Shadows of Reach

Halo #28

by Troy Denning

A Master Chief story and original full-length novel set in the Halo universe—based on the New York Times bestselling video game series!

October 2559. It has been a year since the renegade artificial intelligence Cortana issued a galaxy-wide ultimatum, subjecting many worlds to martial law under the indomitable grip of her Forerunner weapons. Outside her view, the members of Blue Team—John-117, the Master Chief; Fred-104; Kelly-087; and Linda-058—are assigned from the UNSC Infinity to make a covert insertion onto the ravaged planet Reach.

Their former home and training ground—and the site of humanity’s most cataclysmic military defeat near the end of the Covenant War—Reach still hides myriad secrets after all these years. Blue Team’s mission is to penetrate the rubble-filled depths of CASTLE Base and recover top-secret assets locked away in Dr. Catherine Halsey’s abandoned laboratory—assets which may prove to be humanity’s last hope against Cortana.

But Reach has been invaded by a powerful and ruthless alien faction, who have their own reasons for being there. Establishing themselves as a vicious occupying force on the devastated planet, this enemy will soon transform Blue Team’s simple retrieval operation into a full-blown crisis. And with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance, mission failure is not an option…

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

432 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2020

About the author

Also known as Richard Awlinson.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Den...

Reviews

[T.R. Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was really good. It's written in such a distinct way that makes it feel like a real military operation is going on. I've heard some people call this one a little boring, but I love the tone captured here. The lore explored was intriguing, and the threat of the Banished was well-handled. There's something quite symbolic about Master Chief fighting with his new foe on his old home of Reach.

All of this content was good setup for Halo Infinite and Cheif's upcoming rivalry with Escharum. (Please be good, Infinite. Please don't suck).

Update: I'm back after beating Halo Infinite several times. It was fantastic. I was not let down. And Escharum was a great villain. I can't wait for the story DLCs.

[Carl Malmborg · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was such a boring read... Denning’s overexplanation of everything, especielly the geology, makes the book a struggle to get through. This is coming from a geology student. I never want to read the word ”lechatelierite” ever again. It’s also bad that I enjoyed all the parts where we didn’t follow Master Chief. God damn. The second half was better though and the ending was nice. It really shows that they planned for the game to come out shortly after this book since we never got to know what they were retrieving from Reach. It sucks that I have to wait until the end of the year before knowing what it is.. 2/5 is not deserving but I am a sucker for Halo.

[Liam J.S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can summarize the plot of this book in one or two sentences without missing much.

[Brendan Kraus · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5/5. Add half stars Goodreads

Shadows of Reach is Troy Denning’s 5th Halo book and his 3rd featuring the face of the franchise himself, the Master Chief.

Following the events of Halo 5(and Halo Wars 2) the galaxy is in disarray. Cortana’s created Guardians control space and there is no force strong enough to stop them. The Master Chief and Blue Team have been sent to the glassed planet Reach, the place where they became Spartans to obtain something for Halsey which she thinks can stop Cortana. At the same time the Banished are also on Reach and searching for something on the planet.

In theory I like this book, however in practice all of the things I don’t like about Troy Denning’s take on Halo is on full display. Love his Veta Lopis books but man his chief books are not good. Poor pacing, poor writing for Chief/Blue team and poor descriptions. So many times, I found myself just having to completely imagine what is happening in my head as opposed to imagining it off his words. Hard to imagine the locations and action throughout. Reading I often had little sense of where people were, how far away the enemies are and how the action is playing out. He has a hard time getting the reader into the situation.

A shame that the big novel that is supposed to be the leadup to Infinite disappoints. The actual plot is good but once when again. When it comes to Master Chief Denning drops the ball.

[chitsung · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have gave it two stars if it not was a Halo novel. I haven’t read one in years and it scratched the itch, but not only this novel filled not the vast narrative void between Halo 5 and Halo Infinite (in fact the whole book was just one big MacGuffin hunt), the characterization was a noticeable departure from existing depictions. Master Chief simply lacked the steadiness and natural authority. Some of the writing of this book are not so subtle announcement that author did indeed read the Halopedia entries because they simultaneously over-explain and under-explain lore stuff. I miss Eric Nylund.

