Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell

Halo: The Cole Protocol Reviews

• 
  Tina

  Perhaps if I hadn’t just finished reading
  Halo: Contact Harvest I wouldn’t be rating Cole Protocol so harshly, but the latter dulls in comparison with the former. The pacing, the characters, the plot… there are several things I had an issue with while reading, though I’ll talk about what I liked first.
  
  The setting was kind of cool – asteroids all linked together.
  
  I also liked that the focus on the Covenant was consistent as with the previous novel – the races acted similarly as to how they did in Harvest, though the Elites were pretty over-the-top. I didn’t care about any of them though – they didn’t have much depth as Maccabeus and the relationship between Dadab and Lighter Than Some did in Harvest. Thal was just an arrogant jerk – he didn’t have any layers. Neither did anyone else, really, though.
  
  To be honest, there wasn’t much I did like about the novel. The characters I thought were going to be interesting, like Watanabe or the Spartans, either disappeared ten minutes after they arrived, or they had no real face time.
  
  The biggest problem with the story, overall, which bleeds down into all the other aspects, was that there were too many characters. You have the Spartans, you have Delgado, you have Reth, you have Thal, you have Keyes, and then you have all the bunch of minor characters like the Prophets, Keyes’ staff, Bonifacio, the other Elites, and randoms like Maria and Diego. Oh, and the AI. So we have a billion characters, a billion shifting viewpoints (just because you have a lot of characters doesn’t mean they all need a perspective!), and therefore no cohesion and no sense of depth.
  
  A lot of the novel could have been trimmed or redirected to centralize the story and the characters.
  
  One more thing: where did all the women go in this novel? Adriana and that traitorous wench, ok, but it seems like now there are no women in the UNSC army anymore? There are female Helljumpers, but apparently not in this novel. I just thought it was weird. I always pictured Halo more like Starship Troopers (the movie), where gender didn’t matter, so statistically, there would be at least one female fighter in all of Keyes’ staff, right?
• 
  Dave

  "The Cole Protocol" is simply...Bad. Bucknell is a terrible, terrible writer. This book reads like a screenplay to a D-grade action movie; something even Segal and Norris would pass up. Characters are cliche' and without depth; I never came close to caring about any of them. Countless times Bucknell would repeat nouns or verbs within a sentance or two of each other, like he couldn't come up with any other way to convey meaning. "Keyes watched his people being herded toward gates...From the cargo bay they'd all been herded out at gunpoint." Ignatio Delgado "bit his lip" at least a dozen times. Bucknell has no idea what "subtle" means; he tells you exactly what he wants you to understand, like when things are going to hell, stuff is blowing up, people are dying, and Bucknell brilliantly states "This was bad."
  
  I'm a huge fan of Halo, and this is the third Halo book I've read, but it was by far the worst. I found myself trying to speed through the last half of it, but I felt like I was running in quicksand and that it would never end.
  
  Thankfullly it did.
  
  Its only redeeming quality was that it gave some back-story on Keyes. Other than that it was just awful.
  
  Frankly it felt like a piece of fan fiction I would have written when I was 12, realized was crap, and thrown away, glad that I'd never let anyone read it. Quite the stinker.
• 
  Ben Brown

  I’m now 5 books deep into my “Halo” deep-dive. Of the 5 novels I’ve read thus far, 3 of them were written by Eric Nylund, while the other 2 were not…and I think I’m at the point now that I can pretty safely admit that I WAY prefer Nylund’s approach to this universe over pretty much anyone else. Neither Joseph Staten’s “Contact Harvest” nor Tobias S. Buckell’s “The Cole Protocol” worked 100% for me – both books, although well-written, feel less like fully formed stories and more novel-length pitches for novels: well-structured, nicely plotted out, but frustratingly cold and distant as a page-to-page experience.
  
  This was especially true in the case of “The Cole Protocol,” which balances 4 or 5 major storylines – each with its own set of characters – before inevitably converging everything together for the climax. Narratively, it’s a solid, potentially very satisfying way to tell your story…but in order for that approach to work, you HAVE to have characters that you care about. Buckell, for all his plot maneuvering and adeptness at maintaining narrative traffic, ultimately is only able to give us one character that’s even remotely interesting, Jacob Keyes…and unfortunately, part of why he’s even interesting to begin with has nothing to do with “The Cole Protocol”s story itself: it’s because we know Keyes from the first “Halo” game, and that baggage that we bring with us from that prior adventure helps to give him a extra wrinkle of depth here that – had this been the first time we met him – I’m doubtful he would have had.
  
