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Halo #7.2
Halo: Evolutions, Volume II
The original Evolutions, split into two volumes. This volume contains stories Tessa Kum & Jeff VanderMeer
Kevin Grace
Robt McLees
Karen Traviss
Fred Van Lente
When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, they never dreamed what dangers they would encounter there. When the alien juggernaut known as the Covenant declared holy war upon the fragile human empire, millions of lives were lost—but, millions of heroes rose to the challenge. In such a far-reaching conflict, not many of the stories of these heroes, both human and alien, have a chance to become legend. This collection holds eleven stories that dive into the depths of the vast Halo universe, not only from the perspective of those who fought and died to save humanity, but also those who vowed to wipe humanity out of existence.
Included in this volume you’ll find the stories
* A high-ranking prophet musing on the catastrophic last days of the Covenant Team Black, who discover that the Covenant’s politics might be more deadly than their military might
* The terrors of survival in the aftermath of a Flood infection
* The Master Chief struggling with his own humanity as he battles through war-torn New Mombassa
* The insatiable appetite of the Gravemind as it claws its way through Cortana’s tortured consciousness
* An existential Elite, in the aftermath of the Human-Covenant War, returning to the site of his greatest victory as he deals with his worst defeat
* And new to this volume, the last confessions of a Prophet in “Wages of Sin”
Kindle Edition
First published November 24, 2009
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1179 people want to read
About the author
Tobias S. Buckell
216 books463 followersBorn in the Caribbean, Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times Bestselling author. His novels and over 50 short stories have been translated into 17 languages and he has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. He currently lives in Ohio.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 9, 2023
Halo Evolutions Volume 2 is the second half of the now split Halo Evolutions, an anthology set in the Halo Universe.
For this review, I’ll be doing some mini reviews of each of the entries in the collection, with the exception of The Icon and Connectivity, as I feel like those are too small for me to really have a full opinion on. I’ll be giving each story it’s own separate rating, and at the end, giving a final overview of the book, with an average rating of the stories mentioned below.
Blunt Instruments - 3 Stars
Blunt Instruments is the opener to the book, and has us following Black Team, a squad of 4 Spartans, who are on a demolition job, the target of which is a Covenant mining rig. With the help of a drone, they execute their plan to take down the Covenant’s position.
This was a pretty okay story. The dynamic between Black Team was really enjoyable, with each of their personality’s jumping off the page, and the overall throughline of the story adds some fun lore tidbits to some of the Covenant species, primarily the drones, my opinion of which has now shot up due to how cool they were in this story.
That being said, at times, the prose is really murky, making it difficult to fully picture the environment that the story is taking place in. This is most notable at the end, as the Spartans are making their way from the demo site to their exfil point. I was thoroughly let down by this, as it took me straight out of the story at multiple points.
Overall, thanks to this story, I’m looking forward to seeing more of Black Team, as I know they appear in the Glasslands trilogy of books, but I was glad to move onto something else by the end.
The Mona Lisa – 4.5 Stars
This was the standout story in the collection in my opinion. It’s really easy to forget that you’re playing an unstoppable monster of a human in most Halo games, so seeing a story from the perspective of normal marines is always going to be interesting, especially when you add The Flood into the mix.
This story was fairly predictable, but in a manner that made the horror of the plot all that more tangible, as it allowed the tension to build to a crescendo before everything went utterly tits up.
The Flood were phenomenally written throughout this, likely being at their most terrifying across all of Halo’s expanded media. The setting of the Mona Lisa, the titular ship, made a for a really intense atmosphere, similar to the library from Halo: Combat Evolved, but again, from the much more terrifying PoV of bog standard marines.
The expansion of certain aspects of the lore is really cool, such as being one of the earliest glimpses into the sheer depravity of ONI, and the lengths that they would go to in order to get a leg up on the Covenant, seemingly betraying every single moral that the UNSC strives to maintain.