[Shane Ver Meer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has some high points, and was fun enough, but my score is generous. 3 out of 5 lechatelierite-infused passages.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun action novel, although it drags a little towards the end. Even though I grade these on a curve (do Halo novels actually deserve 4 stars?), it was great to see Troy Denning's writing improve from book to book.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story about two pieces of heavy mining equipment: a drilling jumbo, and an LHD (load-haul-dump machine). Do yourself a big favor and google what these two main characters look like when you start reading the book. These two machines are on a secret mission to retrieve something secret from a secret base on the devastated planet Reach, where much of the surface was burned into glass by Covenant bombardment.

This story takes place between the events of the games Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Infinite, and makes some brief callouts to characters and events from other books and games in the Halo canon (e.g., Fall of Reach [book], Halo: Reach [game], Halo 3: ODST [game], Halo Wars 2 [game], Halo: Last Light [book]).

What’s the point of this secret mission? What was it that Jumbo and LHD are sent to retrieve? The book never actually explains! The only way to figure it out would be to make inferences from Dr. Halsey’s personal journal (a short book that was included with the limited and legendary editions of the Halo Reach game), and from the plot of Halo 5 and Halo Infinite. In other words, unless you have extensive knowledge of the Halo lore, the point of this book’s story is just a mystery.

Nevertheless, Jumbo and LHD do have a sometimes-exciting adventure across Reach, encountering warped landscapes, a band of humans trying to rehabilitate the land, and a contentious faction of brutes that split off from the Covenant (the Banished).

Oh, and I guess it’s worth mentioning that the two pieces of heavy mining equipment are also assisted by Master Chief (John) and his Blue Team of fellow SPARTAN-II super-soldiers: Fred, Kelly, and Linda. We get a handful of interesting glimpses into Master Chief’s thoughts, and his interactions with Blue Team, regular soldiers, and civilians. We also get plenty of tactical descriptions of weaponry and vehicles. Fortunately, all of that doesn’t steal the spotlight from the true heroes: Jumbo and LHD.

[Brandon Kinslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up on Halo games and books. This is another great Master Chief story.

[Jared Delcamp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chief kicking Banished butt on a mission that lines up as a revenge tour? I’m here for it. 5 stars. Remember Reach.

[Tom Feeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid Blue Team story and nice call backs

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very Troy Denning and I say that in both the best and worst possible ways. Denning writes compelling and descriptive stories that fit well within the Halo universe and this is no different. That is why it gets a high score of 4/5, however, I don't believe it to be deserving of a 5/5 as Denning's less desirable writing attributes are also very prevalent.

Starting with the good and great. Mr Denning knows how to write Blue Team. Blue Team feels like the well oiled fighting machine that they are and each person's distinct character is present from Fred's humour to Linda's zen and lone wolf nature. I also love John's inner monologue and realisations about his mortality and his influence on others due to his legendary status.

I also believe Denning is able to write the alien sections of his books beautifully, whether that's the Covenant, Keepers of the One Freedom or The Banished. I love the inter- and intra-politics between all the different alien factions present and also how The Banished are fleshed out beyond what we've seen in Halo Wars 2. My only complaint here is how good these chapters are yet how few there are. I was craving more, so much more.

A couple of other quick notes on good things. Denning also writes secondary characters very well. Well enough that they greatly contribute to the world building and story and sometimes even play on the reader's emotions. Bella Disztl is a great example. It was also nice to see the story threads of Halo 5 still being present without being abandoned, even if they're not the primary focus here.


While there's plenty more good in this story, there's definitely a bit of bad, and sometimes even too much of a good thing that I need to dedicate some time to.

Denning loves to truly immerse the reader in his written environments and scenes and he achieves this with both quality and quantity of descriptions. Don't get me wrong, the descriptions are mostly to a high quality but the length of them can really hamper the experience. I'm sad to say but I'd genuinely describe the first 30% of this book as a slog. It feels like 1 thing happened and then a bit of walking/fighting and it took me hours just to read that. I actually groaned when I saw the next chapter was a UNSC one instead of Banished in these early stages. It reminded me of Denning's Halo: Oblivion. That book had fantastic elements and overall it was quite solid but my god, it was slow and long winded.