  Look, I genuinely am looking forward to the day that I read and love a “Halo” novel that’s not written by Eric Nylund…but so far, two books past his original trilogy of “Halo” stories, I’ve yet to be completely impressed by what other authors have brought to this amazing universe. Here’s hoping Greg Bear’s “Forerunner Saga” changes that for me.
• 
  Taco

  It's a great book with a lot of adventure I recommend this book for halo fans who don't like to read and kids its amazing
• 
  T.R. Preston

  I was originally going to give this book 4 stars because I do not enjoy how the Spartans have been written here, however, the final two acts of the book were good enough for me to feel unsatisfied with giving it anything under five. This book was good stuff. It didn't blow my mind like some other Halo books, but it was certainly a quality story.
  
  Back to the Spartans for a moment. These soldiers have been trained from the age of six to kill people (later Covenant). They cannot comprehend the ways in which other humans interact with each other in social circles. Master Chief has always reflected this kind of stoic detachment quite well. The man is not like most men. He is almost machine (but not entirely). I strongly dislike how some of the Spartan IIs are written in a handful of these books. They are far too unprofessional. They make jokes, for god's sake. JOKES! Spartan IIs should be focused on getting the job done and that is literally all. These Spartans have far too much personality. They are instruments of war, not relatable war buddies taking on the alien baddies. I wish they were written with more attention to their upbringing.
  
  Now let's talk about Thel: one of the best characters in gaming history. I was thrilled to see him in here. And I'll be transparent with you; he is arguably the main reason why this book is a 5 and not a 4. Already there are seeds of doubt in him when it comes to how much the prophets can be trusted. He kills his own brothers in defence of the great journey in this book. It makes you wonder how often Thel must think about that after the Great Schism happens. His devotion to a twisted religion will likely haunt him forever, and it is always written in such a thought-provoking way.
  
  Overall I really enjoyed the book.
  
  P.S. It was also very sad how it ends with Keyes and Miranda going for ice cream. They both go through so much. Knowing how their lives end in the future makes the concept of their relationship all the more painful.
• 
  Luke

  In the first, desperate days of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC has enacted the Cole Protocol to safeguard Earth and its inner colonies from discovery by a merciless alien foe. Many are called upon to rid the universe of lingering navigation data that would reveal the location of Earth. Among them is Navy Lieutenant Jacob Keyes. Thrust back into action after being sidelined, Keyes is saddled with a top secret mission by ONI. One that will take him deep behind enemy lines, to a corner of the universe where nothing is as it seems.
  
  The idea and concept behind this book is very fascinating, the idea that in order to protect earth and humanity, the cole protocol is in effect, no straight jumps to the sol system, if you can't escape destroy your navigational data and system or blow up your ship. The idea is flawless and makes sense but it's how it's handled that really lets it down. I found myself only really caring for 2 charecters in this book (captain keyes, and the soon to be arbiter) the rest where mostly shoe horned in and didn't have enough book time to allow me to care and grow a connection with them, like i did with the small group of charecters in contact harvest. And it's that what lets the story down to many none interesting charecters and the few that are don't get enough lime light. And that's a shame because the events of the story are quite interesting just far to much filler going on. Honestly if it wasn't for Keyes, the artbiter, and the premise/events of the story i would of given it a 2 but alas i give it 3 stars as it's just a "good" book and that's about it sadly, fingers crossed the short story connection next is better, we will see.
  
  3.5/5 Stars on GoodReads 🌟🌟🌟
  
  15/100 GingerPoints 🔥
• 
  Pam Vass

  This book is about a lieutenant in the Navy, Jacob Keyes who has been functioning as an instructor because of injuries and he has spent time in a cryogenic pod and is now to be tested to see if he is fit for another mission. He is a part of a group who has received intense body enhancements that make them considerably stronger and he is sent on a secret mission. This book is based on the Halo video game and fits into the science fiction category of fantasy. Jacob Keyes is the protagonist and he must prove himself because he is a bit older and does not want to fail. So he takes the hero role upon himself and feels it necessary to fulfill it. The events in this book take on a series of turns and quests with each one as a part of an episodic plot to simply fight and destroy anything and anyone that challenges them. My eleven year old son got this book for Christmas and yet it is clearly for a young adult. I would recommend any high school teenager that plays Halo to get the book to follow along with their gaming.
• 
  Stefan

  Halo: The Cole Protocol expanded the Halo universe a bit. The writing style and quality, the characters, the dialogue, and the settings are below average. This is a quick and easy read that has some decent action scenes but not much else. The basic premise could have been the starting point for a very exciting, well developed science fiction novel, yet somewhere the author fumbled the ball.
• 
  Matthew Carlson

  As a Halo fan I have read most of the other volumes in the series and this has to be by far the worst. It was dead boring and took me far longer to get through merely because I could not stay interested. But, I battled through and as it is Halo it got one more star than it was worth. Endurable, but not noteworthy.
• 
  Rania Attafi

  to say this book is action packed is an understatement. i enjoyed every bit of it mostly the whole cast of characters and their wittiness.
• 
  Melisa Ramonda

  3.5
  
  Entertaining.
• 
  Chris The Lizard from Planet X

  Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell is a video game tie-in novel based on the HALO video game franchise, and the first book of the Grey Team Trilogy.
  
