Ben Brown's Reviews > Halo: The Cole Protocol

I’m now 5 books deep into my “Halo” deep-dive. Of the 5 novels I’ve read thus far, 3 of them were written by Eric Nylund, while the other 2 were not…and I think I’m at the point now that I can pretty safely admit that I WAY prefer Nylund’s approach to this universe over pretty much anyone else. Neither Joseph Staten’s “Contact Harvest” nor Tobias S. Buckell’s “The Cole Protocol” worked 100% for me – both books, although well-written, feel less like fully formed stories and more novel-length pitches for novels: well-structured, nicely plotted out, but frustratingly cold and distant as a page-to-page experience.

This was especially true in the case of “The Cole Protocol,” which balances 4 or 5 major storylines – each with its own set of characters – before inevitably converging everything together for the climax. Narratively, it’s a solid, potentially very satisfying way to tell your story…but in order for that approach to work, you HAVE to have characters that you care about. Buckell, for all his plot maneuvering and adeptness at maintaining narrative traffic, ultimately is only able to give us one character that’s even remotely interesting, Jacob Keyes…and unfortunately, part of why he’s even interesting to begin with has nothing to do with “The Cole Protocol”s story itself: it’s because we know Keyes from the first “Halo” game, and that baggage that we bring with us from that prior adventure helps to give him a extra wrinkle of depth here that – had this been the first time we met him – I’m doubtful he would have had.

Look, I genuinely am looking forward to the day that I read and love a “Halo” novel that’s not written by Eric Nylund…but so far, two books past his original trilogy of “Halo” stories, I’ve yet to be completely impressed by what other authors have brought to this amazing universe. Here’s hoping Greg Bear’s “Forerunner Saga” changes that for me.