Continuing on Denning's descriptions, as good as they are, sometimes it is really hard to envision the environment/what is happening. There's so much talk of the geology (holy sh*t you actually have to be a geology major to be able to understand half of this), the landscape, directions and so on and you just to accept you won't know exactly what's going and tell your brain to create a dumbed down interpretation of everything. I'm sure some people won't have this issue but I've definitely seen it echoed by others before so I know it's not just a me thing.

Also somewhat related to the above complaints are the combat scenes. While they are written very well, surprisingly well for a book since I think action lends itself to the visual far better, there's just a bit too much. Or put better, there's not too many combat scenes but each scene is too long. The writing is good but I really don't want to read about every Banshee being shot down when there's literally 30 of them chasing Blue Team.


So overall, Denning has delivered another good Halo book. It is definitely superior to Oblivion but I don't believe it reaches the levels of Last Light, Retribution and definitely not Silent Storm. Silent Storm is literally a master piece (although it did fall prey to the issues of descriptive environments being very hard to visual like Oblivion and Shadows of Reach). If it was pruned down I think it could easily be a 5/5.

[Chris The Lizard from Planet X · Rating 5 out of 5]

Halo: Shadows Of Reach by Troy Denning is a video game tie-in serving as a prequel to the upcoming game “Halo: Infinite.”

Bridging the gap between Halo 5 and Halo Infinite. Set in October 2559. It has been year since the renegade AI Cortana, and her Created army took over the galaxy. In the hopes of changing the tide of war. The UNSC command sends the Master Chief and Spartan Blue Team to the ravaged Planet of Reach to extract some vital assets from Doctor Halsey’s lab at CASTLE Base that will help turn the tide against the Rouge A.I. Cortana and her Created. But an army of Banished stand in their way who have their own agenda on Reach.

The first thing to mention here is that it doesn’t matter whether this is the first Halo Book you ever pick up, or if you’ve read some – or all – of the others. There’s no qualifying knowledge required here to ‘get’ the story, characters, or the state of the Halo universe. By the same token, this is by no means required reading to ‘get’ Halo Infinite either. It’s an entirely separate individual story with some connective tissue to the past and the future.

Shadows of Reach sits very comfortably as an open reading experience that picks up and continues some things from the previous games, while also giving you a good sense of what 343’s vision for Halo Infinite looks like going forward. It’s a moment in time, suspended between the last game and the next, which takes every opportunity to plunder the depths of its characters which you may have felt was lacking in Halo 5. You can also expect plenty of little details and payoffs here for fans who have delved into the Halo expanded universe around the story of Reach, and none of it feels like overwrought fanservice.

If you’ve read The Fall of Reach and First Strike, you’re definitely going to get the most out of some of the surprise callbacks. A number of long-forgotten things come up again with renewed relevance, lending crystal clear clarity to how some stories may be develop. There’s a lot of connective tissue to Halo 5, Halo Wars 2, Denning’s other books, and more. What this means is that Halo: Shadows of Reach is every bit as rewarding a read for long-time fans of the fiction as it is welcoming to newcomers.

At its core, this is a story about the Master Chief and Blue Team returning ‘home’ to the glassed remains of the place that defined their lives from childhood. That alone is a compelling premise. If you found yourself at all disappointed by Halo 5 not doing very much with these characters in their debut game appearance, rest assured that I felt this is the best that the Chief and Blue Team have ever been written.

If you were invested in where Halo 4 took the Master Chief as a character, the path that set him on, then you’re going to see a true continuation of that in this book.

This story has the Master Chief at his most ‘human.’ He’s reunited with his family, who he’s with the entire course of this story, and they’re fighting alongside both UNSC personnel and ‘rehab pioneers,’ a group of people who have come to reclaim Reach (not unlike the miners on Meridian in Halo 5, chipping away the glass to revive a dead world).

The mix of characters gives the Chief plenty of people, both new and familiar, to interact with. Denning handles this beautifully, bringing in some new characters (like the race car driver Bella Disztl) who you’ll definitely want to see more of.

Blue Team have served together for thirty years now, they’re practically extensions of each other, but there are some bumps in their relationship here that gives them some much-needed complexity and inner conflict.

Remember, the Chief was apart from them for almost five years while he and Cortana were adrift in the aft of the Forward Unto Dawn, following the most harrowing months of the war.

