( 25 reviews )
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Posted: Aug 8 2009
To begin: I am not a die-hard Halo fan. In fact I have only just become familiar with it as a game for the first time. At the age of 51, I have been playing video games since they were invented; and still play them (as time allows)for recreation. Over the years I had heard the rave about Halo, which was an "X-Box thingy". I had no X-Box, and desired no X-Box. I already have a great PC (which is all an X-box really is), and my PS2: I'm game-geared enough. I did finally purchase a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved for PC, and enjoy it tremendously, albeit with a few criticisms I will reserve for the game review. I was however interested in the background storyline since so few FPS games actually have one. I'm an avid reader, but my eyes aren't as young as they once were, and I find audio books to be blessing. And so, I bought the "Fall of Reach". First let me say that I enjoyed the story. Although as a former Marine I found many discrepancies in Mr. Nylund's authorship which I would have advised him better of. He's probably not a Veteran, and so has little idea of military protocol, let alone Marine Corps tradition; so I can be forgiving there. One thing you do NOT do, is call any bona-fid?? "Marine" a "soldier"! That's an ARMY nomenclature they have a right to, not the Marines. My Army comrades will acknowledge this distinction aswell I trust. Within the Marine Corps, one is first and foremost a "basic infantryman"... but never a "soldier". They're not "G.I. Joes" either. The phrase "G.I. Joe" was coined during WWII, and was short for "General Infantry Man", aka - "Soldier".My Grand-Father was a "soldier", and a "Dough-Boy" in fact. Anyhow, that's just a small gripe I have with his portrayal (albeit futuristic) of the Marines. The real reasons for me giving it only 3 stars follows: (1) The audio leveling is horrible. The volume jumps between the Narrator's voice (which is great), and that of the characters he is voicing terribly. This is inexcusable from someone who surely has the resources to do it right. As I said earlier, I may be no die-hard fan of Halo, but I am an audiophile, and do enough of my own sound engineering to know. (2) While Todd McLaren did an admirable job of narration; this really should have been a multi-player Cast project. For Pete's sake! At least have a FEMALE voice actress to do Cortana and Dr. Halsey's parts. With all due respect to Todd: He SUX at doing female impersonation. And I would argue that such a highly acclaimed project as this DESERVES better treatment, hence a full cast of voice actors would be a reasonable expectation. Also, the sound effects are sadly lacking. There's no real sense of the situation being conveyed. All in all: This is a GOOD audio book which could have been much better given a little effort. "Buyer's regret"? NONE. Would I recommend it? YES... with the above reservations.
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Posted: May 15 2009
This book opens up the story into the master chiefs past and will prove entertaining to anyone, series fans or not.
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Apr 26 2009
I was introduced to the halo series by friend, and after i hear many confusing backstories of master cheif( such as he was a ODST but then after the covenant killed his brother, then Cortana chose him to become a spartan)i thought i would read this to get more knoledge. I thought this would be alright, good but not great, I was pleased to find that this was much more then a good read, it was very well written and had very good wording. The only reason i gave this book 4 stars is it really had no plot and the title says the end of the book, The end also fely as if Mr. Nylud just wanted to finish it and be done. Overall this was a fun read and i recomend it to anyone.