The cast of characters is also extremely strong, with my favourite being Lopez, the matriarchal sergeant who leads the squad of marines throughout the book. Watching her slowly lose her hope of returning home was genuinely heartbreaking, and seeing her have to continue ever on, despite the losses of soldiers that she viewed as as important to her as children, was extremely tragic, and I loved the imagery the author used for it, with each soldier being one of her “rosary beads”.
The relationship between Rimmer, a prisoner on the ship, and Henry, a Sangheili prisoner on the ship, was a really stark way of contextualizing just how menacing the flood were as a threat, as this book is set before the events of Halo 2, so the Elite’s were still their enemies.
My only gripe with this book, is that it ends on a really weird, unsatisfying note, where we don’t get closure on a couple of characters, who in the 13 years since Evolution released, have never reappeared in the franchise.
Overall though, this is one of my favourite pieces of Halo media, and I’d likely find myself recommending Evolutions to people just for this story alone.
Palace Hotel – 2 Stars
Palace Hotel was a really weak entry into this anthology. I’ve never read anything by Robert Mclees, and I think I’ll be making a point to avoid anything his names attached to, because oh my lord, his writing style is horrible.
This story takes place between the second and third missions of Halo 2, and follows Master Chief as he escorts a squad of Marines to the rest of their unit.
This is a pretty cool setup, let down by the fact that Mclees switched the PoV of the story twice, without any form of indication whatsoever. There was a point in it where you’re reading from
Master Chief’s perspective, and a few sentences late, with nary a page break to be seen, you’re in the head of one of the Marines. As I read this, it genuinely jarred me to the point where I nearly put the book down, or skipped onto the next story. This happens again later in the story, but wasn’t anywhere near as jarring.
The prose during action scenes is also really inconsistent. In anything longer than half a page, Mclees has a total inability to write interesting combat, but when he writes some that’s short, it’s generally fantastic. There’s a point early on, where Chief 1v1’s a Jackal, which lasts maybe a paragraph or two, but was the only moment that I genuinely enjoyed a fight scene during the story.
I don’t usually quote books in my reviews, but there’s a line I want to highlight here, because it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen a character say, so if I had to suffer, you should too.
“I believe I can honestly say that even though you are an honest-to-Buddha one-man death squad, and that if you were to ask nicely I’d give up my lucrative career in the Corps and start pumping out your babies as fast as you could put them in me”
This is said by a marine corporal, who only a page or two before, had been cursing Chief out, and the only thing that had changed in that time, was they went up some stairs. I think that quote and context does enough to show my issues with Mclee’s writing style
The only reason I’m not rating this 1 star, is because there’s an amazing moment at the end, where Chief meets a childhood friend of his, and his this moment of realization that he’s not the person he was when he knew her.
Overall, this story sucked, and I would recommend that if you do read it, skip towards the end of it for the only amazing moment in it. I am genuinely of the opinion that when they split evolutions into two volumes, they should have just done away with this story in it’s entirety, allowing it to be forgotten.
Human Weakness – 4 Stars
I really enjoyed this story, and thought that it was a really well thought out deep dive into the psyche of Cortana, and the need to deal with your own mortality from the perspective of a character that’s never had to feel pain.
Watching her have to come to terms with the reality that she, like every other human, has an expiration date, was really intriguing, and added a lot of layers to her character that’s enhanced her arc in Halo 4 quite a bit for me.
I really engaged with the parts of the story where she was battling with the Gravemind’s offer, and the temptation that that created within her, especially since it was framed as a way for her to forever stay with John, her one and only friend.
Seeing her lose hope throughout the story, as the Gravemind broke her will, to the point where she genuinely believed that Chief was just a hallucination the Gravemind created to toy with her was fantastic, as it really added to her rescue in the game, something that I thought had been mishandled there.
Overall, it was really good, but nothing phenomenal. It’s a perfect piece of supplementary material to an already fantastic game, serving to enhance it further. It was definitely pallete cleanser following the train wreck that was the last story, so I give it props for that.