During that time, Blue Team was still actively serving in the UNSC. When the Chief did eventually reunite with them, following the demise of Cortana in Halo 4, he processed that loss by going on mission after mission, before going AWOL in Halo 5 (which culminated in them getting trapped in a Cryptum).

There are consequences to this, and we see a lot more disagreements naturally emerge among Blue Team.

Shadows of Reach delivers perhaps the broadest range of character writing the Chief has ever had. He has never felt more ‘complete’ as a character than he does in this book.

He’s got a personal stake in this, fighting for Reach. He pushes himself to a Spartan-II’s absolute limits, causing him to reflect on his own mortality as he gets older. He feels guilty for failing to deal with Cortana; he gets irritable with people, even moved to anger at times, but he’s also his usual wisecracking self and a has to navigate a lot of complex tactical situations to be the best leader he can be.

And he also feels hatred. Real, intense pain for returning to his ‘home,’ seeing the devastating aftereffects of its fall. There were a lot of character moments that resonated with me, but (in the interest of keeping this spoiler-free) you’ll have to read them for self.

Shadows of Reach does not solely follow Master Chief and Blue Team, however. We also dive deeper into the Banished. When we met this faction in Halo Wars 2, it was very much through the lens of Atriox – the beginnings of his legend in how he defied the Covenant. In this book, you’ll get to see a lot of doors opened that help to effectively consolidate the Banished as the primary antagonist going forwards, right down to learning about some of the weapons we’ll undoubtedly be seeing and using in Halo Infinite. My definitive takeaway here, though, was that the Banished’s politics are every bit as compelling as the Covenant’s in Halo 2.

We see this part of the story play out through Castor’s perspective, the Jiralhanae who has appeared in Denning’s other books – leader of the faction named the Keepers of the One Freedom. It’s not just humanity who have been looking to build bridges, as the Keepers have uneasily allied themselves with the Banished to face the new state of the galaxy.

Castor is joined by a Banished ‘aide,’ of sorts, a Sangheili Blademaster called Inslaan ‘Gadodgai. The relationship that develops between them over the course of the book is one of its most compelling aspects; we’re so used to seeing Brutes and Elites at each others’ throats, but the Banished brings with them a very different dynamic.

I don’t want to give anything further away here, but you will be left wanting to see a lot more of these characters. This is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding and unique areas of the book – just another reason it’s worth Reading.

Denning’s books are an interesting study because they’re so varied. He’s now the author who’s written the greatest number of Halo books, and it’s easy to see why he’s earned that kind of trust. Shadows of Reach doesn’t have (and doesn’t need) another genre beneath the surface, but it feels like it’s got some of the best of these books.

It’s very much a space marine sci-fi novel. There’s extensive military sci-fi action for both ground and air engagements, with a lot of that ‘chessboard’ thinking Denning writes so well that manages to be both tactical and theatrical. And there’s that element of weirdness that comes through with the way the post-Created setting is articulated, without the Created ever being truly present.

I’ve personally struggled a little with some of Denning’s prose in his latter entries in terms of getting an idea of the settings that sometimes go minimally described for the action. There were one or two engagements in Shadows of Reach where I felt a similar lack of clarity, but overall this is some of Denning’s tightest work that had me gliding from page-to-page.

Just as a great Halo game compels you to play “Just one more match,” Shadows of Reach had me up into the early hours of the morning to read “Just one more

Overall, In case you couldn’t already tell, I loved this book. Despite what some may feel to be a rather hurried conclusion and some sections that are perhaps overlong, the highs this novel hits are some of the highest in recent Halo EU literature. So many things that I wanted to see in a post-Halo 4 story for the Chief are here, immaculately delivered by Troy Denning’s writing and vision of the universe. To return to Reach with Blue Team is the perfect idea to properly explore where each of them are at as individuals in this limbo space between the past and future of the series.

[Matthew Ochal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fuck these master chief book fuck them I cant take it i cant do this i feel like half this book just phased past me eyes did i even fucking read it?

[Kacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its okay if you're a giant halo nerd and very dry descriptions of people shooting at stuff. If not then theres not much to dig into here.

