Halo: Evolution Essential Tales of the Halo Universe Compact Review

A compact review of Halo: Evolution – Essential Tales of the Halo Universe by me and it have been an enjoyable read.

The spark

I can still recall what ignited that tiny spark deep within me. — It was August, 26th of 2010 when I stumbled upon a promotional video released by Microsoft prior to the Halo Reach release in the early September. As you might have imagined that this video has done its job well enough to get me hook on tightly. “Hope” is the name of the game as humanity desperately struggle for its survival.

The slow and sorrowful humming of a woman in the background music used is most definitely appropriate to that short span of moment where a Spartan is trying to finish her objective by throwing a HAVOK Tactical Nuke into one of the covenant battle cruiser but got incapacitated by a banshee.

Nevertheless, it was an emotional piece that has struck a chord deep down within me; by that moment I vow to go thoroughly into the epic war wage by the covenant and later on the horrendous Flood.

That’s pretty much sum up why I brought a lots of Halo novels recently.

The First Version

The short ver. captured my emotion.

The Extended Version

But the long one extend it into a greater range.

Here’s a list of what’s inside this book

• Beyond
• Pariah
• Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss
• Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian
• Dirt
• Acheron-VII
• Headhunters
• Blunt Instruments
• The Mona Lisa
• Icon
• Palace Hotel
• From the Office of Dr. William Arthur Iqbal
• Human Weakness
• Connectivity
• The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole
• The Return
• From the Office of Dr. William Arthur Iqbal

Most of the short stories contain in this book is above average in my book while only a few are sub-par to the point that sometimes I got bored and just flip it through. However, there are three short stories that I would personally consider awesome that would happily recommend to anyone who like the Haloverse.

If you want a list of synopsis of each short stories Halo Wikia have it.

Best written are

When I say compact, it means Compact. So, here are the three best written short stories listed accordingly below.

1] The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole

It’s impressive that Eric Nylund can manage such a feet to give a deep insights of the life on the once great Admiral Preston Cole. Who is also the guy that created the “Cole Protocol” that work effectively to buy some time for the inner colonies. In addition to that he uses an interesting storytelling style by using compile letters, reports, official records and emails transcripts to steer the story.

If the rating scale is 10 I’ll personally give it an 11.

Written by Erid Nylund.

2] Human Weakness

Now, we can peel off some layers of that clumps of flesh and comprehend the Gravemind. As a matter of fact ‘it’ sound more like an over-educated narcissistic Englishmen in the 20th century who speak in rhythm. The sad part is the Gravemind has successfully inducing fallacies into her inner thinking of the now captured Cortana. She ultimately retained the coordinate needed for Earth from falling into the Gravemind but it comes in a huge cost.

Written by Karen Traviss.

3] The Mona Lisa

Entertaining storyline with endless surprises from time to time. Moreover, teamwork is certainly an important soft skill here as the two surviving marines are working with a Sangheili and a prisoner in order to escape an infested UNCS ship. Oh yeah! The even happens after the destruction of the Alpha Halo purposely destroyed by Master Chief himself.

Written by Tessa Kum and Jeff VanderMeer.

The book is available in Amazon if you want to buy it. So far I still can’t find a digital copy of it on the net while I can find the others.