Wages of Sin – 4 stars
This one is interesting. I can see it being a story that people might glance off of because of the framing off it. This is the final confession of a member of the race of Prophet’s, where he outlines how his species failed the Covenant, and deserve the fate that they’re now reaping.
It’s one of the more beautifully written stories in the anthology, having prose that is far beyond any of the other stories.
And again, like a lot of the stories in this collection, it adds a lot to the expanded lore of the Covenant, giving a degree of sympathy to the one race the games don’t portray as victims of an unfair religion.
I’d probably rank this one as the third best in the collection, just behind The Mona Lisa and The Return.
The Return – 4.5 Stars
This is one of the most intriguing bits of lore Halo’s ever had. This story follows a Covenant Shipmaster 7 years after the events of Halo 3, as he returns to a planet that he glassed twenty years prior to the story.
This story deals with the guilt and doubts that plague the shipmaster after learning of the Prophet’s betrayal of the other races. He relives the memories of his assault on the planet as he sees the destruction that he wrought in the name of false prophets, and this forces him to tackle the meaning of his existence, now that he’s played such a key role in the perversion of his people’s religion.
The structure of the story is really cool, since whenever the shipmaster sleeps, he has vivid dreams of the events of the war, ranging from his glassing of the planet that he’s on, to the day he executed his ship’s prophet in front of his crew during the Great Schism.
This is a very short entry in the book, but in my opinion is the most effective at getting a message across to the reader. It’s tied as my favourite with The Mona Lisa, as I just don’t have the heart to pick between either of them.
From the Office of Dr. William Arthur Iqbal – 3 Stars
While interesting, I think that this one could have been left on the cutting room floor. This is a letter from a member of ONI informing Xenoarchaelogists that they’ll now be working on understanding the Forerunners in order to get a leg up on the potential future threats the Covenant may still pose.
It adds some new lore tidbits to the excession, and shows that ONI are still acting on the assumption that the Covenant are the enemy, but other than that doesn’t really do anything all that interesting.
Overall rating – 3.5 Stars
Halo Evolutions was a solid read, and despite being let down by a really weak story at one point, almost everything in the collection was well worth the read, especially if you’re a fan of the expand Halo mythos. I can confidently highly recommend this to almost any fan of Halo, if just for The Mona Lisa and The Return alone, as they’re well worth the box price of the book.
For this review, I’ll be doing some mini reviews of each of the entries in the collection, with the exception of The Icon and Connectivity, as I feel like those are too small for me to really have a full opinion on. I’ll be giving each story it’s own separate rating, and at the end, giving a final overview of the book, with an average rating of the stories mentioned below.
Blunt Instruments - 3 Stars
Blunt Instruments is the opener to the book, and has us following Black Team, a squad of 4 Spartans, who are on a demolition job, the target of which is a Covenant mining rig. With the help of a drone, they execute their plan to take down the Covenant’s position.
This was a pretty okay story. The dynamic between Black Team was really enjoyable, with each of their personality’s jumping off the page, and the overall throughline of the story adds some fun lore tidbits to some of the Covenant species, primarily the drones, my opinion of which has now shot up due to how cool they were in this story.
That being said, at times, the prose is really murky, making it difficult to fully picture the environment that the story is taking place in. This is most notable at the end, as the Spartans are making their way from the demo site to their exfil point. I was thoroughly let down by this, as it took me straight out of the story at multiple points.
Overall, thanks to this story, I’m looking forward to seeing more of Black Team, as I know they appear in the Glasslands trilogy of books, but I was glad to move onto something else by the end.
The Mona Lisa – 4.5 Stars
This was the standout story in the collection in my opinion. It’s really easy to forget that you’re playing an unstoppable monster of a human in most Halo games, so seeing a story from the perspective of normal marines is always going to be interesting, especially when you add The Flood into the mix.
