HALO: Hunters in the Dark

So I've read nearly every Halo novel currently available, with the exception of the Karen Travis novels (I can't stand her as a writer and have heard the worst about her Kilo-5 trilogy) and this book ranks among the lowest unfortunately. To give you an idea of how I rank the novels I'll say I love pretty much all the Nylund novels, I love Halo Crytum, could barely get through Primordium, liked Silentium, and the rest are all pretty solid. Nothing exceptional, but they are light, fun reads. Halo Evolutions has some really good pieces in it by the way.

Halo Hunters in the Dark is such a monunmental disappointment for what the story promises it's hard to rate it anywhere other than the bottom. It's not even so much the story as I really liked the idea of another expedition to the Ark that's been ravaged by the events of Halo 3 - it's the lazy writing and one-dimensional characters. It really feels like this is a contract for hire type of writing job. The author displays no care for the universe and no love for the characters that inhabit it.

The characters feel so shallow you never care about what happens to them. Not to mention the absurdity of what happens to Olympia Vale. It all feels like it breaks the established rules of the Halo universe that ground most aspects in semi-plausibility or reality. The Spartans are all one-dimensional angry soldiers who have no real depth, the scientists are supposedly not warriors until the plot calls for them to be the most proficient at shooting rifles. Vale, who is still a human and not a Spartan at this point, has no trouble knocking a full Spartan back a few steps with a little shove of her shoulder. The quality control on this novel must have taken a break and overlooked this one completely.

There are a few moments where the novel does something that peaks your interest, mostly with the wild life on the Ark, but much of that is wasted by generic desciptions. The blind dinosaurs are a great throwback to the original vision of the first Halo game, but they are included in such a throwaway scene their impact and sense of danger to the main characters is completely underwhelming.

Overall, I had to force myself to finish this book as much as I wanted to just move on to something better. I kept hoping something more interesting would come but it was all just a waste. I don't think I would recommend this even to the most hardcore fan. There are better Halo books to read for sure.

This book is clearly meant to introduce Olympia Vale before Halo 5 but she's little more than a set piece at best. The book fails to properly describe anything half of the time, has little understanding of evolutionary biology, treats the two female characters as garbage, and contain at Luther Mann, the most horribly written character in Halo history. If a book is supposed to introduce a new character and lay down why they are worthy of being a Spartan you would expect that character to have an impact but instead everything vale does is pointless and she's only in about 15% of the book. This felt more like a story trying to pitch Luther as a Spartan than trying to introduce Vale. If I could give this book no stars I would but sadly that's not an option.

There are no Lekgolo (Hunters) in this book. That's fine. Title is a metaphor for the characters quest. I found that Peter David likes to use a lot of the same words, often in succession, in different contexts between characters. The story is okay; the villain seems to be villainous for villain's sake and the ending is a bit of an anticlimax, but Spartan Vale has a decent back story laid out here and Luther Mann is a pretty engaging character, albeit a sort of average origin.

Not the worst, certainly no Ghosts of Onyx.

Having played the Halo games, I never ventured into Halo novels, until now. In Hunters in the Dark, Peter David sets up an adventure story with a mixed, colorful cast of characters as they go through the portal on Earth to the remnants of the Ark. There they must stop a demented monitor from wiping out all sentient life in the universe. For so a daring mission, the human and Covenant forces send a team of Spartans, Elites and scientists to find the Ark and the cause for the trouble. Alas, the story falls short of delivering a fun and entertaining read. Peter David’s prowse, plotting and characterizations run shallow, predictable and mundane. It loses a lot of steam once they reach the Ark, and the story never manages regain that level of interest. This is certainly a book you can skip. Fair warning, plenty of spoilers after this point.

Oddly enough, the beginning of the story focused on a pair of intellectuals. One of the primary characters is an expert on the Forerunners named Luther. His companion is an engineer named Henry who also focuses on Forerunner technology. There is a good amount of page time spent with these two as they explore the mysteries of the Forerunners, the Halo rings, and eventually the Ark. However, while that could have been a good thing, none of those mysteries are ever intended for the reader. They’re simply plot hurdles for the characters, and after some hand waving, the obstacles disappear. Thus the mysteries of the Forerunners remain mysteries to the readers, even if the characters themselves supposedly learned something. It’s just one of numerous missed opportunities that could have made the story better.

Complementing the scientists, the story throws in a pair of Spartans and a pair of Elites. Now playing through the Halo games, the Spartans are fairly impressive warriors. The Master Chief creates a mythos to them that sadly the two Spartans in this book do little to warrant. Spartan Kodiak is simple minded warrior who still holds a grudge against the Covenant even though the war is over. He lost an arm to an Elite named N’tho ‘Sraom and a brother to a secret mission to the Ark. That sums up the entirety of his character. The other Spartan is a guy named Holt who unabashedly, and unexplainably, grovels over Olympia Vale, even though she’s married and show no interest in him. He’s more chatty than Kodiak, but he gets even less character development. In fact, her gets zero character development. Where he starts is where he finishes. There’s absolutely no character evolution for him at all.

The two Elites are almost mirrors of the Spartans. Usze Taham gets a nice little passage in the beginning when hunts down a heretic, but after that, he’s just a throwaway piece of scenery that occasional stabs things and says some unimaginative piece of action dialog. The other Elite is of course N’tho, which does add some nice tension to the story. N’tho and Kodiak fight each other and come to an uneasy working agreement to do their jobs. Regrettably the tension had more potential than what was actually done in the story. All four characters become pretty boring after a while when it becomes evident that there isn’t much to any of them. Of the four, Kodiak gets the most character development simply because he gets over his hatred for N’tho and manages to find his brother. But even that isn’t saying much since there isn’t a whole lot for readers to attach on to.

