Halo: Meridian Divide

Halo: Battle Born, Book 2

By: Cassandra Rose Clarke

Narrated by: Ryan Do, Caitlin Kelly, Lee Osorio, Angel Pean

Discover the original novel set in the Halo universe, based on the New York Times bestselling video game series!

It’s been three months since the colony world of Meridian was invaded by the alien theocratic alliance known as the Covenant. Under the close watch of the military, teenagers Evie, Dorian, Saskia, and Victor have been put into an accelerated training program with ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence. And to the quartet’s surprise, ONI has a mission for them: return to their hometown on Meridian and monitor the Covenant’s efforts to retrieve an ancient Forerunner artifact of untold power.

But what seems like a simple job quickly spirals out of their control. With the artifact at risk of falling into Covenant hands, the stakes are raised, and ONI tasks the teens and their team of militia fighters with extracting the artifact for study. After a series of missteps with command, the group must take matters into their own hand, journeying far behind enemy lines and into the heart of the war zones on a ravaged Meridian.

©2024 Cassandra Rose Clarke (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

characters

I liked a fresh perspective on the covenant war. It allows for the reader to put themselves in the shoes of everyday people having to deal with what are essential for a lack of a better team real monsters.

Really wish it could get a third

Wish this could somehow get a third book, just to wrap up what happens to the main characters they’ve been in limbo for years

It was alright

Not my favorite book but still enjoyed listening. Didn't really like the different narrates at first but got the concept later in the listening. But overall alright.

An imperfect follow up.

The book does a better job of feeling more like a halo book but it loses some of the strengths of the first book. The characters lose their plot armor which is good. But they aren't as personable in this book. Again Dorian feels like the most realistic character of the four and has the best voice actor. Owen is a brick in this one, which is fine. But he wasn't in the last book.

Victor definitely got the development he lacked in the first book but it doesn't really get as good of development as the others did. We need to see more into that character's thoughts and motivations. Evie and Saskia don't get as much development as they did in the first one, but thag is fine. Both were touched on and most of their character building was done in the first book.

In short, the story is more believable for a halo book but still feels a bit weird. All and all though, I enjoyed it. It was a charming little foray into ONI shenanigans and how less informed characters handle thing in the halo universe. I look forward to a possible continuation of this story.

Good and different

I like the fact that it’s different than the other books, it goes into the civilian struggle and I like it, the first book was a lot better but the second one really wasn’t far off either

These kids whine too much

It’s honestly better than the first book, but not by much. The kids constant whining towards the end gets to be a bit much. I find myself yelling at them while listening haha. Granted they are put into a not so great situation but against the backdrop of the war as a whole I don’t feel much sympathy of any for them.

The ending was unexpected

I don’t know if the characters will be in future series but I hope so.

Writing feels lazy

Motivations, characters, thoughts all feel lazy and poorly put together. There’s a good section of them just being angry because of a small lie.

Bafflingly bad.

Literally, the idea of encountering a conglomerate of alien species that want to exterminate humans is more believable than the plot of this book. Cassandra does not belong writing in the Halo series. Also, whoever’s idea it was to have a cadre of voice actors randomly read chapters instead of representing a specific character, must have an extra chromosome.

Even worse than Battle Born

This book and the one that prequels it, Battle Born have to be two of the worst books in the Halo franchise I’ve ever listened to. The writing style feels like a much younger generation that doesn’t actually know what Halo is about. Has no real concept about what the military is and this is coming from someone that isn’t in the military but other authors in the franchise get it. The book that prequels this one reads 100% from a civilian standpoint which helps me not be as critical about it however after starting this book, written by the same author and voiced by the same people, it makes me realize that the author can’t even imagine what it would be like to be in the military. This book starts with the characters from the previous book, being accepted into the military and receiving appropriate training. Yet it still reads and they still sound like children. But again makes me circle back to a younger generation of people not understanding the training, discipline, and expected conduct that older generations had in the military. Halo is a military storyline. Though the soldiers and Spartans are young, the personalities were setup for characters in the story long before this book was released and this author breaks away from that familiar narrative to make it a modern teen drama. Cringy is the best word I have for this book. The dialogue maintains its childish tone even though the characters have been through “extensive” training. Again, like I said for Battle Born I wish I would’ve listened to the sample before I purchased this book and the one before. My advice is save your time and money and just read a summary of Battle Born and Meridian Divide to understand the core of what happened to Meridian, because both these books are full of dialogue and details that are absolutely irrelevant to the storyline as a whole. The only thing that makes this book Halo related is some of the terminology.