This story was fairly predictable, but in a manner that made the horror of the plot all that more tangible, as it allowed the tension to build to a crescendo before everything went utterly tits up.
The Flood were phenomenally written throughout this, likely being at their most terrifying across all of Halo’s expanded media. The setting of the Mona Lisa, the titular ship, made a for a really intense atmosphere, similar to the library from Halo: Combat Evolved, but again, from the much more terrifying PoV of bog standard marines.
The expansion of certain aspects of the lore is really cool, such as being one of the earliest glimpses into the sheer depravity of ONI, and the lengths that they would go to in order to get a leg up on the Covenant, seemingly betraying every single moral that the UNSC strives to maintain.
The cast of characters is also extremely strong, with my favourite being Lopez, the matriarchal sergeant who leads the squad of marines throughout the book. Watching her slowly lose her hope of returning home was genuinely heartbreaking, and seeing her have to continue ever on, despite the losses of soldiers that she viewed as as important to her as children, was extremely tragic, and I loved the imagery the author used for it, with each soldier being one of her “rosary beads”.
The relationship between Rimmer, a prisoner on the ship, and Henry, a Sangheili prisoner on the ship, was a really stark way of contextualizing just how menacing the flood were as a threat, as this book is set before the events of Halo 2, so the Elite’s were still their enemies.
My only gripe with this book, is that it ends on a really weird, unsatisfying note, where we don’t get closure on a couple of characters, who in the 13 years since Evolution released, have never reappeared in the franchise.
Overall though, this is one of my favourite pieces of Halo media, and I’d likely find myself recommending Evolutions to people just for this story alone.
Palace Hotel – 2 Stars
Palace Hotel was a really weak entry into this anthology. I’ve never read anything by Robert Mclees, and I think I’ll be making a point to avoid anything his names attached to, because oh my lord, his writing style is horrible.
This story takes place between the second and third missions of Halo 2, and follows Master Chief as he escorts a squad of Marines to the rest of their unit.
This is a pretty cool setup, let down by the fact that Mclees switched the PoV of the story twice, without any form of indication whatsoever. There was a point in it where you’re reading from
Master Chief’s perspective, and a few sentences late, with nary a page break to be seen, you’re in the head of one of the Marines. As I read this, it genuinely jarred me to the point where I nearly put the book down, or skipped onto the next story. This happens again later in the story, but wasn’t anywhere near as jarring.
The prose during action scenes is also really inconsistent. In anything longer than half a page, Mclees has a total inability to write interesting combat, but when he writes some that’s short, it’s generally fantastic. There’s a point early on, where Chief 1v1’s a Jackal, which lasts maybe a paragraph or two, but was the only moment that I genuinely enjoyed a fight scene during the story.
I don’t usually quote books in my reviews, but there’s a line I want to highlight here, because it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen a character say, so if I had to suffer, you should too.
“I believe I can honestly say that even though you are an honest-to-Buddha one-man death squad, and that if you were to ask nicely I’d give up my lucrative career in the Corps and start pumping out your babies as fast as you could put them in me”
This is said by a marine corporal, who only a page or two before, had been cursing Chief out, and the only thing that had changed in that time, was they went up some stairs. I think that quote and context does enough to show my issues with Mclee’s writing style
The only reason I’m not rating this 1 star, is because there’s an amazing moment at the end, where Chief meets a childhood friend of his, and his this moment of realization that he’s not the person he was when he knew her.
Overall, this story sucked, and I would recommend that if you do read it, skip towards the end of it for the only amazing moment in it. I am genuinely of the opinion that when they split evolutions into two volumes, they should have just done away with this story in it’s entirety, allowing it to be forgotten.
Human Weakness – 4 Stars
I really enjoyed this story, and thought that it was a really well thought out deep dive into the psyche of Cortana, and the need to deal with your own mortality from the perspective of a character that’s never had to feel pain.
