طی درگیری با فضایی‌ها روی این ساختار مصنوعی سقوط میکنند. اونجا میفهمند که اسم این حلقه HALO بوده و به دست تمدنهای خیلی قدیمی ساخته شده. طی درگیری با فضایی‌ها به گونه جدیدی از موجودات برخورد میکنند به اسم FLOOD که به هر دو طرف حمله میکنه و از بدنشون برای دریافت اطلاعات استفاده میکنه. حالا جنگ به شکل مثلث در میاد و هیچ کدوم از طرفین با اون یکی متحد نمیشند.
تصمیم انسانها بر این میشه که چون FLOODها بسیار خطرناکتر از فضایی‌ها هستند، HALO را با تمام ساکنینش نابود کنند و خودشون فرار کنند. سربازهای معمولی موظف میشند یکی از سفینههای فضایی‌ها رو بدزدند و جان هم مامور میشه با انفجار موتور سفینه خودشون باعث نابودی HALO بشه و همه با هم فرار کنند. اما در حین اینکه جان داره ماموریتش رو انجام میده، سفینه فضایی که انسانها دزدیدند پر از FLOOD میشه و فرمانده تصمیم میگیره با FLOODها به عنوان نمونه آزمایشی به زمین برگرده. اما یکی از زیردستهاش مخالفت میکنه و سفینه رو منهدم میکنه.
جان موفق میشه، ولی همه انسانها کشته شدند. پس با یکی از سفینه‌های کوچیک فضاییها فرار میکنه و پشت سرش هم HALO با همه موجودات زنده منفجر میشه.
حالا جان تنها بازمانده این ماجراست.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay I suppose you can only get "really involved" in a story based on a video game for so long. This isn't really a bad book. For what it is it can be fun. The fight for Halo has begun...and the search to find out what Halo is of course.

Lots of explosions, some human drama (sort of) even some prejudice involved in the story. As I said, not bad but not one I think I'll follow up. If you're looking for action and science fiction combat this may be your cup of tea. I love action books, but I like a little more story than we get here...

To each. If you like it enjoy.

[Dr. Block]

This book felt like reading a 400-page battle with maybe 10% dialogue. Impressive in its own way.

[Liam || Books 'n Beards · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never really liked The Flood very much, but I feel obligated to read it regardless. Maybe it's just because I've played through the story in a game and so trying to transfer it into text falls flat for me, but I think there are several problems with the book because of its direct game-to-book heritage that the other Halo novels avoid.

Firstly, the author feels compelled to at least note every other encounter with enemies in the game and after a while it gets pretty dull. The combat in the other novels is well executed and spaced out because it can choose when, story-wise, it makes sense for there to be a big fight, rather than needing to entertain a player through 12+ hours of gameplay. In First Strike and Fall of Reach the combat feels important and scary because it only happens every now and then, rather than being a throwaway sentence ended with "-and reloaded his weapons."

Similar to above, the author - I suppose through some sense of loyalty to the source material or whatever - feels the need to repeat as rote the dialogue in the game, a lot of which is unnecessary or clunkily phrased in order to provide the necessary amount of tutorialisation or exposition. It could be reworded much nicer, but as I said - loyalty to the source material I guess.

He also gave the Chief a lot more emotion and personality than in the other novels - not to say he didn't have any in the others but some of the things he says and thinks in The Flood seem downright out of place for a straight-lace, genetically engineered super soldier.

On the other hand, I quite like the ideas and plot that he brought to the story - Silva and the ODSTs, 'Zamamee's vendetta against the Chief, etc. It shows an ability to write interesting original ideas within an established world that I wish he had brought to the rest of the novel. It probably would have been a better novel if it had focused entirely on that sort of thing rather than providing an abridged re-telling of the adventures of Chief and Cortana. I think it's telling that they never did another direct game-to-book adaption of Halo.

Anyway, onto First Strike.

