: I wish they really just focused of a few quality stories, FoR, First Strike,
: Contact Harvest and H1 had great stories because they showed and not told.
: As the reader/player we saw situations, saw how things unfolded and
: learned about the universe through our characters eyes. With H2 and
: subsequent books the stories were either irrelevant to the characters, or
: just seemed to be designed to fill in the universe without a grand master
: plan in mind. The only exception to this I suppose is Buck's New Blood...

: FuD Nightfall, Hunters in the Dark, Kilo 5... their purpose just seems to
: tell you small things about the next game and introduce "minor"
: characters..... and that's what the draw is rather than a complete story.

: First Strike is by far my favorite Halo story. Seeing how the characters from
: the book interact and make decisions, their sacrifices and struggles was
: just so awesome. It told a story start to finish you wanted to know (how
: chief gets back to earth and sets up the Covenant invasion) and every
: character had a role that impacted our heros. It's honestly one of my
: favorite stories ever, even if I don't really like that crystal stuff.

I think it's akin to a lot of complaints people have about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Their quality control on those has been amazing, but the level to which each one HAS to tie into the wider universe is sometimes ridiculous, and has seen directors leave over it (John Favreau, and I'm guessing Edgar Wright). Likewise, it seems like every book has to set up very specific things. Cryptum fleshing out the Forerunners for Halo 4, Buck and Tanaka joining the Spartans, the appearance of Armigers on the Ark.

While I don't LIKE the Kilo-5 books, I don't think Halo has had an absolutely, unsalvageably terrible novel yet. The Flood comes close, but is redeemed my Major Silva and Lt. McKay's story.