Watching her have to come to terms with the reality that she, like every other human, has an expiration date, was really intriguing, and added a lot of layers to her character that’s enhanced her arc in Halo 4 quite a bit for me.
I really engaged with the parts of the story where she was battling with the Gravemind’s offer, and the temptation that that created within her, especially since it was framed as a way for her to forever stay with John, her one and only friend.
Seeing her lose hope throughout the story, as the Gravemind broke her will, to the point where she genuinely believed that Chief was just a hallucination the Gravemind created to toy with her was fantastic, as it really added to her rescue in the game, something that I thought had been mishandled there.
Overall, it was really good, but nothing phenomenal. It’s a perfect piece of supplementary material to an already fantastic game, serving to enhance it further. It was definitely pallete cleanser following the train wreck that was the last story, so I give it props for that.
Wages of Sin – 4 stars
This one is interesting. I can see it being a story that people might glance off of because of the framing off it. This is the final confession of a member of the race of Prophet’s, where he outlines how his species failed the Covenant, and deserve the fate that they’re now reaping.
It’s one of the more beautifully written stories in the anthology, having prose that is far beyond any of the other stories.
And again, like a lot of the stories in this collection, it adds a lot to the expanded lore of the Covenant, giving a degree of sympathy to the one race the games don’t portray as victims of an unfair religion.
I’d probably rank this one as the third best in the collection, just behind The Mona Lisa and The Return.
The Return – 4.5 Stars
This is one of the most intriguing bits of lore Halo’s ever had. This story follows a Covenant Shipmaster 7 years after the events of Halo 3, as he returns to a planet that he glassed twenty years prior to the story.
This story deals with the guilt and doubts that plague the shipmaster after learning of the Prophet’s betrayal of the other races. He relives the memories of his assault on the planet as he sees the destruction that he wrought in the name of false prophets, and this forces him to tackle the meaning of his existence, now that he’s played such a key role in the perversion of his people’s religion.
The structure of the story is really cool, since whenever the shipmaster sleeps, he has vivid dreams of the events of the war, ranging from his glassing of the planet that he’s on, to the day he executed his ship’s prophet in front of his crew during the Great Schism.
This is a very short entry in the book, but in my opinion is the most effective at getting a message across to the reader. It’s tied as my favourite with The Mona Lisa, as I just don’t have the heart to pick between either of them.
From the Office of Dr. William Arthur Iqbal – 3 Stars
While interesting, I think that this one could have been left on the cutting room floor. This is a letter from a member of ONI informing Xenoarchaelogists that they’ll now be working on understanding the Forerunners in order to get a leg up on the potential future threats the Covenant may still pose.
It adds some new lore tidbits to the excession, and shows that ONI are still acting on the assumption that the Covenant are the enemy, but other than that doesn’t really do anything all that interesting.
Overall rating – 3.5 Stars
Halo Evolutions was a solid read, and despite being let down by a really weak story at one point, almost everything in the collection was well worth the read, especially if you’re a fan of the expand Halo mythos. I can confidently highly recommend this to almost any fan of Halo, if just for The Mona Lisa and The Return alone, as they’re well worth the box price of the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2020
It bothered me that two of the authors referred to the Elites as MEN and another author referred to the young Elites as BOYS. It's even worse because the terms are being written as if it were a covenant member writing them. For example, a Covenant prophet refers to an Elite and his warriors as "The elite and his MEN..." Ummmm... There are so many other words/terms that would have worked here. Just on the top of my head: Warriors, army, battalion, followers, brethren, etc...
Then in the story that follows an Elite refers to his own species as BOYS when they are young. Ummmm... really? How in the world did this writers get to write in the halo universe?
Man and boys refer to HUMANS, not animals or aliens. I don't know how lazy you have to be to write this trash and get it past editors and all the beta readers. Pathetic, lazy writing.