[Pika · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second book in the Halo series was not written by Eric Nylund, but by William c. Dietz. In my opinion, I think Eric Nylund is a better author, but since its a Halo book, that automatically makes it good. What was cool about this novel is that it's based on the actual game, so it was fun to say "Oh, I love that level." or "Haha, I always die there." The book answers the question "I wonder what Master Chief would do." because you can play exactly what happens in the book. One other thing is that you know what's happening at the time with people that weren't in the game. So if you were wondering what happened to the other marines that survived or what happened between missions, this book reveals it all. The only thing I don't like about the book is that sometimes the author writes unrealistic things that could not usually happen and exaggerates many things. I read this book from a friend.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main problem with this book is that William Diez simply cannot write combat. Pretty much all the fights are either referred to in passing or we get something like, "Master Chief fired his gun, and the Grunts dropped dead." It's more like a wikipedia article, and the second problem is that the book is about 60% action; either that, or Chief walking around to get to the next bunch of enemies.

Deitz has somehow managed to make a super soldier fighting waves of aliens on a mystical and distant ringworld boring. I didn't think it was possible.

Now, we do get several subplots: there's a fairly interesting one about a Sangheili named Zamanee and a Unggoy called Yayap hunting Chief; there's one that's basically just a rehash of Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream; and finally one about the ODSTs fighting off the Covenant, which also contains the most unintentionally hilarious line in literature: "Here was the backdoor, the way she could enter the butte's interior, and push upwards from there." Hehehe. What, I never claimed to be mature.



The prologue is about some goon called Sam Marcus, and already it makes no sense since it says that he's managed to get three hours of sleep over the course of twenty days. How is he not dead? The novel starts off with a man getting out of bed. It's just an incredibly lame opening, and proceeds to dump a ton of exposition about the Pillar of Autumn.

Anyway, this goon gets out a picture of his wife and no points for guessing what happens next. Yeah, you guessed it, he dies. What a shock.


The book then proceeds to bore us to death by having a description of the game's first level. It's not even written well, and it sets the tone for how god awful the writing is.

Keyes and his bridge crew (Hikowa and Lowell are the only characters returning from the last book, for some reason. Hall and Dominqiue can get lost, I guess.) land on the ring and are somehow separated from everybody else. Oh, and the reason that Cortana or Wellesley can't just fly over a Pelican to pick them all up? "They're busy." What exactly concerns them so much they abandon the ship's bridge crew to certain capture or death, we never know.

One of the crew, Dowski, suggests they surrender while being a bitch about it. Now, it's important to remember that, in the last book, Keyes was considering court martialing a lieutenant named Jaggers who was himself being insubordinate, but decided against it because he felt sorry for him.

So what do the crew do? Singh randomly jams a gun into her face. Yeah, seriously. Then Keyes ties her up and leaves her to die a horrible death courtesy of the Covenant. Yeah, seriously. Not joking, Keyes is a psycho.

All this does is get Dowski captured, so she shows the Covenant Keyes position. Can't blame her, really. Keyes surrenders, making him a total hypocrite. This amazing choice gets the entire bridge crew executed bar Keyes. Yeah, all the characters from The Fall of Reach are thrown under a bus and unceremoniously murdered for no reason. Why did they only want Keyes prisoner anyway? Mental.


I think the ending may be the most terrible bit of this whole book. First, 235 odd people survive the flood and Covenant? What? Where were they in the game? They take over a covenant ship that is of course not actually shown, and are ready to leave.

But OH NO! The flood are on the ship. At which point Deitz makes every single character a fucking idiot just to carry the plot. First Major Silva says he wants the Flood alive to study it. Right, understandable-until he says he's not even going to bother containing it, and is letting it run willy-nilly around the ship. How could anyone think this could work?

Anyway, instead of delaying the takeoff, or trying to kill all of the flood herself, or, hell, just killing Silva herself so Wellsley can blow up the flood himself, she decides to blow up the the entire ship with a single grenade, killing every single marine character making the entire book TOTALLY POINTLESS.

