: I really enjoyed reading this and the character interactions, but all these
: stories are inconsequential and filler these days. By the end of all these
: books everything is wrapped up in a nice pretty bow. The good guys win and
: the galaxy is always the same. Look at FoR, First Strike, Contact Harvest.
: Each of those ends with a small victory in the scheme of a greater and
: hopeless future. There are no more stakes in these books or any emotional
: outcome for the reader.

: I am a broken record bringing up First Strike when it comes to Halo
: stories... but that book was so great and should have been the bar to meet
: for every book after. A continuation of a story we care about, connections
: to the game and characters coming forward, meaningful character and plot
: development, mystery and answers to both questions that are part of the
: greater mythology and content, and most importantly they had an emotional
: impact on the reader. The end is great with Chief reflecting on the people
: he has lost in his life and his ultimate decision to save Johnson.

I agree that is an issue, but it's an understandable one given how the nature of the series has changed. Back in the Nylund days his books were pretty much the entire expanded universe. He was given the freedom to do pretty much what he wanted outside the games and tell these epic-scale, sweeping stories. Now that 343i is building a franchise they're a lot more careful to maintain a more stable status quo where they can tell more stories without stepping on any toes.

It's not a good thing for storytelling or keeping the audience engaged, though. With Last Light, however, I can't say I wasn't constantly holding my breath as to what was going to happen to the Spartan-IIIs. Properly exploring them as characters and explaining their fate raised Last Light above filler generica like Hunters in the Dark for me.