The story, Palace Hotel, is nice, however it has one huge flaw. It's not cannon. So essentially it's a fan fiction story. Why the heck am I paying for fan fiction? I want cannon stories. If I wanted fan fiction I would go online and find some free, fan fiction stories.
I don't get why anyone would write a story that DIRECTLY contradicts what we saw in the game. A good writer uses the world already established and builds and enriches said world. Well, nobody told Rob McLees this, apparently. He wrote a nice story, too bad it goes against all cannon and makes it fan fiction. Facepalm*
Nonetheless, it does have a few good stories in there so I gave it a few stars.
Then in the story that follows an Elite refers to his own species as BOYS when they are young. Ummmm... really? How in the world did this writers get to write in the halo universe?
Man and boys refer to HUMANS, not animals or aliens. I don't know how lazy you have to be to write this trash and get it past editors and all the beta readers. Pathetic, lazy writing.
The story, Palace Hotel, is nice, however it has one huge flaw. It's not cannon. So essentially it's a fan fiction story. Why the heck am I paying for fan fiction? I want cannon stories. If I wanted fan fiction I would go online and find some free, fan fiction stories.
I don't get why anyone would write a story that DIRECTLY contradicts what we saw in the game. A good writer uses the world already established and builds and enriches said world. Well, nobody told Rob McLees this, apparently. He wrote a nice story, too bad it goes against all cannon and makes it fan fiction. Facepalm*
Nonetheless, it does have a few good stories in there so I gave it a few stars.
June 1, 2020
The only story in this volume that wasn’t in my other copy was “Wages of Sin”, so I will comment on that story.
It is written from the perspective of the Prophet of Discovery. The story is about is reconciliation of all his wrongs in the war - how they should have worked to include humans in the covenant, how they never should have trusted the brutes, how right the arbiter was after the truth was known, and how the high prophets knowingly led all of the covenant into a lie. He believes his race will live on, grunts will fight with whoever is strongest, jackals will follow the money, and perhaps some brutes will stick by the prophets because of their knowledge and technology. Overall, this was a neat perspective as he admitted to being a false prophet while High Charity was consumed. He willingly faced his death by the flood.
It is written from the perspective of the Prophet of Discovery. The story is about is reconciliation of all his wrongs in the war - how they should have worked to include humans in the covenant, how they never should have trusted the brutes, how right the arbiter was after the truth was known, and how the high prophets knowingly led all of the covenant into a lie. He believes his race will live on, grunts will fight with whoever is strongest, jackals will follow the money, and perhaps some brutes will stick by the prophets because of their knowledge and technology. Overall, this was a neat perspective as he admitted to being a false prophet while High Charity was consumed. He willingly faced his death by the flood.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 5, 2018
The book was a good continuation of the first. My favorite story being The Mona Lisa, with good characters and plot. The theme of Lopez's rosary beads representing one of her marines and as the count continuously dwindles. As well as some genuinely sad scenes to read such as burgundy's capture. Other stories I enjoyed were Human weakness, and blunt instruments. Over all I good read that I would recommend, though you should just get full book rather than it's separate volumes. As Volume one and two are just one book split into two parts (the full book being Halo: Evolutions essential tales of the Halo universe.
February 16, 2021
Excellent companion to volume 1
While not as consistent as volume 1, there are still several stories that are engaging. Highly recommended for fans of the halo franchise.
While not as consistent as volume 1, there are still several stories that are engaging. Highly recommended for fans of the halo franchise.
April 6, 2020
I'll just put the same comments I did on Volume I as they still apply:
A fairly decent of short stories in the Halo universe. If you love the lore like me than you will likely enjoy them. They are not quite groundbreaking though in terms of literature.
A fairly decent of short stories in the Halo universe. If you love the lore like me than you will likely enjoy them. They are not quite groundbreaking though in terms of literature.