One star. Bad plot, boring writing, and boring action. Frankly, just play the game, or maybe read Ghosts of Onyx. Not this.

[Austin Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though the second book is by another author, he did a really good job of continuing off where the fall of Reach ended. I especially liked the fact that he added the viewpoints of the Covenant as well. It was a very enjoyable read and I can't wait to jump into the next book!

[Benjamin Alig · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic nostalgia journey. This book follows very closely the events of the first game with the addition of a few key things. Some of the story is told from the covenant's or other human's perspective and there is a bit of insight on the inner workings of the flood. Secondly, this book helps to humanize master chief. He becomes much more relatable. This is a would read again book. I'm looking forward to the next one.

[Vivone Os · Rating 1 out of 5]

Globalni ciljevi: nastavak serijala
1,5
Prva knjiga o Master Chiefu (Halo: The Fall of Reach) mi se baš jako svidjela i imala sam poveća očekivanja od nastavka. Ali nažalost, nastavak me jako razočarao. Cijelo vrijeme dok sam čitala imala sam dojam da gledam nekoga kako igra video igricu. Priče skoro nije ni bilo, likovi su površno razvijeni i taman kad mi se neki svidio, Dietz ga je ubio. Onak, zašto? Jedina konstanta su Master Chief i Cortana. Tijekom njihovog pohoda u klanju valjda tisuća Covenantovih vojnika, Flood čudovišta i Sentinela, Chief uopće nema vremena ni malo se razvijati kao lik i vidimo tek tračke njegovih osjećaja, sumnji, strahova… Ali zato saznajemo imena svih oružja koja su korištenja. Chief je stalno imao municije na raspolaganju, kao da oružje i municija rastu na Halou.
Veliko razočaranje. Ovaj nastavak je napisao drugi pisac, ali u trećem se vraća Nylund, autor prvog dijela pa se nadam da će biti puno bolji od ove grozote.

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thankfully I read The Fall of Reach before I attempted this, otherwise I would have been hard pressed to understand how Master Chief could survive the sheer amount of carnage in this novel. The background provided on the Spartan project and, probably more importantly, the MJOLNIR armour, goes a long way in justifying some of the madness in this book. Those of you who have read Dietz before this will know that he is no slouch when it comes to writing military science fiction. I refer, especially, to his Legion of the Damned books. So, an obvious choice then for the novelization of Halo - Combat Evolved. Again, like its prequel, this is a military science fiction novel, but with the emphasis squarely on action. I did enjoy the fact that Dietz wrote some sequences from the Covenant point of view. Reading this book in conjunction with Halopedia (the Halo wiki) is actually a great deal of fun, especially for someone (like me) who hasn't actually played the Halo games. This is a good way of finding out how the pesky aliens look, for example. The whole back story is pretty epic too.

So, pros. The action scenes are solid, although I enjoyed the battle scenes with the marines more than the scenes with Master Chief. I was reminded of the Legion books, but also of some of David Drake's stuff, maybe Redliners or something from the RCN series. The Halo construct, or array, is still fascinating, and we learn rather a lot in this novel as to its purpose. The Flood of the title, especially the despicable infection types, evoke emotions usually reserved for Ridley Scott's Xenomorph facehuggers. Revulsion and Fear, anyone?

And of course, cons. Yes, being based on a game, this book is pretty frantic, with mindless engagement following mindless engagement like clockwork. It's all here, from 'reloading' to 'weapon swapping'. Master Chief outdoes himself in this one, as far as the alien death toll is concerned. Coherence gets lost somewhere in the mix. In Dietz's defense, he was doing what was expected from him, writing the game (or re-writing someone else's story, if you will). Perhaps he should have another shot at a Halo title somewhere along the line, where he can have some creative freedom.

