Halo: Silent Storm: A Master Chief Story

This is an excellent Halo book the covers the early military career of John 117 and the first 12 Spartans. John is just 15 years old and a Petty Officer First Class in charge of the Spartans. He is leading a team of twelve Spartans than includes himself. They are being assigned to be an attack force to board and steal alien technology from the Covenant and steal the space ship if possible and if not, destroy the ship. They have had a couple of missions and they have been successful so far. John has lost one Spartan on a previous boarding mission and it affects his combat decisions and he has to learn how to properly lead his team into battle. The Spartans are added into an elite fighting battalion of ODST shock drop troops, the Black Daggers, and be supplied with the best of the stealth space ships the UNSC has. The problem is that the Black Daggers don’t know who the Spartans are or what they can do. The commanders don’t trust the Spartans when the learn how young they are. On top of that, the human insurgents spying on the UNSC and ONI, want the Spartans to be killed by the aliens so they are not a threat to the freedom of the human colonies….. This is an excellent book and one of the best of the Halo books. It is well written and it is full of top notch action. It also follows the Halo canon style of story telling and the development of the main characters of the Halo saga. Troy Denning has done a very good job in following the development of the Halo characters and his book is well written like the original books of Eric Nylund. I have not been a fan of some of the last books written on the Halo series as some of the new authors have taken it upon themselves to destroy some of the characters of the Halo cast and write boring political books. This book is excellent Sci-Fi and it provides great detail of the development of the young Spartan team and how John 117 becomes a Master Chief Petty Officer commanding an entire battle operation. It is the turning point in John 117’s military career and so begins the legend of the best fighting soldier of all time. The goal is to defeat the Covenant before they can conquer all of Mankind with their superior technology! This is a great story and I liked it a lot! If you are a Halo fan and love Sci-Fi then this book is a must read story for you!

This books is just like reading the original 6 books, so much details to action and what is happening, only bad thing is it is too short and it ends

Four months have passed since the Spartan-IIs' first engagement with the Covenant over Chi Ceti IV and the death of Sam-034. Since then the remaining Spartans have been deployed to engage both Covenant and Insurrectionist threats. During the latest operation to strike at the Covenant's fleets. John-117 and eleven other Spartans find themselves the target of an Insurrectionist plot to destroy the Spartan program. What I love about this book is that it captures the feel of the Nylund-written books, especially with the focus on space-based operations, while including material that ties in with the 343-era of books, namely by including a character who plays an important role in the backstory of Denning's other Halo novels. Another thing I enjoyed about Silent Storm is the character development of John-117. Throughout the novel, John, with the aid of Staff Sergeant Johnson, learns to cooperate with non-Spartans. At first, I thought such character development was weird as surely John and the Spartans would have already learned such things but as I thought about it and the material that takes place during the same time period, it started to make sense. The Spartans were trained in isolation and the majority of the interactions with non-Spartans were as opponents in training scenarios or as support staff. We never saw the Spartans fighting side-by-side with non-Spartans during this time period until this novel. So overall, it makes sense. However, I do have some problems with aspects of the novel. For one, the non-Blue Team Spartans are delegated to mostly roster filler with John and Blue Team getting the vast majority of scene time and characterization while Kurt-051, Joshua-029, Anton-044, Grace-093, Malcolm-059, Naomi-010, and Solomon-069 get little to nothing in terms of lines and characterization, which is a shame considering only Naomi and Joshua appeared in more than one book before this so it was a waste of characters. Daisy-023 is the only non-Blue Team Spartan to get proper screen time and characterization, capturing her essence from Homecoming. Secondly, while not a fault of Troy Denning and more 343's, the novel gives the impression that the opening op is the first time the Spartans have fought Elites, yet the comic miniseries, Collateral Damage, shows Blue Team having engaged Elites shortly after Sam-034's death while performing an op on Alpha Corvi II. From an interview I read with Denning, it seems Collateral Damage wasn't thought up until after Denning had started Silent Storm so it's 343's fault for not keeping a close eye on the continuity between the two works. However, what I can fault Denning for is having John be the one who came up with the nicknames of Elite and Drone for the Sangheili and the Yanme'e respectively. It just comes off as unneeded and a case of the main character needing to be involved with everything. Overall, I quite enjoyed Silent Storm. When I got my copy in the mail, I dropped everything and practically devoured it. I never grew bored as I read and I felt like I was reading a new Nylund book while also enjoying how it tied into Denning's previous books. The relationship building done with John and Johnson was the highlight of the book for me (there is some discussion on whether this is a retcon or not, but if it is, I welcome it) while finding only a few faults that did not subtract too much from my enjoyment.

I've read 9 of the other Halo Novels, from the Original 3(Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike) to Glasslands. This was my 10th novel. Getting back into Halo Novels with this book was a fantastic decision and a fantastic read. This book shows a side of Chief, Sgt. Johnson(if you love him, you will LOVE this book), and the UNSC that other material hasn't really touched on(that I know of). It is a wonderful addition to the lore of Halo, expanding on the Operations of Spartan IIs recently after they first became active in 2525-2526. Without getting too much into the plot, this book tells a tale of a time before Spartans were considered gods on the battlefield. This book tells one of the stories that built their legend. Also, like many Halo books, this one is Dual Perspective. The other perspective is that of a First Blade of the Silent Shadow, who commands a group called The Bloodstars. Their primary goal in this novel is to hunt down Spartans. I will say no more. This novel also contains a moment I have been wanting to witness for YEARS as a Halo fan. I won't say what it is to keep the surprise. You'll know what I mean when you get to it. If you love Halo lore, especially Master Chief lore, this is a must read. No questions asked.

This was an outstanding Halo Book. Cannot wait to read the second book! Everyone should read this book. It is great!

The book as sold was in excellent condition and well written. A solid example of the Halo storyline.

The fast pace and action packed storytelling Troy Denning delivers makes this a very entertaining and fast read. A look into Master Chief's first missions shows us a glimpse into a younger and less mature Spartan looking to find his identity as a leader. If you love the franchise and all stories related to the chief, this is a recommended read.

The major reason I like these books that go back in time, is that you really get to know chief. In the games, he's invincible, has little dialogue the majority of the time, and can sometimes feel not human. Not in this book. This is a young master chief, who sometimes struggles to find his way with different matters throughout the book. He isnt the battle hardened chief we all know and are used to. This book takes a great approach at a more human look into chiefs mind. You also find out how he became the "Master Chief" and how he got his nickname (ill let you figure this one out) from the covanent. Overall this book is action packed, and manages to handle a couple plot lines at once, in which all comes together at the end. If you love halo and want to know more about chief and how he started out, this book is great!