July 13, 2012
I will break down my review for each story, with the assumption that most readers will have a basic knowledge of the Halo universe. I have left out the poetry and the (essay?) Icon, just because I really have nothing to say about them, positive or negative:
Blunt Objects
Fire Team Spartan: Black are on a mission on one of the Covenant occupied human colonial worlds. Their mission: to destroy giant beehive-like machines called Beacons that the Covies use to mine Helium-3, which is then used for fuel. Once the He-3 is depleted, the planet is glassed, leaving it an uninhabitable hunk.
In the penthouse of one of the only stable buildings, Spartan: Black comes across a badly injured insect-like Covenant creature known as a bugger, whom they follow into the Beacons to help destroy it and free the rest of the buggers from the servitude forced upon them by the rest of the Covenant.
Here's the thing about this story that bothered me. While members of the Spartan:Black team have their misgivings about following this bugger (Hopalong, as Black-Two called it), they still readily follow him into what could very well possibly be a trap. Sure they have their doubts, but would Spartans really take that risk without more information?
The Mona Lisa
The UNSC ship Red Horse is among the debris field that was once the first Halo destroyed by Spartan-117 near the gas giant Threshold. They bring aboard a civilian escape pod to find that it contains a fatally injured man who, in his insane final ramblings, reveals that he is from the story's titular freighter. Sergent Lopez is sent to lead a team to investigate what happened aboard The Mona Lisa, which was converted to a penal ship, and to find out why it is near Threshold in an area which has been classified and is crawling with Covenant.
Lopez and her crew arrive, expecting to see the signs of a prison riot. Instead they find Covenant Elites, unarmed and without armor. The Elites are scared, but of what? In a short matter of time, Lopez's team discovers that The Flood, which had been previously unknown to them, are running rampant aboard the freighter. What's more, Lopez discovers that the ONI's treachery runs deep.
Palace Hotel
Spartan-117 finds a surprise on the battle field in New Mombasa!
Honestly, this story felt like, at best, mediocre fan fiction. I got the impression the author didn't know much about Halo aside from knowledge one can gain from reading the Halowiki. There are also some writing errors that made it hard to read, mainly shifting POV's and awkward dialogue.
Human Weakness
What happened between the time that Cortana was left with Gravemind and Master Chief practically got killed (or, in my case when I played Halo 3, got killed about 100 times)trying to rescue her? Well, here you have it. This story was the reason I gave this book three stars instead of two. The imagery alone (Cortana floating in an ocean of information) made this story a great read.
Wages of Sin
The Minister of Discovery writes out the confessions of lies and deceit committed by the Covenant Hierarchs in the name of The Great Journey. Another great read, and it makes one loathe the Hierarchs no less, and justifies none of what they have done. Good anti-Covenant propaganda.
The Return
Two decades after destroying a human colony, an Elite Shipmaster returns on a pilgrimage to discover what the gods want of him and his fellow Sangheili now that it has been revealed that the basis of their faith has been proven false. He reminisces and regrets the act he committed in the name of the Prophets, and he seeks to make himself worthy. I found this story interesting, and it was written a way that made it a quick but memorable read.
Blunt Objects
Fire Team Spartan: Black are on a mission on one of the Covenant occupied human colonial worlds. Their mission: to destroy giant beehive-like machines called Beacons that the Covies use to mine Helium-3, which is then used for fuel. Once the He-3 is depleted, the planet is glassed, leaving it an uninhabitable hunk.
In the penthouse of one of the only stable buildings, Spartan: Black comes across a badly injured insect-like Covenant creature known as a bugger, whom they follow into the Beacons to help destroy it and free the rest of the buggers from the servitude forced upon them by the rest of the Covenant.
Here's the thing about this story that bothered me. While members of the Spartan:Black team have their misgivings about following this bugger (Hopalong, as Black-Two called it), they still readily follow him into what could very well possibly be a trap. Sure they have their doubts, but would Spartans really take that risk without more information?
