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Garrett Bridges's Reviews > Halo: Hunters in the Dark
Halo: Hunters in the Dark
by
by
The Story: 4 stars
The Writing: 1 star
I have a...history of strongly disliking Peter David's novels in beloved franchises. I'm going through all of Halo now and didn't want to skip one, so I told myself I was going to forget as often as possible he was writing it and just motor on through.
A lot easier than I thought! The story is compelling, there's a lot of cool lore in it, and the pace is pretty decent. My problems came where all my others problems with Peter's novels come from: characters and writing style.
The main character, Luther, is right off the bat described as a mega-genius. He fluently speaks and understands a zillion languages, and is the absolute foremost expert on the Forerunners (though I thought that was Halsey?). A little cringey, but I can roll with it. Then, about 1/3 of the way through the book, this professor and linguist picks up a gun and is also an expert marksman from a past he doesn't like to remember. Really? Reeeeally? It just sucked me right out of the action and narrative. There's also a prominent role occupied by a Huragok, who we've gotten to know over the Halo books, and the pre-established lore about them is pretty much ignored. Also, Luther speaks their language even though it's just incomprehensible sign language and no human in the books has ever come close to doing so. They also whistle as part of their speech now? The most egregious example might be a literal entire paragraph where I'm supposed to believe this human is waving his arms around and whistling at an Huragok while delving into the origins of the term "deadline".
The captain in charge of this mission to the Ark learns early on that one of her Spartans has a blood feud with one of the Elites on the mission, and she...does nothing? Her internal monologue is literally "well he hasn't acted on this well-known hatred, what can I do?" ¯\_(�)_/¯ It was an attempt to create suspense and tension between the Elites and Spartans, but it did not, and it just made the Spartans seem like maybe they shouldn't be Spartans, and it made the captain seem incompetent at best.
One of my pet peeves in any book by any other is exposition dialogue that takes place between two characters who are already both aware of the exposition, therefore having no reason to talk about it to each other. This happens constantly throughout the book and drives me bonkers. I don't need two characters studying a Halo ring to tell me about what happened in the first Halo game! Just give me some non-dialogue background.
I don't want to delve too deep into specific spoilers, but the presence of infinitesimally-small chance encounters, convenient off-screen action, and the ignoring/passing over some general lore just really soured me on this one. The story was top-notch, and it probably would have been stellar if it was in someone else's hands without these habits.
The Writing: 1 star
I have a...history of strongly disliking Peter David's novels in beloved franchises. I'm going through all of Halo now and didn't want to skip one, so I told myself I was going to forget as often as possible he was writing it and just motor on through.
A lot easier than I thought! The story is compelling, there's a lot of cool lore in it, and the pace is pretty decent. My problems came where all my others problems with Peter's novels come from: characters and writing style.
The main character, Luther, is right off the bat described as a mega-genius. He fluently speaks and understands a zillion languages, and is the absolute foremost expert on the Forerunners (though I thought that was Halsey?). A little cringey, but I can roll with it. Then, about 1/3 of the way through the book, this professor and linguist picks up a gun and is also an expert marksman from a past he doesn't like to remember. Really? Reeeeally? It just sucked me right out of the action and narrative. There's also a prominent role occupied by a Huragok, who we've gotten to know over the Halo books, and the pre-established lore about them is pretty much ignored. Also, Luther speaks their language even though it's just incomprehensible sign language and no human in the books has ever come close to doing so. They also whistle as part of their speech now? The most egregious example might be a literal entire paragraph where I'm supposed to believe this human is waving his arms around and whistling at an Huragok while delving into the origins of the term "deadline".
The captain in charge of this mission to the Ark learns early on that one of her Spartans has a blood feud with one of the Elites on the mission, and she...does nothing? Her internal monologue is literally "well he hasn't acted on this well-known hatred, what can I do?" ¯\_(�)_/¯ It was an attempt to create suspense and tension between the Elites and Spartans, but it did not, and it just made the Spartans seem like maybe they shouldn't be Spartans, and it made the captain seem incompetent at best.
One of my pet peeves in any book by any other is exposition dialogue that takes place between two characters who are already both aware of the exposition, therefore having no reason to talk about it to each other. This happens constantly throughout the book and drives me bonkers. I don't need two characters studying a Halo ring to tell me about what happened in the first Halo game! Just give me some non-dialogue background.
I don't want to delve too deep into specific spoilers, but the presence of infinitesimally-small chance encounters, convenient off-screen action, and the ignoring/passing over some general lore just really soured me on this one. The story was top-notch, and it probably would have been stellar if it was in someone else's hands without these habits.
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Reading Progress
February 8, 2022
–
Started Reading
February 10, 2022
– Shelved
February 13, 2022
–
Finished Reading
I’ve learned more about random creatures with no lore bearing, and otherwise many repeats of lore, or just straight up sheer embarrassments of lore. Super genius turned marksmen, pages and pages devoted to�. walking?!
Characters being intruded and get endless exposition, for seemingly no reason or only to get sent away. Spartans being less Spartan than even the TV series (taking off a helmet in combat, having literally the pettiest of feuds that should have disqualified them long ago).
There was some potential, but even at 40% read, it was a slog and seems like at 60% it always will be. At the end of the day, everything is mostly told instead of shown, sooooooo much about the landscaping and weather, even a halo noob (or meteorologist for that matter) would be bored. Characters are generic caricatures (except for the Sangheili it’s somewhat okay-ish) (but Huragok seemingly had all their lore ignored and a super genius seems to have made discoveries and shared them with no one ever)
I’m going through all the halo novels including re-reading the early ones from when they originally published. This one so far is my only disappointment.
To be fair, and provide at least my POV, I really loved the forerunner series (which I know many hate) and also found Mortal Dictata good but wayyy overly padded with un-interesting content and too much emotional rumination, which was the point but a little heavy handed and long. (I loved the rest of Kilo-5 but Dictata felt like the author thought I never experienced sadness ever or considered emotions generally, tho the last 1/4 felt mostly good at times).
Could have been better alround. Read it if you want to be Halo more knowledgeable or masterful as I try. But for a good story, I recommend skipping this one.