Customer Reviews

Halo: Primordium: Book Two of the Forerunner Saga

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is great backstory to the HALO saga. It really gets into the essence of the whole story. Fantastic read.

Having met, in the first book of this series called "Cryptum", the Didact: who is a Forerunner warrier frozen in the Cryptum, Bornstelllar: the inquisitive young Forerunner who releases him, and Chakas and Riser: two human variations on the planet Erde-Tyrene this book carries on with the discovery of an Autonomous Mechanical Intelligence (Forerunner Monitor) device by a science team.

The monitor contains Chakas' memories and proceeds to describe Chakas memories of his life and what happened to him after the battle at the end of book one.

Along the way the device tells a story that at times the science team finds hard to believe except that some key pieces of information match that from other sources

Chakas story starts with his regaining consciousness on a planet. He was ejected from the Forerunner ship and landed in a protective pod. What he thought was a planet turns out to be a HALO over 30,000 miles in diameter. The people are barely surviving on the HALO and there are experiments being done on them in a place called the Palace of Pain.

Chakas meets Vinnevra and her grandfather called Gamelpar. They had rescued him from his life pod. They are soon exploring the Halo as it not safe where they are and Chakas wants to find Riser. Vinnevra's inner gaes give her guidance where to go, and their journey begins.

It also becomes evident that a planet is heading straight for the HALO which starts to affect the HALO and makes the journey undertaken by Chakras even more tennous.

Greg Bear weaves an intriguing tale as Chakras tells his story of exploring the HALO and of actually meeting a Precursor. The story starts to clarify the Precursor / Forerunner conflict and the Floods connection to it all.

Major players in the conflict are revealed and the story of the Precursors, the Forerunners and Humanity starts to gel.

Who will attain the Mantle, the next level in all living things ?

Will the HALO be destroyed by a collision with a planet ?

Will the device containing Chakras memories reveal long held secrets that will help ONI ?

This book can stand on it's own as a brilliant science fiction story as the author gives us enough background information, however I also highly recommend the first book in the series.

I own all the previous Halo novels and love them all. Having read Cryptum there was no way I would pass this one up. But having read it, I feel like I would have been better off just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia because for 95% of the book nothing happens. And I mean NOTHING.

There are probably 3 or 4 incidents of note to take away from this book but they only comprise a couple dozen or so pages. The rest is just a few humans walking around aimlessly on a Halo. With every passing chapter you have that feeling of some impending excitement but you finish the book and it never comes.

I've just started reading Glasslands and there is more worthwhile story in the first chapter than there was in this whole book. In the end, the biggest waste of money and time since the disaster that was the Halo Encyclopedia. I sincerely hope the 3rd book is better.

Halo Primordium is a really good novel, for those who are so neck deep into the halo universe to have read Cryptum. It continues the story of a secondary character from Cryptum, who has a very different view on the world.

All in all its a good book, but just like cryptum, it feels a little too "alien", with too little visual reference for the readers. For most of us, all we know about the forerunners comes from their architecture and the short glimpse at them in the halo legends anime, and I found that to be quite off setting.