Customer Reviews

Halo: Contact Harvest (Halo (Tor))

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Exactly why are the Covenant so pissed off at humans, anyway? They were very successful at pulling other species into the fold. Why not attempt this with humans?

Contact Harvest, by Joseph Staten, tells you why.

A UNSC Marine Staff Sergeant named Avery Johnson, physically and mentally weary after battling insurrectionists, gets the cake walk position of training new recruits for a militia on the planet Harvest, a major food production world.

Guess where First Contact occurs?

This story goes deep into the founding Covenant politics, and describes in great detail the accident of First Contact and the subsequent beginnings of a war of extermination. The Forerunners and their technology are still a mystery, but the Covenant leaders don't like what they learn. In the meantime, Staff Sergeant Johnson takes his raw recruits, and with the help of the planetary AI, battles Covenant technology and attempts to save the colonists on Harvest.

Can David slay Goliath?

The Cole Protocol occurs sometime after this book, but you can "see" it coming. You get a much better insight into the psychology and culture of some of the Covenant species. Now I'm curious what it would be like to reread the other Halo books with this story as background.

And if you are not a Halo fan? I think this is still an interesting, stand-alone sci-fi tale.

Having enjoyed the previous books in the series, I picked this up first chance I could. The premise is good. The first battle between the Covenant and humanity and the introduction of Halo fan favorite Sergeant Johnson, what's not to like?

Unfortunately the execution of this premise falls considerably short. There was way too much exposition in my opinion. At times it felt more like a primer than a novel. A whole lot of set-up without enough pay-off that left me rather cold and struggling to keep interest.

The actual invasion of Harvest felt rather underwhelming partly because it takes a good two thirds of the book to get there (again too much exposition) in part due to the emphasis on Covenant internal politics. Furthermore the book Johnson lacks quite a bit of the humor of his video game counterpart. No outrageous inspirational speeches here, instead we get a whole lot of angst. The difference is a bit off-putting and the book fails to develop Johnson where such a change of character is possible.

If I had to pick one part of the book I could have done without, it would have been the sex-scene. I'm not a prude, but it was so out of the blue, out of place, involving two characters I had not a whiff of romantic or sensual development that it was jarring. I guess the author thought he "needed" that scene somewhere in the book. Which ironically sums up this book in a nutshell.

Hopefully they'll bring back Eric Nuyland for the next installments.

This book is good and it clearly shows the potential of Mr. Staten's writing. The first thing you will notice is the excellent amount of description that really helps you imagine planet Harvest and its inhabitants. And as a prequel of the already-released prequel "The Fall of Reach," it works and helps explain details of the Forerunners, and the Prophet's knowledge and convictions.

While "The Chief" does not make an appearance in the book as he is probably still wearing diapers, Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson steps in as the protagonist of the story. He is the hero in the making and here we learn how he earns his place in this wonderful universe.

This book really emphasizes the theme of friendship and not only in the human perspective. And a major difference between this and the previous books is a slight sense of humor. There are a few parts where it had me laughing out loud - something I never experienced with the previous novels.

Compared to the previous books I believe Eric Nylund still has the edge in terms of story telling. For example, the epic quality of the previous books is sadly missing here. There are no major battles ala 300 Spartan III's charging a battlefield seen on "Ghost of Onyx" or as Master Chief single handedly taking over a Covenant Cruiser on "1st Strike." It does have plenty of action but not on a huge scale.

As Joseph Staten's first effort this is a great start, and I'm sure given some more novels he will only get better. To all those of you wanting a good read I definitely recommend "Halo: Contact Harvest," but do take in mind that it does have its own unique flavor.

...is that you can get all the technical details you want. There is a satisfactory plot, but in several places, the book reads like the rumored "Halo Bible", which represents every scrap of information ever conceived by Bungie Studios (now, LLC.) regarding the Halo universe.

Wondered why the Covenant want to exterminate humanity? How exactly a Slipspace drive works? How the Covenant Engineers think? What an AI does while it's wasting it's time with slow human speech? It's all explained here.

A clever incorporation of humor helps an otherwise dire plot blossom into a balanced tale. There are no Spartans in this story, and this enables Mr. Staten to flesh out the lesser mortals inhabiting the planet Harvest. They are strong-willed people, aided by some fantastically depicted AIs.

In fact, none of the other books have depicted AIs in such great detail. In Eric Nylund's books, for instance, the general perception is that AIs think far faster than humans. Very little else is communicated to the reader, other than a bunch of nonsensical tasks. In Contact Harvest, however, Mr. Staten presents two AIs communicating with each other, and suddenly, time is dilated as each AIs processes are described in vivid detail.

Again, the benefit of having a game designer pen a novel is that they are aware of the emotions that course through the gamer's veins as their game unveils itself. Now, they can take all these characters, situations and emotions, and extrapolate back through time to produce a prequel novel like Contact Harvest.

I'd give this book a 4.5/5, with the 0.5 knocked off for the overly descriptive passages that could turn non-fanatics off. In fact, the depth of this book puts all the others in the series to shame.

Overall, it's a great start for Mr. Staten. Between himself and Eric Nylund, we have some of the best canon stretching across two worlds - the interactive, as well as the literary - seen anywhere.

The only thing that's hard to believe about this book is that it's Joseph Staten's first published novel. Yes, that's the same Joe Staten who helped develop the story for the mega-successful Halo series on which this book is based. This book shows all of the quality of a more seasoned writer, and is a fine addition for collectors and fans as well as Sci-Fi readers in general.