This is by no means a bad book, as far as I'm concerned. It's exactly what you would expect. I think Dietz has done as good a job as anyone could, given the same material. The series so far is truly enjoyable and I'll be digging in for Halo: First Strike soon.

[Jaeger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished this book and although I don't think it's quite as good as The Fall of Reach I still think it's worth reading. The parts that bring it down are what a lot of other people have talked about - the fact that a lot of the book is endless action scenes as it follows the plot of the first Halo game. It does get monotonous but what I think makes this worth reading are the side stories which take place parallel to Master Chief's - one involving a group of marines, one for Captain Keyes, and one for an unlikely Elite and Grunt duo called Zamamee and Yayap.

I found these really interesting, especially the parts from the Covenant POV, as it tends to humanise them in a way that doesn't seem intentional in comparison with how the rest of the book reads. Along with arbitrarily giving random Covenant soldiers names and short back stories, Zamamee and Yayap are so clumsy and persistent that you often end up rooting for them, and then the book will immediately switch back to descriptions of Master Chief brutally murdering their friends and crushing grunts' heads with his immense strength which is hilarious.

The Flood are also horrific in this book, the descriptions of their anatomy and the way they assimilate were unexpectedly unsettling. You're with Keyes here right up until his final moments, as he fights to retain what humanity he has left while the Gravemind filters through his memories for any useful information it can find. It's really very sad and something you don't get to see in the game, along with a Marine named Jenkins who is assimilated by the Flood, but captured by his fellow Marines and put into a cell in hopes that they can cure him when they return to Earth. He vies for control of his own brain and is conscious to what's happening around him, but has no way to respond to his friends or to tell them that he wants to die.

Knowing the ending of Halo: Combat Evolved means that these stories must come to an end as the book does though, but I don't think any of them are wrapped up in a cheap way; to me they were all pretty gratifying, and some even emotional. I would probably give this a 3.5/5 if you could on Goodreads, because I think these side plots were largely redeeming for the rest of the book.

The end :)

I listened to this on Audible

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

jesus. what a time to be alive. my favourite part was when first lieutenant melissa mckay was able to intuit what her commander really felt... not because she knew him well... but because she was a woman. thank god for the sensitive feminine touch of this orbital drop shock troop commander !

my second favourite part was when a dead marine whose body had been savaged, mutated and ripped apart by the flood parasite was described as having saggy breasts. careful girls! always wear a bra when being devoured by space fungus!

my third favourite part was the long-term buildup of the elite and his little grunt friend yapeep or whatever. chapters of sowing tension for their standoff at the climax of the novel just for the elite to fire one shot and then fall down an elevator shaft. was it supposed to be a punchline? dunno.

so many opportunities to show some weakness or complex fragility going on with john spambus 117 but nah. no insights to be found in this book. he nearly got his nervous system hijacked by aforementioned space fungus and then shrugged it off like it was nothing. the references throughout to the children killed during the spartan program were so hamfisted that they became very funny. "oh no... all my comrades in the marine squad are wiped out... just like those dead children..."

my fourth favourite part was when chungus went to go fight some covenant in a canteen. mess hall. whatever. as far as i can remember it went like this: "chief was worried those nasties in the mess hall would have him for lunch. so he served up a grenade. good luck swallowing that one!" like. william c. dietz stop taking the piss this is serious business. the pillar of autumn is on fire and you're laughing.

overall... i had fun... but it was more because i enjoy all the stupid military space nonsense like 'drop pod', 'extraction', 'vanguard,' 'ordnance,' and 'stow it marine.' and not because of any skill or creativity on the author's part. the most interesting part was jenkins getting infected and whatnot. the rest was pretty shallow, not to mention badly written. one gem of a sentence was "the spartan ran down the hill covered in snow, through the bloodstained snow." like come on wake up editor we need you. editor please. editor im begging

ok bye

[Dakota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halo The Flood by William C. Dietz is a science fiction novel that has more background stories than the X-box game Halo combat evolved that it is based on. It is much more detailed and explains in much detail the story of the Flood.