Rounding out the cast, there is a Huragok named Drifts Randomly, a USNC captain named Annabelle Richards, and a language expert named Olympia Vale who is sent to mediate between the humans and the Sangheili on the mission. Drifts Randomly remains a side character for the entire book and shows up whenever the plot requires some hand waving to remove an obstacle or heal and injury. Captain Richards starts out with a prominent role being in charge of the human force, but is quickly taken down a peg when the Elites forcibly take control of the mission and sideline her and her authority. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she then gets injured as it completely sidelined from the story. Vale on the other had is probably the oddest character in the book. She can fluently speak Sangheili, so she is sent along to help maintain cooperation during the mission. However she never mediates anything between the two sides. Instead Kodiak and N’tho, and Captain Richards and N’tho all work out their differences by themselves. Eventually Vale conveniently gets mind controlled, captured by the monitor, and unsuccessfully tries to talk the monitor out of destroying Earth. At the end of the book, they of course are triumphant and save the day, but Vale is upset that she was unable to to mediate with the monitor. She gets one fight scene which warrants a compliment from Kodiak who says she should become a Spartan. All in all it’s a very underwhelming character journey for her.

Just to clarify some of the flaws with the story, let me provide some examples. For instance, there’s Spartan Holt, who in his once chance of character insight reveals his greatest strength is having no imagination. Seriously, he says this in the story elaborating how not being able to creatively think gives him an edge in battle. I’m still not sure how any reader on the entire planet is suppose to believe that one. Then there’s the N’tho the Sangheili Elite who commands his ship in battle. It’s a great moment to showcase his leadership abilities. However, what happens is he orders his crew “Fire on that vessel.” Then “fire on that vessel”. Eventually he comes up with a grand idea to really underline his tactical brilliance, “ram the ship!” It was easily the worst dialog I’ve ever read of a ship captain commanding a vessel. On top of all this, the ONI, which is suppose to be the intelligence force for the humans, sends to prejudiced operatives on the joint task force to save the universe. The story takes great pride in pointing this out, showcasing how Kodiak can barely contain his hatred for the Sangheili, and Captain Richards complete disdain for the Sangheili. Yet even with all of that, I think the worst element of the story was when the author used mind control on Vale to take her out of picture and put her in captivity. It completely undermined the strength of her character and weakened the entire story. Add to it Kodiak’s hatred toward N’tho undermining the strength of his character, Richards getting sidelined, and a handful of shallow warriors, and you get a very uninspiring cast of characters.

In the end, Hunters in the Dark is a weak story with a weak plot and weak characters. As my first foray into Halo literature, it was a terrible experience. I’m not prepared to give up on the franchise yet as a bad book is often the fault of a bad writer and not a bad setting. Thus I’ll try a couple more Halo books before I give up on it. That said, it’s unlikely I’ll ever read another book by Peter David. I give this one two out of five metal bikinis. While it wasn’t a completely awful book, it’s certainly not a story I’d recommend to anyone.

This is most disappointing book I have ever read (technically I listened to it).

I'm not saying it is the worse book I ever read but it is probably close.

The Halo series has brought me to expect a great read every time and although the final book in the Kilo Five Trilogy was less than perfect it was still a great read.

This is just junk... The characters are not developed well and you only really worry about 2 of the elites and maybe a scientist.

I don't think this book is part of a series so in all honesty you could just look up the general outline and know everything that is needed. What I got out of this book could have been summed up in 2 paragraphs and I had no emotional response to the book at all.

I have cried or been near tears for some of the other books. I have taken a general interest in the well being of characters in other books.

This book had an outstanding plot with great characters. I loved that the sangheili (elites) played a large role in the story as well as humans. The book contained lots of action and battle. The story references fights and locations from halo 3. It also has characters and enemies that will appear in halo 5 guardians. I highly reccomend this book for fellow fans.

This was an astounding read. With continued expansion on the universe and introducing characters who appear in the games without making it a shoe horn or forcing the characters. Provides more background and was generally a fun read for fans of the series who also have enjoyed the books.

i think the book was pretty decent espicialy being a halo fan im gona order halo 5 when it comes and anyways back to the topic th author put alot of detail in the book but everything was like "A millimeter away" but so far i enjoyed the book and peace (dont be mean if theres typos)

The storytelling was that simple. The characters have no depth and as the reader, I had no connection to them or cared if they lived or died. I got half way through the book and had to stop reading for a few days. The only reason I finished it was because I paid for it. The action scenes are boring and the space battles, one in which most of Earth's fleet is destroyed, is given lip service. The novel does nothing to add to the picture of the Halo universe.

i think the book was pretty decent espicialy being a halo fan im gona order halo 5 when it comes and anyways back to the topic th author put alot of detail in the book but everything was like "A millimeter away" but so far i enjoyed the book and peace (dont be mean if theres typos)

The storytelling was that simple. The characters have no depth and as the reader, I had no connection to them or cared if they lived or died. I got half way through the book and had to stop reading for a few days. The only reason I finished it was because I paid for it. The action scenes are boring and the space battles, one in which most of Earth's fleet is destroyed, is given lip service. The novel does nothing to add to the picture of the Halo universe.