Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Halo: Glasslands Hardcover – October 25, 2011
Halo: Glasslands by Karen Traviss is thrilling, action-packed science fiction that longtime Halo fans and newcomers alike will enjoy.
The Covenant has collapsed after a long, brutal war that saw billions slaughtered on Earth and her colonies. For the first time in decades, however, peace finally seems possible. But though the fighting's stopped, the war is far from over: it's just gone underground. The UNSC's feared and secretive Office of Naval Intelligence recruits Kilo-Five, a team of ODSTs, a Spartan, and a diabolical AI to accelerate the Sangheili insurrection. Meanwhile, the Arbiter, the defector turned leader of a broken Covenant, struggles to stave off civil war among his divided people.
Across the galaxy, a woman thought to have died on Reach is actually very much alive. Chief scientist Dr. Catherine Halsey broke every law in the book to create the Spartans, and now she's broken some more to save them. Marooned with Chief Mendez and a Spartan team in a Forerunner slipspace bubble hidden in the destroyed planet Onyx, she finds that the shield world has been guarding an ancient secret―a treasure trove of Forerunner technology that will change everything for the UNSC and mankind.
As Kilo-Five joins the hunt for Halsey, humanity's violent past begins to catch up with all of them as disgruntled colony Venezia has been biding its time to strike at Earth, and its most dangerous terrorist has an old, painful link with both Halsey and Kilo-Five that will test everyone's loyalty to the limit.
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTor Books
- Publication dateOctober 25, 2011
- Dimensions5.75 x 1.5 x 8.75 inches
- ISBN-100765323931
- ISBN-13978-0765323934
Customers who bought this item also bought

Halo: Cryptum: Book One of the Forerunner SagaHardcover$16.14 shippingGet it as soon as Thursday, Aug 29Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the writing style well-written and excellent. They also say the characters are well-developed and multi-dimensional. However, some find the emotional impact too much, making them uncomfortable. Opinions are mixed on the storyline, with some finding it carries the story along nicely and wraps up loose ends, while others say it's slow and contained.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the writing style well-written, worth their time, and appreciate the italicized inner thoughts of the characters. They also mention that the plot and dialog are interesting. Overall, readers say the Halo series has excellent novels and this is a great addition.
"The plot and writing were really good. As others have mentioned it provided a very interesting insight into all three Spartan programs...." Read more
"...just another piece to the Halo puzzle & in my humble opinion, a very well written one...." Read more
"...The Halo series has excellent novels, and this is a great addition. It is not like the other books, as so many others mention...." Read more
"...them not for their literary merits but rather in spite of the horrible writing because I wanted to know the major plot points and the back story of..." Read more
Customers find the characters in the book well developed and multidimensional.
"...Unlike the previous installments, the characters here are well developed and multi-dimensional, the narrative flows, and the book is enjoyable to..." Read more
"...from the characters in the Dyson sphere, and I also liked the addition of the new characters...." Read more
"...how nice it is to read a book that has a clear plot, characters that are easy to relate to and care about, and actual narrative momentum – or, as..." Read more
"...I liked the characters and she writes really good dialogue...." Read more
Customers find the Halo universe wonderful, great, and fresh. They also say the book goes along well in the universe and has juicy lore sprinkled throughout.
"...If you want a great addition to Halo canon, and a fresh look at the universe as it moves forward, check out this book." Read more
"...Overall, there is a lot of juicy Halo lore sprinkled throughout this story, and if you read Halo: Cryptum there are some references to the various..." Read more
"...A hugely enjoyable read, highly recommended to Halo fans. An understanding of general Halo lore is recommended...." Read more
"...This book is a well done and welcome addition to the series, that I would recommend to not only Halo fans but any Sci-Fi fan...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the storyline. Some find it interesting and interesting to see all of the point of views in detail. They also say the ending is very open minded. However, others say the story is slow and contained, and they are confused with the plot.
"...can't wait for the next one because this one left off at such a great cliffhanger just like Cryptum. Feel free to comment if you got any questions." Read more
"...However, you do get a healthy dose of reality looking at a mixed bag of military personnel on all sides of the battle trying to cope with life after..." Read more
"...Many of those who read this book complain that there is no action compared to that of the previous installments...." Read more
"...As others have mentioned it provided a very interesting insight into all three Spartan programs...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book. Some find it great, fast-paced, and excellent at setting the stage for the Halo universe post Covenant. However, others find it tedious and uninteresting.
"...This book does an excellent job setting the stage for the Halo universe post Covenant...." Read more
"...For me it became rather tedious and I found myself flipping the pages every time it came up, including the last chapter...." Read more
"...This is a great fast-paced book that I wasn't able to put down...." Read more
"This book was amazing from start to finish and the way it endedmakes me hunger for the novel that follows after. It had the same..." Read more
Customers find the emotional impact of the book too much, agitating, painful to read, and touchy feely. They also say the book doesn't follow canon and is touchy-feely.
