• HALO: Oblivion

  • A Master Chief Story
  • By: Troy Denning
  • Narrated by: Scott Brick
  • Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (1,842 ratings)

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HALO: Oblivion  By  cover art

HALO: Oblivion

By: Troy Denning
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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Publisher's summary

A Master Chief story and original full-length novel set in the Halo universe - based on the New York Times best-selling video game series!

2526. It has been more than a year since humanity first encountered the hostile military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant, and several weeks after the United Nations Space Command’s devastating counterattack of Operation: SILENT STORM was deemed an overwhelming success. The UNSC has put its faith in the hands of the Spartans, led by the legendary Master Chief, John-117: enhanced super-soldiers raised and trained from childhood via a clandestine black ops project to be living weapons. But the Covenant - enraged and fearful of their enemy’s unexpected strategies and prowess - is not taking its recent defeat lightly, and is now fully determined to eradicate humanity from existence, brutally overrunning the ill-fated planets of the Outer Colonies faster than retreats can be ordered.

If the UNSC has any chance of stemming the tide of the war, the Master Chief and Blue Team must drop onto an empty, hellish world in order to capture a disabled Covenant frigate filled with valuable technology. It has all the makings of a trap, but the bait is far too tempting to ignore - and this tantalizing prize is being offered by a disgraced and vengeful Covenant fleetmaster, whose sole opportunity for redemption lies in extinguishing humanity’s only hope of survival....

©2019 Troy Denning (P)2019 Simon & Schuster / Halo Books

What listeners say about HALO: Oblivion

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great improvement over Silent Storm.

There were some plot issues I had with Silent Storm - mostly the fact that Denning crammed in so many characters and details from his Last Light series. But this book had much less of that and he focused more on putting blue team in some intensely complicated situations on interesting world's we haven't heard of so far in the Halo universe.

The opening scene is great and the pace he sets has a pleasant rhythm of intense action, dialogue, more hectic action, resolution, story building, and back to action.
If you're into the more classic military fiction style of the early Halo books, I think Denning did a great job of replicating that by including minute details about the Spartans' gear, ammunition, tactics, etc.
All of that is my bag and I enjoyed it immensely from start to finish.

Another point is that Troy Denning did a good job of approximating what goes on in a Spartan's head. He gave us a lot of Fred in Last Light, but I particularly enjoyed getting Linda's perspective later on in this book. It got me thinking about what the Spartan's opinions are of each other and how they view themselves as friends or siblings or what. Anyway, I like when authors make me consider things that aren't specifically written into the narrative.

Also, I love Scotty B. as a narrator. However, I just don't think his Master Chief is that great. I think it's an inflection thing or maybe I'm just used to Steve Downes. But anyway, Scott did a great job as always. Some say he puts unnecessary emotion into his reading but I dig him in everything I've heard.

I consider good science fiction to be analogous to semi-junk food that isn't quite as bad for you as icecream (terrible sci-fi), but also not healthy either (actual science). So Halo: Oblivion rates as a solid piece of peanut butter toast in my book 👍

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

My thoughts

Good Story. Not a fan of Scott Brick. Mastrr Chief's backstories should be read by Steve Downs the voice of Jon 117.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

The Worst in the Franchise

Since the release of the first game, I believe this makes the 30th book released to expand and/or deepen the universe. I've read the vast majority of them and each had added something to the overall story. They've explained the origins of the Spartans, expanded in the motivations of the Covenant, revealed who the Forerunners were and how the titular Halo rings came to be. There are some collections of short stories that maybe aren't the deepest tales ever told because of their length but they add a little flavor- maybe deepen our understanding of how Spartans work together etc. This had all the pieces in place to do that- John is only 15, there's a mission to steal a Covenant ship and its Superior tech, there's a mysterious group with unknown origins in a planet that shouldn't have any sentience life. All of it essentially amounts to nothing.

Nothing. A whole novel that should have been a short story somehow tells less story than a novela. John is essentially the same S117 we've seen all along. There are maybe two scenes where they ham fistedly show him make a note to be more assertive or something.

On top of that, most of the main characters are unbearable. Both of the key human commanders, the Spartans work with are absolutely nails on a chalkboard intolerable. The Covenant forces are bumbling true believers with no depth or motivation-essentially exactly like they were in the first game, only we can understand their speech. They're just generic bad guys with only the slightest hint of motivation.

There narrator does an okay job, but really doesn't have much to work with. To his detriment, he doesn't vary his voice as much as most of the better audio book narrators do now. It's basically a guy with a great radio voice reading you a book.

Hard pass of this if you're hoping to expand the universe or if you're new. Not worth your listening or reading

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

BLUF: Read by Scott Brick.... enough said.

Book is excellent, also its read by a narrator that has read alot of Jack Reacher books. Listening to the exploits of John 117 is almost the same thing as dropping Jack Reacher into the same universe with power armor. 343 Needs to keep writing books and having them read by Brooks.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another great listen

This was another great listen my Troy Denning and Scott brick did a great job narrating. I always enjoy the master chief stories as contribution to the greater canon that is Halo. after about 8 books though they all seem to blur together and be close the the same story but at the end of the day I really enjoyed it.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not a worthy sequel to "Silent Storm"

I came from listening to "Silent Storm", expecting a continuation of the great arcs and character development started in that book.

What I got was a repetitive detour that focuses on 1.5 characters, and while there's a spark or two of fun action from some original set pieces, nothing of real consequence happens. Most of the terrific plots left open from "Silent Storm" were left untouched, and even the new intrigues hinted at from the setting of this book go completely unexplored. Almost zero character development, and author comes dangerously close to making John sound whiny sometimes.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but this was a major letdown, and honestly was hard to finish. Luckily I did, because the epilog is probably the most interesting part.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Another great S117 Story

Another great story. Keeps me guessing and leaves me wanting to know what's next for a beloved character.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

good, not great, better than other recent entries

it's set before Mjolnir mark V is around so you know it doesn't advance the cannon at all. that said you would hope it fleshes out the universe a lot more, but it really doesn't.

if you love Halo, there is some minor development for chief and Kelly that make it worth a read.

Linda gets extremely little screen time and what might have been good development for her comes off as flat. you get a brief glimpse into her borderline fatalistic mentality and you want more... but there is none.

Fred is a shell of the character we really came to know in last light. That's really the hook here btw; if you loved last light this ends up giving some interesting set-up.

If you love the series, give it a read. if your new to the series, do yourself a favor and save this far way way later.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

an excellent, albeit meaningless story.

the story, written and painted very well just as it's predecessor was great I really loved listen to it and the narrator is amazing.
the missions however did not seem to be of any vital importance, they didn't really seem to add anything to the universe as a whole, and while that is fine the book is also titled a master chief story, in which he does not seem to be featured any more or less than the rest of blue team.
the story consists of 2 operations, one of which gives some meh amount of background information on a long standing technology, otherwise it's standard operations nothing spectacular.

overall however, I wouldn't stack it up against halo epics, but by itself fantastic.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Half a Book! #moneygrab

you guys keep delivering less and less content with every release. This book goes nowhere has no real plot or ending it's half a book, start doing a better job or you're going to start losing Halo fans like me.

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