  The basic idea of HALO is the war set between the aliens of The Covenant and Humanity as defended by the UNSC or United Nations Space Command. The Cole Protocol is set in the early years of the Human – Covenant War although we are not told exactly when. The Cole Protocol has been set up by the UNSC to safeguard Earth and The Inner Colonies from detection by the Covenant. What this means in reality is that any spaceship detected must destroy its navigational data revealing Earth and the Inner Colonies and, if capture is imminent, must self destruct the spaceship.
  
  The plot centres on a group of survivors and some insurrectionists from the human-occupied planets surrounding the gas giant Hesiod and their precarious alliance and tenuous links with a group of Covenant Jackal pirates who have formed The Rubble. A group of Spartans, known as Grey team, stumble upon the Rubble while on a mission to destroy any navigational data found in deep space and they are also joined by a group of the Covenant Elites who are on a holy quest led by the ruthless Thel ‘Vadamee. This further complicates matters and to top it off we also have Lieutenant Jacob Keyes of the Office of Naval Intelligence, ONI, who is on assignment to ensure The Cole Protocol is being upheld on commercial vessels.
  
  The story starts slowly but after the first fifty or so pages I began to get into it. It also takes a while for the Spartans to enter the fray, but once they do the chapters become shorter and hold the attention more. The story centres on the characters Keyes, Thel ‘Vadamee and Ignatio Delgado of The Rubble and this gives us a perspective from all angles of the action, although I felt the interaction of the Grey team could have been touched on more and certainly the concept of Spartan II. The narrative can occasionally get confusing as it shifts perspective around a lot, but not to the point of distraction. The writing is brisk and punchy and that is exactly what is needed in Military Sci-Fi. I enjoyed the character of younger Thel ‘Vadamee and learning more about the Elite and their politics, especially the fact that they cannot shed their own blood or else they must die. It is definitely a book for hard core Halo fans who are interested in learning more about the Halo universe and the Elites.
  
  Whilst not as action packed as previous Halo books, it was an interesting concept for a story and I would recommend it as the place for a Halo newcomer to start. It is interesting to learn the history prior to the games and to understand more of Captain Jacob Keyes’ character, the Elites and of the desperation of the civilians of the Outer Colonies. This adds a little depth and shading to the Halo universe, and while the writing is not going to blow you away, it is pitched as it should be for this genre. It is nothing more than pure Military sci-fi fun without a hint of a love story and should be enjoyed in the same way as you would enjoy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. It will just about satisfy you but not fill you up. If you are not a fan of Halo, and I believe you probably need to be to fully enjoy this book, and you want to try Military Sci-Fi I would look at Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘Starship Troopers’ or Orson Scott Card’s excellent ‘Ender’s Game instead.
  
  All in all, this is one of the better Halo books I've read. If you like any scifi novels based on video games then you should give this one a try. It's not huge battles or massive space fleets facing off, but it's also not a cookie cutter story. It will make you think a little.
• 
  Kaley CR

  Preface: I’m doing the delightful task of listening to every single Halo audiobook because I want to
  
  Of the first 6 books I’ve *experienced* (idk if I should say “read” or “listened to”), this one is weirdly the hardest one to rate. I guess let’s pretend I have it 3.5 stars instead of just 3.
  
  I feel like Ingatio Delgado and Gray Team have a great storyline and are all excellent characters but the story of Keyes and the ODSTs kinda sucks?! All the best characters kinda die off early or just disappear and Keyes is sorta inconsistently portrayed.
  
  The story of the Kig-Yar (Jackals) and The Rubble is neat and has some nice twists, I think overall it’s a strong storyline.
  
  Thel ‘Vadamee is Thel ‘Vadam aka the Arbiter - it weirdly took me a while to figure that out.
  
  I’m a big Arbiter fan from the games but in this book he’s kind of a bastard. But I think it’s supposed to show the culture of the Sangheili?? But like they become good guys in the video games by the end of Halo 2 which is hard to believe after what goes down in this book and the ones before it.
  