This story starts in the year 2552 so it is about 500 years in the future. The Covenant a collection of alien races has taken the plant of Reach while the Pillar of Autumn their ship travels through slip space to a unknown location due to the Cole protocol. They soon find they ran into something bigger, something they had never seen before, that will not only challenge them physically but mentally. There are several main characters in the story but the one that mostly intrigued me was the Master Chief John 117 which was the last of his kind. He was a Spartan. Spartans were kids that were kidnapped at the age of 7 to be trained in the art of killing. About the time they start puberty they are augmented (injected with drugs) to make them into super soldiers. Another Main character that intrigued me was McKay who is a hell jumper or odst which are highly trained marines. These two characters play a big factor in the outcome of the story.

The setting of this story takes place on a ring or halo which has many of the same characteristics of a planet but this ring which was created by the Forerunners is where the battles take place. The Halo has a normal environment and atmosphere but it is not a planet. This ring they landed on holds a deep and dark secret, which they are ready to battle for.

My opinion of this story is that anyone that is familiar with or has played the Halo videogames or read any of the other books in the Halo series would thoroughly enjoy this book. The authors writing style makes you feel as if you are there or in the video game with Master Chief John 117 as he faces the Covenant.

[Mike Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is the second in the series and not nearly as good as the first. This is not unexpected. This book, The Flood, is the novelization of the award-winning first-person-shooter (FPS) video game Halo. The first book was a prequel that gave the backstory and events leading up to the video game. It was able to cover a range of events such as the creation and training of the SPARTAN soldiers, ground battles, space battles, and character development. The Flood, however, has no choice but to follow the plot of the game, which mostly involves travelling through various settings killing aliens. This is exciting and fun in the game because you're controlling the character and reacting to the enemy hordes. In a novel, however, it quickly gets boring. Even the author admits this when, in later battles, he writes something to the effect that all the killing became rather mind-numbing. The author tries to add some interest with a couple of sub-plots. One involves some marines capturing and defending an outpost and another centres on an alien assassin who's trying to take out the main character. Unfortunately, those who have played the game will have some idea how it all turns out, which drains all the tension and suspense from these sub-plots. The first book shows that there is scope for interesting literary stories in the Halo universe, but the games themselves are just not suited for book form.

[Stefan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I much preferred the writing style in The Fall Of Reach, I felt that it was easier to immerse myself in, and I also felt the qaulity of dialogue was higher. It seemed Master Chief spent much time running from battle to battle, there were few back stories, and the whole book seemed less of a sequel and more of a half enthusiastic diversion to The Fall Of Reach. Overall, the character development were manageable (but in places alarming nonexistent), the setting were okay at the beginning but became painfully tedious towards the end, and the ending made me feel like the whole book was sort of a short story (rather expanded) that followed the literary wake of The Fall Of Reach. Perhaps, I shouldn't have read this book, it wasn't the normal type of book I would read, yet, The Flood is much better then some pulp science fiction out there.

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt that the Master Chief character deviated too much to the one created by Eric Nylund. Eric's Master Chief was more of a silent leader type but William's is more of a cocky gun-ho type.

The story is full of actions and plenty of supporting characters but seemed to be jumping around too much when telling the story from multiple points of view. I've never played the Halo game but I can imagine how the scenes play out on TV screen.

On the whole I thought this was a worthy read. On other rating systems I would give it a 3 but on goodreads a 3 equates to like, and I'm not prepared to say that.

[Niklas Braun · Rating 2 out of 5]

After a very well written first book in this series, I was seriously disappointed in this book. The writing is so flat and unemotional. It seems like Dietz watch someone play Halo and just reported what he saw on the screen. Even the parts not in the game felt tacky and thrown in for fun. Not a good book.

[M Hamed · Rating 2 out of 5]

unlike the first book this felt like a direct novelization of the game play,with no story what so ever just mindless shooting after mindless shooting