"...complaints about this book not having enough military action, having too much "whining", not following canon, using 20th century references, and so..." Read more
"...to preach to the reader truly hamstrings this novel, making the reader feel uncomfortable...." Read more
"...I don't agree with this. This book brings out too many emotions that is just completely out of character for the Spartans...." Read more
"...First off, the character's monologues (mainly Halsey's) are so painful to read, it reminds me of something you'd find in some over emotional,..." Read more
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
When I read a few of the other reviews I could have sworn that they were written by teenagers still living with their parents because they all seemed convinced that life outside their world must consist of tightly-knit sequences of combat action interspersed with occasional reflection of the main characters glorious existence and/or the antagonist's evil scheming and plotting. Hence all the complaints about this book not having enough military action, having too much "whining", not following canon, using 20th century references, and so forth. The last two bits are downright ludacris - every new Halo item, be it a game or a book breaks canon in some way, and every book to date suffers from the same awkwardly tied 20th century references. But beyond that I was genuinely disturbed by the reviews that suggest the target audience for Halo novels demands much lower grade of fiction than Halo: Glasslands.
I remember myself struggling through the previous Halo books, reading them not for their literary merits but rather in spite of the horrible writing because I wanted to know the major plot points and the back story of Spartans. I tried to look past the style of writing where characters walk around the battlefield thinking "Hur, hur. I am a super-soldier. Must. Not. Show. Emotion."
This book was a pleasant surprise by comparison - I enjoyed it as a good read, not as a source of information on the post- Halo 3/Onyx events. The story seems to paint a pretty good post-war picture of general disorganization, infighting, factions, and local power struggles that are fairly representative of real life. There are very few action scenes here, as most of the fighting has subsided by the time the events of the book take place. I suppose I should say that if you were looking for more spaceship-on-spaceship action or big battle scenes, this is probably not the book for you. However, you do get a healthy dose of reality looking at a mixed bag of military personnel on all sides of the battle trying to cope with life after war. All of that serves as a backdrop to intertwined stories of a covert ONI operation, a discovery of perhaps the most significant cache of Forerunner artifacts in Halo history, and the best take on the Covenant Engineers to date. Yes, Karen Traviss manages to create a much more coherent image of the Engineers that explains a lot of their existence and lack of appearances in the previous novels. It is not entirely in line with what we see in Contact Harvest but I think her version is much more believable.
All in all, this book does a great job continuing the Halo story and I am hoping for a sequel soon.
Top reviews from other countries
The book is actually...........................well written, Karen Traviss has done a great job in mixing different elements of a several subjects and then bringing them together, the ending was however kind of expected all Hell goes loose....
But most readers seem to be focused on Halsey and how she is a Hard necked fascist Nazi who seems to feel what she did to the Spartans were right since humanity was loosing it's battle against the opposing Human factions knows as the Insurgents & the covenants, but she doesn't get till the end that no matter the consequence, she has to admit like Chief Mendez that her doings were extremely horrible and she must seek repentance for her act.
There is also the Kilo-5 team which has Serin Osman who was initially abducted for the Spartan-II program but got rejected and was taken under the care of Admiral Paragosky who was the 2nd Head of Operations of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the book is mainly about this team playing a duel with the Arbiter and Telcam who is the head of a cult (Abiding Truth) group who believes they need to get rid of Arbiter and make Sanghelios (planet of Elites) the most powerful covenant planet.
Karen Traviss narrates the story well by bringing different characters to the Halo Forray and how each one goes through a Physical and Mental strain to understand the consequences of the Halo wars on both Humans and Covenants.
The key part of this book is when Halsey's actions are revealed to the Spartans and how they try to overcome the hate towards her or the emptiness that Spartans like Naomi feel when they find out they were abducted when they were young. Vaz and Mal were outstanding characters who feel a deep link to their teammates including Spartan Naomi who Vaz felt he must avenge by killing Halsey , but thanks to BB (Black-box) A.I, he lets that feeling go...
can;t wait to read the Thursday wars...
Its good, buy it , during the Sale....
Somehow I managed to miss the release of Glasslands so when it arrived I got straight into it.
My Fiance kept going on about how Karen Traviss is a brilliant author as she has taken care of the Gears of War franchise novels for quite a while now. Obviously I expected loads of action and military accuracy as this is apparently what she is known for.
Military accuracy and detail - yes; action - not so much. But this is a very good thing.
Now I admit I love my straight-forward explosions and skirmishes with lots of adrenaline but I found myself totally enthralled from the start despite the lack of this exact thing; it still had everything to keep me turning the pages. It wasn't until the end that I realised this...
There are only a couple of action sequences that I remember, and they were brief. Unusual for a Halo novel as I seem to remember lots of boarding actions, battlefield epicness and fisticuffs in the previous installments.
Everything is perfect in this novel - the characters are three-dimensional, every one of them. The Elites come to life like never before with more depth to their personalities thanks to the brilliant development of a few of their characters.
The Kilo-Five team are all brilliant, a good mix of characters from different backgrounds and they're all given their time in the limelight without it feeling cluttered.
There are some excellent plot twists and a very emotional bit where we see one of the Halo universe's legends through the eyes of the common ODST and it's not pretty.
Suddenly what we may have thought about the Spartans and the people who are responsible for it is challenged.
Also, for those excited for Halo 4 this seems to tie in, or at least build up to a tie-in with hints of a certain high-tech warship and a new project on the cards. I would love it if some of these characters make an appearance in the game.
this book is worth reading even if you're not a Halo fan but if you are - bonus!




