Comments on: Book Review: HALO: Silentium by Greg Bear https://didacticmind.com/2013/03/book-review-halo-silentium-by-greg-bear.html Strategic Defence of the Mantle of Responsibility Sat, 29 Aug 2020 20:57:09 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.1 By: Didact https://didacticmind.com/2013/03/book-review-halo-silentium-by-greg-bear.html#comment-4342 Sat, 17 May 2014 14:20:03 +0000 #comment-4342 In reply to Major Williams.

It's definitely the best book in the trilogy. By miles. Greg Bear tends to be quite hit-or-miss these days, in my opinion; some of his early work, though, was amazing, and I thought he really brought his A-game to HALO: Silentium. A lot of the new ideas and concepts that he brought up in the first two books were expanded upon or tied off very well in this one, and it's also obvious that he did his research into the expanded HALOverse, since the plot dovetails nicely not only with HALO 4, which was the intention anyway, but with the Bungie games as well.

There are, however, a few notable differences between the original intent of the Bungie canon and the current direction of the HALO canon. Bungie originally intended that Forerunners be regarded as the actual evolutionary predecessors of humanity; 343i turned them into a completely separate race and species. And of course the concept of 12 original Halos, rather than 7 as specified by Bungie, just seems odd.

And I agree, there is a strong element of handwavium going on in this book. Then again, it's sci-fi, so I'm not altogether opposed to that. What plot holes there were- and I think there were a few real howlers in there- are compensated for by the excellent writing and fast pace.

]]> By: Major Williams https://didacticmind.com/2013/03/book-review-halo-silentium-by-greg-bear.html#comment-4341 Thu, 15 May 2014 23:34:02 +0000 #comment-4341 I just finished this book recently, and I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of things going against it, the largest of which is that we all know the end. Most of the folks who are reading this have probably at least read in some fashion the terminals in Halo 3. I was glad he sort of washed over that part, but let it fit seamlessly into it. The real tough parts for me with Greg Bear is anything that involves a description of scenery or terrain – just a bit too lengthy so that I start to not care about what I'm reading as soon as good stuff starts happening.

Major plot points for me that I enjoyed
– the Precursor reveal, the power of the Flood is revived and the feeling of no escape is well portrayed, even with AIs
– Librarian's character is endearing
– Didact is oddly relatable in both characters
– The continued reinforcement of 343 GS as Chakas is pretty awesome
– Forerunners turning on their creators (though it felt like the Protoss a little too much there from Starcraft)

Things I didn't like so much
– "Robots" in old Forerunners' blood and bites that miraculously allows speech translation and other miraculous things?
– Master Builder initially looked and felt like Halo 2 Prophet of Truth – mysterious, in total control, etc. Then in this book he did a major flop like PoT in Halo 3 – complete reversal of character and all sense of a manipulative politician is not there
– Greater Ark vs Lesser Ark with more efficient/dealier waves?! AND research stations on them, in a last dire moment? It just seemed odd to me and highly not plausible.

Overall though, I agree – 4.5/5. Great read, if you're already invested in the universe. Gives great depth to the story that we all wanted.

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