The Mona Lisa
The UNSC ship Red Horse is among the debris field that was once the first Halo destroyed by Spartan-117 near the gas giant Threshold. They bring aboard a civilian escape pod to find that it contains a fatally injured man who, in his insane final ramblings, reveals that he is from the story's titular freighter. Sergent Lopez is sent to lead a team to investigate what happened aboard The Mona Lisa, which was converted to a penal ship, and to find out why it is near Threshold in an area which has been classified and is crawling with Covenant.
Lopez and her crew arrive, expecting to see the signs of a prison riot. Instead they find Covenant Elites, unarmed and without armor. The Elites are scared, but of what? In a short matter of time, Lopez's team discovers that The Flood, which had been previously unknown to them, are running rampant aboard the freighter. What's more, Lopez discovers that the ONI's treachery runs deep.
Palace Hotel
Spartan-117 finds a surprise on the battle field in New Mombasa!
Honestly, this story felt like, at best, mediocre fan fiction. I got the impression the author didn't know much about Halo aside from knowledge one can gain from reading the Halowiki. There are also some writing errors that made it hard to read, mainly shifting POV's and awkward dialogue.
Human Weakness
What happened between the time that Cortana was left with Gravemind and Master Chief practically got killed (or, in my case when I played Halo 3, got killed about 100 times)trying to rescue her? Well, here you have it. This story was the reason I gave this book three stars instead of two. The imagery alone (Cortana floating in an ocean of information) made this story a great read.
Wages of Sin
The Minister of Discovery writes out the confessions of lies and deceit committed by the Covenant Hierarchs in the name of The Great Journey. Another great read, and it makes one loathe the Hierarchs no less, and justifies none of what they have done. Good anti-Covenant propaganda.
The Return
Two decades after destroying a human colony, an Elite Shipmaster returns on a pilgrimage to discover what the gods want of him and his fellow Sangheili now that it has been revealed that the basis of their faith has been proven false. He reminisces and regrets the act he committed in the name of the Prophets, and he seeks to make himself worthy. I found this story interesting, and it was written a way that made it a quick but memorable read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2013
Halo Evolutions vol. 2 is a collaboration of short stories in the Halo Universe! My favorite short story was Blunt Instruments. Fire team Spartan: Black is a team of highly trained marines. They had one mission, look for a big purple beam of energy shooting up the horizon on the planet Verge. Who ever controlled the beam had the power to instantly spawn a whole fleet of ships! As Spartan Team Black lands on the planet they find out they are not the only ones there. The covenant (a group of harsh aliens) are located around the beam. Spartan Team black's mission just got a little bit harder!
Halo Evolutions Vol 2 Blunt Instruments is a very powerful land entertaining short story. It is in a family of other amazing short stories. It was written by Fred Van Lente. The writing is very effective and difficult at the same time. But an amazing story makes up for the difficult. A main strength in this story is the plot. The plot is very interesting and makes you care about what happens. The only weakness that I found is it might be to hard for some people to read and this book was definetly a major challenge for me. I would recommend this book to anyone who's wiling to challenge them self in the aspect of reading but also want an amazing story!
August 18, 2013
I love the whole multiple short stories in one book deal. Mostly all the stories are a good read. I recommend this for a seasoned Halo science fiction reader. I could imagine if you've never played the games and read the first 3 Halo novels this book may not make any sense. Fanboys/girls only.
March 27, 2015
Evo 2 is the same book as Evo 1 except for a single novella that was added to it that wasn't in 1. I rated it four stars because I'm a fan of the Halo world and single story or not I'm a sucker for more.
November 26, 2012
So this just had one story extra that was that in the first book. Apparently I don't read user reviews well. So yeah that happened. Anyways, pretty much all the stories are solid. Good read.
May 6, 2013
A fair and imaginative array of short stories set in the Halo universe. Some patchier or more worthy than others based on author, subject or maybe my own personal biases :)
October 8, 2014
All of the authors are great
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