[Daniel Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slow start that made me think this was going to be a slog, but this was a really excellent Halo story that had a nice blend of callbacks to Reach and plot points bridging the gap between 5 and Infinite. Stands on its own, I would recommend reading this one and not worrying as much about Silent Storm or Oblivion.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was unaware of this book and some more than others hooked me, I loved being able to read about the potential of the blue team (I personally loved Linda-058), such as the inclusion of the blademaster and the weight that atriox has and will have for now.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing Read

One of my favorite Halo Books! Such a great read! Make sure you check this one out! And as always, look to the stars! 🌟

[George Steenkolk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly below average for the Halo books. Doesn't really add anything to the lore and is too full of military jargon for its own good. Skippable for Halo fans.

[Eduardo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Has major Master Cheeks vibes... Couldn't finish.

[Harry Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suffers from the same problems that all expanded universe products do, it has little to no impact on the wider plot as a whole

[THATGUY501 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good Chief story!

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a really good book. At times I found it quite slow but I’m very happy I decided to read it.

[Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely a great read. Riveting, well told and worth it. Read it and enjoy

[neil mortimer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good but mostly pointless novel

Shadows Of Reach expands quite well on the mythos of John 117, with some superb internalised thoughts on how a 30 year war has it's effects on even a super soldier like the master chief but like Troy Dennings other Halo novels nothing is ever resolved in this story.
Their mission is to find assets on Reach yet notning is ever revealed just what these assets are.
A brute Chieftain makes his debut in fantatic detail and yet his story arc is also abruptly ended.
The whole novel is a good read but is hollow and shallow, making the whole tning feel like there was little pont in reading it.
With any closure given to the story threads started (Or continued) in Shadows of Reach I would have marked it much higher.

[Melisa Ramonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOOD LORD I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THAT NOTE SAID!!!!!!!!

[Thomas]

Do you think seeing your home ruined and destroyed would make you angry or encourage you to make a bigger difference? In the real world, the same sight is seen, either in the Ukrainian war or hurricane Doran which killed seventy four people. In the fantasy fiction novel, Halo Shadows of Reach, Blue team returns to the only home they've ever known with a task, to retrieve an asset to free the galaxy of an AI dictator. Troy Denning tells this unique science fiction novel using an expository characterization, an undulating conflict, and a continuous plot.
For starters Denning perfectly tells the story alongside his characters mentioning their thoughts and feelings, giving an expository sense of what is happening in the science fiction novel. For instance when Van Houte, an experienced pilot and member of Special Crew cuts off his superior officer, John he says “Don’t you dare risk the mission to extract me”(35pg). Denning portrays Van Houte as brave instead of scared because he tells John that he’s ready to save the lives of thousands rather than saving his own. Denning again shows how much the weight of the galaxy is on the UNSC when Captain Lasky the commander of the Infinity, a vessel with several thousand crew size says “I'm not risking the Infinity on a long shot, am I, Dr.Halsey”(254pg). He shows that he can’t lose the ship or its crew because it’s all that’s left of humanity’s resistance. Denning makes it clear to his readers why the characters are on Reach, and the emotions they feel seeing their home in its glassed state. Additionally, John feels rage as he sees his glassed home, Denning goes on to illustrate “He had not know what those world had looked like before they were glassed..”(72pg). What makes this significant is John had a thirty-year-plus combat career seeing these worlds glassed, he had never seen one of them before they were destroyed. On the same page, Denning portrays John’s thoughts by saying “he had not felt so personally robbed by what the enemy had taken from humanity”(72pg). Spartans were trained to censor their emotions but even through the rubble, John can’t. John can’t bear the sight of his home in its entirety being destroyed.