A short summary is that this is a prequel following the story of Sergeant Avery Johnson, the same cigar-chomping Marine who later aids Master Chief in the Halo series. It's also the story of mankind's first contact with the aggressive Covenant, fanatical space aliens who are hellbent on humanity's destruction when we encounter them in Halo. This book lets you see how the war started, as well as giving you a lot of excellent character background for the "Sarge" that players and fans have come to know and love.

The writing is excellent, with tons of great character detail and plenty of good action, although things are on a much smaller and more personal scale here compared to the massive space battles of later books and games. Staten's writing is excellent, and is certainly praiseworthy for any author, let alone as his debut title. Fans generally either place this entry as their very favorite Halo novel to date, or like me, as perhaps somewhere in-between Nylund's "Fall of Reach" and "Ghosts of Onyx", but certainly far ahead of William C. Dietz's generally weaker "The Flood".

You don't have to be a Halo fan to appreciate this book. If you've never touched one of the games, this is currently the best novel to introduce yourself to the universe, as it is a prequel to all the other works. If you are a Halo fan, you simply cannot live another day without this book, or you're living a day less rich than it could have been. This is an excellent title, and I hope we see many more from Joseph Staten.

After reading the Halo novels by Eric Nylund, I was a bit disappointed that a sequel to Ghosts of Onyx was not published next, but none the less I was excited when this book came out and picked it up right after its release. Well as of this point I am half way through it and am struggling to keep interest and finish it, though I will finish it eventually. (I have read several other books in the mean time.)
Staten's writing style is far different from Nylund's and at time it is hard to follow. As other's have said in their reviews I too expected more space battle scenes. Also I found there was way too much exposition.
After finally finishing it, I must say that I am glad I did, as the last half of the book was good. It seemed to add to and develop some of the HALO storyline. After getting through it, I would recommend reading it and would give it 3 & 1/2 stars.

Joseph Staten's Contact Harvest marks what will hopefully be the low ebb in the HALO book series. When compared to The Fall of Reach, First Strike, and even Ghosts of Onyx it comes up seriously lacking both in action and scope. Also, I felt there was too much of an effort made to "tie in" weapons and characters from the current universe at the expense of credibility. I know - I'm talking about credibility in a book written based on a video game set far in the future... Still, the book is entertaining and if you haven't read the other books before you read this one you will probably enjoy it...until you get to the sex scene.

"Be the man I know you can be," were Sgt. Johnson's Aunt's last thing she said to him as she shipped off to Basic when he was 19 years old. Contact Harvest is Joseph Staten's first novel, however, he is not new to writing, and the halo universe, as he is one of the original writers of Halo, and continued to pen Halo 2, and Halo 3.

Contact Harvest takes us to the original "first contact" with the Covenant. However, we open up with a mission gone wrong for Johnson, and we begin to see a man torn between his oath to the Corps, and his humanity. He is a man who is broken, spent, and on his last heels before being transfered to Harvests, the UNSC's furthest reaching colony, and one of the UNSC's largest supplier of food.

Originally planned to be a post for training militiamen to help against the insurrectionists, "first contact" is unexpectedly made. From here the story quickly picks up, as we're thrust into a small planets hope of survival, while a technologically superior force tries to exterminate all the people, and retrieve an Oracle.

Contact Harvest is a great book in the Halo series, as it explains why the story developed the way it did. How the 3 prophets of the Hierarch came to power, Truth, Regret, and Mercy. We learn exactly why the covenant is so "hell bent" on the extermination of humankind. Why the human worlds are so easily found, and why the "Cole Protocol" exists.

While the novel is a good read, and I did give it 4 stars, it just makes the 4 star cut, as I felt the characters could've been a little more developed, and had a little more depth. I would've liked to have read more about Johnson's history, and his fellow Sgt. Byrne, who is supposed to be a rough and tough Marine, but I never felt it from him. The book also took a little bit getting into, however, once the paced picked up, it was solid through and through.

An excellent edition to the Halo Universe. Not to be missed by fans of the series, and readers of all the kind.

"Halo: Contact Harvest" provides important insight into the Halo Universe for fans who want to go beyond the games. I had previously read Halo, Books 1-3 (The Flood; First Strike; The Fall of Reach), so was very interested in filling in even more of the back story provide in this book.

Right off the start, it is obvious that Joseph Staten does not have the same writing style or flare for action that some of the other Halo authors have (i.e. Eric Nylund and William Dietz), but he more than makes up for it with his attention to detail and descriptive passages. While less exciting than the books farther up the time-line, this is an excellent history of both the human culture (touching on colonization and the "Insurrection") and the Covenant (explaining how several of the major species came together). I always enjoy the alien perspective and we get a lot insights into the mindsets and inner-working of the Covenant hierarchy.

The action centers mostly on Sergent Avery Johnson, a soldier who is haunted by his time fighting against human Insurrectionists and the loss of a close family member, who is sent to the remote planet Harvest to train a local militia. Surrounded by some additional eccentric characters, including recruits who are more farmers than soldiers and several Artificial Intelligences, Avery is far less than ready for the unexpected arrival of the first Covenant ship.

This is worthwhile read and a good starting place if you haven't read any of the previous Halo books. My only real issue is the inclusion of a "intimate" scene that really added nothing to the story line.

Recommended

CFH

Spoiler!

There is a sex scene in the closing chapter. This doesn't in any way fit into the story. Its pretty much this guy and this chick (who they make sound old through the whole book, so try to work with that imagery) and they just start a'do'in it. Otherwise its was a good read.