My disappointment in the latest novels has been overwhelming. Between glaring retcons, boring and pointless stories, and lack of knowledge of the source material, I told myself after Broken Circle that I wouldn't buy the next novel. It took me a bit, but I broke down and got Hunters because the Cover Art was fantastic and BLIND WOLVES! (After reading... That was LITERALLY JUST MARKETING! The title had NOTHING to do with the wolves OR novel!)

Ok... on to my problems... I WANT discussion of lore below, so PLEASE, contribute your own problems or rip me apart for this. (In no particular order)

1) Um... FLOOD!? Where the eff is GRAVEMIND! ANYONE who's played the game knows that He is STILL ON THE ARK! and the FLOOD is ON THE ARK! Perhaps we assume the Halo killed him... POSSIBLE... except it would have killed EVERYTHING on the Ark, and the Halo doesn't effect Flood right? It just KILLS their FOOD and starves them... (Right?!)

2) Yeah... Didn't Half Jaw's fleet GLASS "half a continent" In Africa... Where the portal is... and people in this novel skadoodled around... and fought under trees and provided dirt to the retrievers... I understand glassing (technically since the future scene in Reach) has been less dramatic in present years, but COME ON!

3) The portal takes weeks/months to get to The Ark. Gosh, I sure forgot the part in Halo 3 where everyone went into cryo to wait out the trip :-| Good thing we aren't dealing with an extinct race with TIME TRAVEL CRYSTALS! (Whew, would SUCK if the Didact knew about them sons of guns!) Let us not contemplate portal technology from other novels instantaneously moving Storm Covenant and the digitizing thing from Spec Op... er... Spartan Ops...

4) LOVED seeing all the animals we met in Halo 3 while revisiting those locations... Wait... well... at least this had SOME hand wavery walls knocked down letting animals move from their habitats... and not be consumed by the flood that TOTALLY wasn't on the Ring, Ark, OR crashed High Charity we TOTALLY had described to us. (Imagine crazy flood creatures here... Missed opportunity!)

5) Forerunner tech just because? WE GOT IT! Because fake trees TOTALLY had an important role in the story...

6) Warped Human consciousness that manifests as hard light skulls in giant suits of armor instead
of actual AI?! Since we've established Forerunner ARE NOT Human and are TWICE as tall... Let's one up that with HUMAN SIZED ROBOTS that LOOK HUMAN! Because during a flood outbreak, there was NO need to bring these out on the Ark, or be mentioned by 343 Guilty incompetent... Right?

7) Teleportation requires a teleportation grid... Does the Ark have this? If so, we can assume 343 didn't have access to this as it was not HIS installation... if not... ARMIGERS CAN'T teleport! Also, it's HEAVILY implied that the Ark was for Forerunner control, NOT AI.

8) Why is there an Ark Monitor?! The installation was explored by Human, Covenant, Elites, 343, Flood, what have ya... Oh there was a Monitor SLEEPING the whole time without explanation...

9) No seriously, there was a Monitor on the Ark the whole time? and Monitors have 3d projection systems onboard now? (While possible to retcon... that SURE would have been handy for 2401 to escape)

10) Cortana can TOTALLY interface with Forerunner tech and fits on a chip... but a Monitor has STACKS and STACKS of rooms of servers to operate? Then how the devil can 343 bounce around the galaxy all well and good? OH, they were the Ark systems? That The Huragok had control of... No wonder The Monitor stopped his assault on Earth to protect them?!?!?!

11) Spartan Whiniak! Seriously... Kodiak was SO whiny!... Where was the stoic death machine that Spartans are? I understand the dude-bro Spartans not being quite as awesome as the Originals, but... seriously... he was like a high school football pwayer dat wost a game to a wival school. (Unamused)

12) Kodiak's brother... Where was the buildup?... What was the point? It wasn't really emotional... It showed Kodiak SUCKED at being a soldier... just... why?

13) Cyborg person thing... So... is this a thing now? Technoflood? Halo lore technology definitely permits this... but... really? We're going there? I mean... it opens it up for a horror sub-genre... but WHY would a Monitor use HIM to have death battle?... and if he ONLY needs a human hand... then create snakelike things and make two per person.... and use their feet and other skin to create other "hands"...

14) The blind wolves were the SELLING Point... and had no purpose in the book. They killed some redshirts and created a small skirmish to lose a character...

15) Wouldn't Huragoks be defaulted to Monitor input within range? If not... Remember how Engineers are compelled to FIX things... like... the entire installation!?

16) Since they need SO many raw materials from Earth to repair the Ark... it's a good thing Scarab metal isn't useful or we wouldn't have had that call back to the game! (Neat callback, but... if they needed resources... )

17) So... the Portal can be opened to anywhere? Even though it needs pylons on BOTH sides to operate?... Oh... I get it... Earth wasn't special... The Goa'uld build many Stargates with which to gather and trade resou.... wait...

18) Have we found all Halos or not? I mean... ON a Halo, the control room shows the location of all Halos... So... Delta Halo COULD be used to find them... except... did they? Is there nothing interesting on THEM?! In a series NAMED Halo... are we just never going to visit the other 5? (Well 4, as we did see one new one here... that had little importance... What was IT like?!)

19) What was up with constantly calling the Halo Array... Just Halo?

20) No offense... but the novel felt like a 350 page... fanfic... and I've read some amazing fanfic on this site... That... it was not.

I will point out that I have been a HUGE Halo fan since the year after it released and was introduced to me. I have consumed every lore related item in the Halo Canon and while there are many retcons and problems, the compiling of these have seemingly exploded exponentially while Halo has been under care from 343i.