  I mean I’m 6 books in now and the Sangheili are really kinda hard to defend at this point. They treat everyone like shit and only talk about whether someone is strong or weak. Talk about toxic masculinity 😡
  
  Imagine my surprise when my actual new fav member of the covenant is the Unggoy. This book kinda treats the Unggoy like shit - which to be fair every halo book kinda does but they usually do it in a sympathetic way instead of just making them a mockery. It’s not the end of the world I just love the little guys.
  
  I like the way this book explores the mindset of the Kig-Yar, however. Contact Harvest really blew me away by making the Jackals genuinely interesting characters and this book really builds on that. Reth is pretty well fleshed out for a relatively small role and the idea of the Kig-Yar working with Humanity is pretty neat.
  
  All this to say that this book is fine. It hasn’t really stuck with me after reading it the way the other 5 books I’ve *experienced* did, although that could just be because I have listened to 6 Halo audiobooks in the past two or so weeks and they might be starting to blend together.
  
  The next one is a collection of short stories so hopefully that will be a nice palette cleanser. On to #7, Halo: Evolutions!! I saw that Jen Taylor does some of the reading which is VERY exciting because I’m a big fan of hers and she KILLED IT reading the Sif storyline in Contact Harvest. Also apparently Steve Downes (John Halo himself) reads a chunk of it which will fun.
• 
  Callum Shephard

  
  The real problem with the Halo universe is that so little of it was ever explored in the games. With the emphasis upon the Covenant War few background details were ever given focus. Everything from humanity’s origins, the reaction of the colonies to the UNSC, the UNSC’s policies to reasons for the SPARTAN project; all were rarely explored. While fans might have learned about them through secondary sources, they were rarely ever gone into in full. Even the few times they did look into them such as the previous Halo novels, they emphasised upon very specific events. Master Chief’s past, the Fall of Reach or even just the Battle of Halo itself. While they fleshed out the protagonist’s story they made the universe feel small. The Cole Protocol was one of the novels which to corrected this.
  
  Set during the early years of the war with the Covenant, the UNSC is already visibly losing. With the outer colonies being glassed and the military haemorrhaging under a high attrition rate, humanity is forced to begin scorched earth tactics to try and protect the inner colonies. However, out in territory taken by the aliens the impossible has happened. A human insurrectionist settlement has encountered the Covenant and not only survived the encounter but begun trade with them. With news of this treaty reaching both sides in the war agents are deployed to discover the truth behind the matter…
  
  The first thing worth praising the highest about this story is how it manages to juggle almost every element present in the current timeline. Everything from the SPARTAN project to plausible methods for AIs to avoid rampancy are introduced and examined. Minor sections on every side are devoted to this with flashbacks and minor intercuts in the story; yet it never interrupts the narrative flow or even feels overly cluttered. Mostly by connections to the characters.
  
  Details of how failures and troublemakers were dealt with in the SPARTAN Project were introduced with the character Jai-006 thinking back to his past. The scenes there covering his background repeat often overlooked details about the project but also shed light upon the methods used to keep the children in line. A more prominent example is the UNSC’s constant clashes with smugglers, insurrectionists and the colonies which are being abandoned shown through the eyes of Jacob Keyes. Something which also adds a much needed shade of grey to the humans. Many events emphasise upon how the UNSC is far from being the clean cut “good guys” in this matter. It doesn’t bash you over the head with their actions, or scream that the UNSC is morally bankrupt and deserves destruction but does highlight its sins. They’re far less evil than the Covenant but aren’t without their own horror stories.
  
  Speaking of the Covenant, the novel is also responsible for expanding upon the Sangheili (or Elites) mentality and society. For a race who consists entirely of one big a warrior caste and regard zealot as an honourable term, they’re as pious and bombastic as you can imagine. Coming across as some insane hybrid of the Ecclesiarchy and Doctor Who’s Sontarans, to who honour in battle and martial skill means almost everything. While this is taken to the extreme, it works for two specific reasons. The first is that they are written as a species who was shaped into an individual role by others. A race which was used as muscle by the San ‘Shyuum and never permitted to grow beyond feudalism, skipping stages of renaissance and technological development as a result of reliance upon others. Think what Mass Effect’s krogan became as a result of the Salarian’s intervention but to the Nth degree. The second is that it helps make them feel distinctly alien. While not as effective as the first person perspectives of Greg Bear’s Forerunner Saga, the Sangheili think in such an extreme it’s almost impossible to justify on any human level. Rather than just being the usual warrior species tropes like with Klingons, it’s ramped up to such an unfamiliar degree it’s just about believable on some level.
  
