In Response To: Re: Halo - The Flood *long* *spoilers" (Ciarán)
: Having read the book and given it a little time to "settle",
: overall I think I am disappointed with it.
: I don't think it's unfair to have reasonable, if not high, expectations for
: the book. After all, we all have high expectations of anything that is
: related to Bungie, be it Halo 2, the action figures, Halo GURPS - if I'm
: allowed even mention that :-), or any book that portrays the Halo
: universe.
: I did appreciate the new perspectives, and the extra information the book
: gives on the Covenant, the other Marines, and some clarification on a few
: things related to 343GS. There could have been more of these, but that's
: fine, it leaves room for speculation, and for clarification later, either
: in Halo 2 or in future novels.
: What I missed was the emotional engagement with the characters. This may have
: been down to the fact that we know they are doomed, but this is something
: that could have been used by the author. There's a phrase for it that I
: can't remember, to do with shared knowledge between the audience and the
: author/narrator about things that the characters don't know. Perhaps the
: author didn't care enough about them to try and build the characters up to
: the extent that we would feel some sense of loss when they die. This was
: done to some extent with McKay and Jenkins, but in the end, did we really
: care? I don't think so, and I think this is the fault of the author.
: What else is missing is emotional engagement by the MC. He doesn't seem to
: particularly care what happens to anyone else, unlike what we see in FoR.
: There's little depth to the character that is portrayed in HtF. Perhaps
: this is because there is hardly anything in the book that tells us the
: MC's thoughts, it's mostly narrative about what he's doing, or how he
: feels physically. There's no real idea conveyed about how he feels
: emotionally about what's happening.
: I suppose in the end of the day it boils down to this - it's hard to identify
: with the MC, or indeed anyone in the book (with the possible exception of
: Yayap!). This contrasts with FoR, where the author built up emotional
: links between the reader and most, if not all, of the characters in the
: book. We don't really care that Silva, McKay and the others die, while we
: are all hoping that Dr. Halsey has somehow survived on Reach.
: Ciarán.
Aye, shipbuilder; I hear you! And yet, perhaps this is all the more reason to praise Eric Nylund, for an astoundingly good book that covers a video game. Perhaps, as said before, we all must realize that H:TF is a reminder that most video game books, while illuminating, aren't that good.
Hail to the chief! (pun unintended) Go Halo: The Fall of Reach!
|