Alternatively, Denning used an undulating conflict, every new piece of information to the conflict was unique and kept the reader interested in the book. To illustrate Johns once said, “But myarmpit’s packed full of biofoam and bleedinghasstoped”(111pg). This gives the reader an idea of how hard their battles are, showing how John just got a chunk of his leg blown off and he's trying to persevere to stay in it. Even later John says “So functional”(111pg), Denning gives an sentiment of the conflict in this instance by conveying the pain of his characters to his readers. In the same way, Denning portrayed other characters like Van Hout, he did through John saying “Every second that passed before the spartans were detected increased their chances of success”(219pg). Denning shows truth to his character's tone giving a sense of the conflict is ready to expand from infiltration to an all-out war zone. Throughout the book denning keeps the reader's attention, through his conflicts whether it be, them fighting the banished, or trying to convince a resistance leader not to activate a nuke.
Finally, Denning used a continuous plot that kept going steadily throughout the book not confusing his readers. In any case, Denning would flip side's perspectives of the conflict every few chapters. When Denning used the characters Castor or Gadogia to converse with one another the leaders of an enemy faction, he tells both perspectives. For instance when Castor talked to Gadogia about the great journey saying “You do me more honor than I deserve, I am a humble traveler on the great journey”(400pg). This gives the reader insight into the inner plot of the enemies, like when Atriox says to Castor “What are humans doing on my ship”(404pg). Denning again keeps a steady plot by talking from everyone's angle, Captain Laskys, the Banished, the Militia, and Blue Team.
Finally Denning usage of expository characterization, undulating conflict, and continued plot. Denning through the book always kept the livelihood of the reader, he consistently portrayed the story with excitement and interest. Denning's book Halo Shadows of Reach will tell a legendary tale of a family whose home is no more, but from the ashes, the family will grow.

[Reagan Wilkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

To start off I think that Halo: Shadows of Reach: A Master Chief Story (overly long title) by Troy Denning is a fine read for any would be Halo fan. It covers topics and places that if you’ve played a couple of the games you should be able to somewhat follow the story Denning is telling you. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that hasn’t stepped foot into the franchise.
My first experience with Halo started back with watching the G4 top 100 lists of games all the way back in I believe the early 2010’s. I only had a Wii growing up with a ps2 that started collecting dust once that Wii showed up. I had no way to get introduced to the world of Halo outside G4 and the internet. Eventually I would save my money and get my own Xbox 360 in 2014-2015. My first Halo that I ever bought and really played was 4. Now I know that a lot of people didn’t like 4, but I thought it was good enough for what I saw it as. I would later find out what I was missing after buying Halo 3 off of a friend and slowly falling in love with the games. Well, all the games except 5.
Upon the first time that I read this book I was looking for a way to prepare myself for Infinite as the delays kept coming. I was hoping that this book would lead into the story of Infinite, but upon finishing it for the second time now, I’ve found that the story itself to not really accomplish anything in the grand scheme of things within the Halo world.
Denning creates a tale of bringing Chief and his 3 spartan brethren back to Reach long after the events of Halo: Reach, using it as an interesting set up for dialogue and thoughts for the 4 spartans, but in the grand scheme of things feels nothing but filler for Chief and Blue team. Blue team is sent by Dr. Halsey to collect something from CASTLE Base on Reach, it isn’t fully described too well what that something is besides the fact that Halsey needs it. I’ve finished it twice now and I still don’t fully know what they brought back after the book wrapped up. This left the story feeling more like filler for that side of the story.
Where the real meat of the story is with the Banished and Keepers. Denning has the group of Castor and ‘Gadogai looking for something as well, but we’re given a much more concrete answer throughout the book and even a set up for another book that I probably won’t read or get a satisfying conclusion for. However, it’s an interesting back and forth and thought process that we see from Castor and ‘Gadogai as they complete a mission completely separate from Chief’s own. It reads well as we don’t get to normally see too much from the enemy other than when Chief is shooting at them.
This was my first experience with a Halo book so having Master Chief’s different perspective and thoughts in the forefront was a change of pace from the usual stoic character seen throughout the original trilogy. I found the little bits that Denning creates for Chief to be interesting, by this point in Halo he’s grown old as a character and seeing his thoughts of what to do with retirement were interesting to me. However, we’ll never see that due to the nature of what Halo is.
Halo has a big focus on action, and I don’t think Denning created a very readable throughout the book. I found it hard to follow most of the time with picturing what was going on to be difficult. Along with that multiple terms are brought up with an immediate knowledge of them being needed to know what exactly is being talked about. If you haven’t been involved in Halo before then you won’t understand what’s going on with it.
Overall though I enjoyed parts of the book, but not the whole sum of it’s parts. The story needed to feel a bit more fulfilling for me to warrant jumping back in for a third time. Instead, I’d rather jump back into the Master Chief Collection.

[Rozanne Visagie · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Disclaimer: I was kindly gifted a copy of this book by Jonathan Ball Publishers in exchange for an honest review.



