Halo: Ghosts Of Onyx

[ViperSRT3g 224]

Hey! I just read the new Halo book, Ghosts Of Onyx. This will be a review, as well as a brief summary of the story, so after the review will be the main storyline for the book. So I'll let you know when the spoilers are coming ;)

 

Halo: Ghosts Of Onyx

 

Review

This book was thankfully a rather long book that had a great ending that didn't leave you hanging so badly. Of course, it will leave us all hanging just a bit since it will continure on, but at least it didn't stop in mid sentence. It was wonderfully descriptive as usual, and had very little, if any contiguational errors. And as many people are wondering, how many Spartans are left? Well, I'm not going to spoil this story too badly in this review section, but there are quite a few that are actually alive at the end of this story. The book answers many questions from previous books, specifically telling the readers the amount of Spartans alive. My only gripe about this book: Spartan-II's are getting very old... other than that, it's a great read, and you should go out and read it too! You'll nevber get bored, the story makes you want to keep reading to see what will happen next, and the best part about the book is that you get to see the Covenant Civil War in action!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Spoiler :P

What is Onyx you might ask? Well, it was a planet just beyond UNSC Space, that was perfect for harboring life. It was previously uninhabited, aside from the few natural organisms there, it was mostly trees and nothing else.

 

Because the Spartan-II project had been such a huge success, Colonel Ackerson had decided to finally undertake his own new project. Spartan-III's were to be trained on the planet Onyx, and not a single whisper of the project was to be leaked to the public or the rest of the military in any way. Spartan-051 was assigned to train these new Spartans into shape with all the augmentations and more, then what the Spartan-IIs recieved. Unfortunately, because of the hard times, the new Spartan-III's didn't have any MJOLNIR Armor, instead, they had Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor (SPI) which had no shielding, but had rather effective active camouflage. By the time we get to the nitty gritty of the story, there had already been several groups of Spartan-III's already trained, Spartan-o51, also known as Kurt, was assigned to train these new Spartans. The original plan was to keep the leftovers from the first group of Spartan-III's, unfortunately, there were only two survivors from the previous group of Spartans, Team Beta. There had already been an Alpha, comprised of over 300 Spartan-III's. Only two remained to train Gamma Company, and these special Spartan-III's were named Tom, and Lucy. They helped Kurt, Fred, Linda, Will, Kelly, and Dr. Halsey escape the Covenant threat that attacked the planet of Onyx after Linda, Will, and Fred had stolen another Covenant Cruiser back on Earth (The only major damage they had done was destroy the last Space Elevator that remained on Earth based above Cuba). One their way from Earth, their cruiser dropped out of slipspace right into the middle of the new Covenant Civil War. After a brief confrontation, they managed to get to Onyx. But their ship Bloody Spirit, had crash landed ont the planet. After the Spartan-II's had crash landed, Dr. Halsey, using the clues from the artifacts she had found back on Reach, she found the coordinates to the planet, and after she browsed through all of Colonel Ackerson's files from Reach, she could only guess what was on the planet of Onyx. Spartan-III's. So she and Kelly had travelled their with the ship Dr. Halsey had stolen. She crash landed too. The reason these ships were crashing was because the Forerunner Sentinels had somehow taken over the planet. And they were shooting at anything that came near the planet. Fortunately the military base used for training Spartan-III's was right next to the source of the Sentinals. A massive Forerunner City was located there, and Dr. Halsey, the Spartan-II's, Kelly, Fred, Will, Linda, and Kurt, along with the Spartan-III's, Beta team, Tom, and Lucy, and Gamma Team Ash, Dante, and Olivia made their way through the forest to the city using the Covenant dropship the Spartan-II's used to escape from their fatally wounded ship. Once inside, Dr. Halsey quickly got to work, and soon found out what the construct was. The entire planet of onyx, was not a planet at all, it was a massive Forerunner built ecosystem, far greater than any Halo. And at it's core, was a countdown, that would close up forever. The objective now, retrieve whatever Forerunner technology they could find from the core, and get off that planet. Either that, or they are going to have to blow up that planet using the nukes the Spartan-II's had brought from Earth. For if the Covenant get anymore Forerunner technology, humanity was doomed. Dr. Halsey had been busy thinking while she was working on the ship she had stolen with Kelly. She had surmised, that humanity's best chance at survival now, was to simply survive, run, escccape the threat of the Covenant, for there was no way humans would win this war. Earth was conquered, and the UNSC was being commanded from a ship that wasn't even supposed to exist. So the group headed to the center of the planet. What they found, was nothing short of amazing.

 

You know that Halo 3 trailer? It had that massive structure somewhere in Africa? A smaller version of that was found just outside of the core of the planet. And it was the portal to the very center. After the Covenant had penetrated the planet's defenses, they were chasing the group through the Forerunner city. And the final battle was at this portal to the core of Onyx. The end result, two FENRIS nuclear explosions and a dead Kurt was all that was left of the entire Covenant Armada (Or at least the end of whatever thay had sent to the planet). Now what the group had found when they were transported into the core of the palnet was truly amazing. Think of a sphere. now think of s sphere the diameter of Earth's orbit around the sun. Now think of the inside of that sphere filled with all the plants you could imagine, and then think of that sphere, with a star in it's center. The forerunners were so advanced with slispace manipulation, that they were able to compress an entire sphere the same diameter of the Earth's orbit into a space just a few meters in diameter. And they had also added in their own star... This was the Forerunner's Shield, this is what would have protected them from the Halos when they were activated, and this is what the old Covenant saying was truly about.

 

The dark times are upon us... Unsheathe thy swords and smite... The Ark will be your guide... And bless tha Reclaimers that may take refuge behind the sharpended edge of the Shield... Wonder beyond awaits.

 

The Spartans and Dr. Halsey, had finally uncovered the Destination of the Great Journye of the Covenant. And it was indeed a sharpened edge of a shield. It would protect it's inhabitants from the Halo rings as they activated, and they would be activated from the Ark of the Covenant, back on Earth. Which is just where Spartan-117 was headed...

[pathog3n 0]

I've got it as well. I think I have read it twice now. Very good book. I liked the end how the whole planet was made out of the sentinels.

[flirchinator 25]

heh, love the review. MORE REVIEWS PEOPLE!

[Kenshyn 638]

I've got it as well. I think I have read it twice now. Very good book. I liked the end how the whole planet was made out of the sentinels.

 

How is it possible for you and other people to read a book more than once? Reading it the second time is so dull and boring because you already know what's going to happen.

 

 

My friend is reading this book and I always make fun of him for reading it. Who reads a book that is a branch off of a video game? A movie I can understand, but not a video game. :\

[pathog3n 0]

When you read a book more than once it can make more sence because you mised it the first time. As for the books of games, why not? It goes into a lot more detail than the game ever did. I would rather read the book of a game tha a book of the movie.