My overall impressions? I don't know, really. I think Forbeck nailed Buck's characterization and voice, but on the other hand the story went in some needlessly dark and contrived directions which partly soured the experience for me. I recall 343i saying they didn't want to be like Game of Thrones but that's exactly what this book felt like.

First, I'd been hoping Buck's own book didn't have to be another celebration conga for the Spartan-IVs. They could've shown that the ODSTs still have a place in the Haloverse by keeping Buck and his squad as their poster boys. Or, since they ended up focusing on Spartan-IVs, they could've at least gone into more detail about the program's technical and organizational aspects. But the level of detail is about the same as in the Initiation comic i.e. very light and very general. We don't really even get much of anything on how becoming a transhuman cyborg affects Buck's life or his relationship with Dare aside from the obvious general statements about being taller, faster, stronger, etc. I was also hoping we'd have gotten a Nylund-esque rundown of the IVs' augmentations and how they compare to the IIs and IIIs in practice, but no such luck. They should get Peter Watts to do a Halo book.

The Spartan-IV program still comes across like a weird isolationist cult run by Musa and Jun (mostly Musa, though) more than a credible military force. Seriously, Musa's character gives me these creepy cult leader vibes. It's as though he's driven by some inner calling, everyone reveres him and he seems to wield sole authority over everything that happens in his little domain where "everyone's equal". And like in Initiation, Musa comes off as a mouthpiece of 343i trying to rub the Spartan-IVs' superiority in our faces. We're treated to touchy-feely Travissian spiel about how the IVs are better than their predecessors because "they're human" or whatever. He also makes a similarly Traviss-esque suggestion that the S-IIs' young age wasn't really because of the augmentations' technological restrictions and that they used kids solely for indoctrination reasons. We know he's biased, though, so his comments can't really be taken at face value.

I'm surprisingly not all that pissed off about the Rookie's death in and of itself. While it came as a shock and I would've preferred a more meaningful sendoff, I was never that attached to him as a character. He didn't have many places he could go character-wise as the blank slate he was, barring giving him an actual characterization (which was, admittedly, always an option). But Mickey's sudden (and not-so-inevitable) betrayal felt like taking it too far. On one hand I get that Forbeck tried to do something more with these characters than just have them go on jolly fanservice-y adventures together forever, but the thing is that ODST was always a straightforward and lighthearted story about the adventures of a plucky ODST squad. I'm not that convinced these characters needed a "DARK AND GRITTY" reinterpretation; it reminds me of that Power Rangers vid that came out a while back.

I mean, what's next? Kelly becomes an alcoholic, Linda battles manic depression while Fred sells Blue Team out to fund his drug addiction, forcing John to bash his skull in?

Dutch got surprisingly little screen time but I'm glad he at least got a happy ending. I can't help but wonder if his character's retirement had something to do with his voice actor though.

Of course, Palmer features in a supporting role because how could she not? To her credit she doesn't do anything stupid or offensive here. Sadie's role is little more than a cameo/plot device and I wish she and Vergil had been given more screen time. At least they weren't killed off; there's a worrying trend in recent 343i media of certain past characters being given arbitrary sendoffs rather than proper reintroductions.

The portrayal of the rebel characters wasn't very nuanced but then I suppose it serves as a reminder of what type of people the UNSC was up against when the Spartan-IIs were created: i.e. fanatics so drunk on their revolutionary kool-aid as to be completely beyond reasoning or negotiation.

The ODST recap came across as padding more than actual content. I get that not everyone has played the game, but I doubt the level of detail the rehash goes to will benefit anybody.

There were a few technical details that struck me as being out of place. How did a civilian building have energy shielding installed before the contact with the Covenant, and why is the Spartan-IVs' locator implant in the throat when the standard neural implant that everyone already has is at the back of the skull? Is it just so we could have a scene where someone's throat is torn off?

My first impressions have a tendency of morphing into something else over time, but right now I'm rating New Blood in the same category as The Flood. I liked Buck's characterization but the rest... eh. I get that everything shouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows but the tonal shift from ODST didn't do it for me.