When I was gifted a copy of this book by Jonathan Ball Publishers I was excited and scared at the same time to read a book based upon a video game. I'm not familiar with books based upon video games, so after skimming a few pages I started to get worried. The terminology used is unknown to me and that can affect the overall reading experience, but as I read I got used to some of the terminology and was able to follow the story. I have tried playing the game but early on decided that it's best if I stick with books.

HALO fans will be happy to know that Shadows of Reach is the next book in the Master Chief series and takes place a year after Halo 5: Guardians. John and his team (Blue Team) is part of Operation: WOLFE; they are deployed to Planet Reach which is almost inhabitable, to recover assets that are needed to stop Cortana. The only problem is these assets are in Dr. Halsey's lab below CASTLE Base; this means digging. Trying to avoid detection by Seraphs, they are soon spotted and the mission takes a detour.
Meanwhile, Escharum left for the Ark and left Castor, Chieftain of the Banished, and the others behind to search for the Portal under the Mountain and to prepare it for activation to reach Atriox. Spotting Blue Team and their digging equipment, the Banished are under the impression that Blue Team wants to destroy the Portal. Knowing that they need to keep the Portal guarded until Escharum arrives, Castor tries to join forces with the Chieftains Ballas and Deukalion. We follow the story through Blue Team and the Banished's POV.

The story is detailed and well-written and the author uses rich descriptions for world-building, Blue Team and their journey as well as the alien factions. The plot keeps the reader's attention as it's a constant race between Blue Team and the Banished and which of the two teams will reach CASTLE Base first.

I did some research about this book and found that HALO is a universe of its own. Websites are dedicated to HALO and the characters' origins as well as how they develop throughout the series. Even though I didn't enjoy the book that much, not because it's not a great story but because I find books based on video games harder to read, loyal HALO fans will enjoy this book. You'll never know whether you might like something unless you try it and I tried HALO and found it's not for me. But this is just me; another reader that's new to this series might enjoy it and be immersed in the HALO universe. If you are an avid player of HALO or know of someone that plays, and have never read the books before, this is the ideal series to enrich your gaming experience.

This review is posted on my blog:
https://willowscornerbook.wordpress.c...

[Alek Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like it more but it just got oddly complicated.

Blue Team is tasked with Operation: WOLFE, an asset retrieval mission important in stopping Cortana. The Spartans are deployed to Reach where they'll arrive at the ruins of CASTLE Base. Here they'll dig their way to Dr. Halseys lab and use hand print and retinal spoofers to retrieve, what I can only assume is the cloned brain Halsey used to make Cortana. Simple sounding mission right? Well I guess Denning thought so too because he sure added a lot of detours.

First, as expected, they get shot down by the enemy upon insertion. Meaning they got to hoof it to CASTLE Base now with their non-stealthy excavation vehicles. By day break they realize that the enemy appears to be different factions of the Banished. All occupying settlements that used to belong to human pioneers trying to rebuild Reach.

Second when an assault, to infiltrate a Banished base and get a faster ride, goes fubar. Blue Team stumbles upon the surviving pioneers in the apparently intricate tunnel systems below the glassed lands of Reach.

Third they reluctantly join their militia; to get the Banished off Reach so that the pioneers don't set off a nuke and alert Cortana's Guardians. After an assault and defense operation, both with plans that immediately got thrown away, Blue Team is finally back on mission.

What I liked: The portrayal of how Blue Team worked as a unit. The chartcter progression of John realizing his greater role as a leader but also his inexperience with soft skills. Actual battle damage and death to characters that weren't the villains. The character 'Gadogai and his relationship with Castor. And finally that surprise character appearance at the very end!

What I disliked: There seems to be a pattern of bad luck in Troy Denning's Master Chief stories. It seemed like every battle plan the Spartans came up with was instantly derailed before it even begun. This caused a lot of chaos that made following the plot a little confusing. And I don't know if it's me or Denning but most of his battles are hard to follow, so when he outlines a plan and then immediately has it discarded I'm even more confused. In my opinion Denning's Master Chief stories suffer from this unpredictability. His Ferret Team plots benefited from the mystery and unknown variables because they were espionage and black ops stories. But Master Chief and Blue Team need more straight forward missions with difficulty variables instead.