  Still, with the good comes the bad. While the story might work due to all the different facets of the universe it explores, it is also spread thinner because of it. It might not break the story but the times when it does deviate and shift focus feel like they would be better suited to a much longer tale. One which could better afford such moments without disrupting the concentration of the plot and making better use of the characters. Speaking of which, the characters themselves are unfortunately forgettable. While most are passable the only ones which feel like they have true meaning are those established in the games and new additions feel like they are there purely to explore aspects of the universe. They don’t individually stand out so much as they do enhance certain details and often characteristics feel overly common or generic; made to better suit their role in the story.
  
  Many characters and plots also end up being very quickly resolved part way through the book or are just dropped entirely. While these are admittedly secondary stories, largely character centric, and give the book some unpredictability their loss still feels pointless. As if some interesting ideas were introduced but then promptly discontinued before they could be fully explored in any significant way.
  
  This also isn’t helped by Tobias Buckell’s writing style which is clearly better suited to ideas or more human touches than events or action scenes. While certain ones do work well as a result of energy and pace, such as one instance with Adriana and a Mongoose quad bike, others feel lacking in scope. Unable to fully convey desperation, continual action or the details and shape of the surroundings. The one major scene which truly worked with his style did because it was more focused upon escape and planning rather than violence or action.
  
  Still, for all these problems The Cole Protocol is still an interesting look into the wider universe of Halo. If you’ve felt that the games were lacking in plot or the universe was simplistic, then definitely try looking at this one. It might surprise you.
• 
  Matthew Ochal

  Why do I do this
• 
  Usamah Moolla

  A perfect show of the inserructionists in the Halo universe as well as developing thel vadam. Does perfect making you feel for the 5 different parties at play
• 
  Ethan

  A solid entry to the Halo series and an interesting look at a unique story early in the Covenant war. Ultimately, it doesn't reach top-tier status due to some poor writing and flat characters.
• 
  Cody

  Imagine you're living behind enemy lines, protecting a small data chip that is vital to get to Earth whilst an alien race wants it enough to attack you and your own domain wants it to trade to the aliens. Imagine you’re a military officer recently taken out of schooling and returned to the skies. Imagine you’re a recently promoted admiral and are assigned to find a human base. These all happen in the book Halo Cole Protocol.
  
  For one thing, I really liked the Halo: Cole Protocol. Halo: Cole Protocol is the 6th book in the Halo series. It takes a bit after Halo: Contact Harvest and takes place in a place called the “Rubble”. The Rubble is a group of asteroids where refugees set up a base after their planet, Madrigal, was glassed [surface burnt to be inhospitable by the Covenant]. I enjoyed the details it presented and it was a good page turner. However, I didn’t like how the book set up chapters.
  
  I enjoyed the details the novel gave. The details aided in describing how the Rubble looked. It also helped set up how Captain Keyes became a prominent officer and some of Thel ‘Vadam’s combat history [Thel being a main character in Halos 2, 3 and 5]. The details help the reader better understand what is going on in the Halo universe and aid in explaining some backstory for important characters to the Halo series. One example of the good details is from page 28: “Jefferies dropped out of his flight plan patter and came in low over a large park, the tops of trees whipping about in the fury of engine backwash. Birds scattered in their wake, rising to the sky in flocks of green and blue.”
  
  I also enjoyed how the book was a page turner. In a few sections, such as chapter thirty, it gives the reader the perspective of another character in an unfortunate situation. When these situations are developed, it left me on a cliffhanger and I kept reading to figure out what happened next! It had many sections like this, which some may enjoy.
  
  However, there was one thing I disliked about the book. The structuring of the chapters. There were many 3 paged chapters, and there were even a couple one paged chapters side by side! I disliked this because it flipped between characters extremely fast. I wish it had more time to develop the chapters and give more information instead of the one-paged chapters. This was the only negative aspect of the book in my opinion.
  
  I really enjoyed reading this novel. It had good details and was a good page turner, but lacked chapter structure. If I could, I would rate this book 4.5 stars because of it having more positive aspects than negative aspects. I would recommend this book to Halo and science-fiction fans. I’d also recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the Halo series’ background, Thel ‘Vadam, Captain Keyes.
• 
  Nick

  This one starts off slowly with (seemingly) unrelated storylines. Once they start coming together the book got better. Overall, the Keyes storyline is the best. It’s supplemented by the Insurrectionist and Covenant politics.
• 
  Cameron Chavez

  I loved this Halo book. It mixes the all of the conflicts of halo all into one book! My favorite part about the book is all of the different viewpoints that are in it.