Halo: Bad Blood by Matt Forbeck is a video game tie-in novel based on the Halo game “Halo 5:Guardians”, and the second book in the “Alpha-Nine” trilogy. Following the climatic battle on the Forerunner world of Genesis, The the rouge AI Cortana and her Guardian constructs continue to take over the galaxy. After being rescued by the UNSC Infinity the Spartans of Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris go their separate ways to help in this new war against Cortana, and her Created. When a secret mission is f...

I was skeptical at first due to my misgivings with New Blood, but I liked this installation. Buck has never been my favorite character in the series, but I came out liking him a lot more than when I went in. The story is told well and there is never a slow moment, with some interesting ethical considerations explored and you can really feel the desperate situation humanity is in at this point in the series. This book might not be for the uninitiated in the series, though, with so many character

I had a blast reading this book that I won through the Goodreads Giveaway. It was definitely a step up from the first in this series and the action was intense. The characters and creatures were way more developed in this one. I'd love to see a story like this as an animated movie or Netflix series.

Wow! This is a great book - lots and lots of action, interesting and well-defined characters, an engaging plot. If this is your genre, it has it all and you'll really enjoy it. I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway for this honest review.

“Halo: Bad Blood” is writer Matt Forbeck’s fourth and – I’m not mistaken – currently the furthest-set piece of material released thus far in the “Halo” timeline, taking place immediately after the events of “Halo 5” and detailing the further adventures of Spartan Edward Buck. As a look at the state of the universe in the wake of “Halo 5”s climax, “Bad Blood works slightly better than it does as a fully satisfying story in its own right: Forbeck, for all his skills at interweaving various bits of...

Great pickup from the end of Halo 5. I'm glad Alpha 9 is back together, even if it's a strained partnership. This is a well contained book that doesnt require too much knowledge past ODST and Halo 5. Would only be better if read by Nathan Fillion who plays Buck in the games

As good as this book was, it was set just after Halo 5, and my hatred for that game DID sour my experience with this book. The whole Created drama with Cortana and the Guardians is just not a very compelling narrative to me. Thank god they've gone in the direction of the Banished nowadays, but this book is still held down by the Guardian stuff.That being said, there was enough character work here for me to have a good time. Buck is a great character, and his tumultuous relationship with Mickey i...

Full disclosure: I knew very little about HALO going into this book. I think that impacted my ability to really get what was going on in the story. That said, I really really enjoyed it anyway. Lots of action kept it moving, and it was just tons of fun. I think this would make an excellent television series (assuming it was done with a big enough budget).

A fun, voice driven blast of fresh air to the Halo Universe. The character arcs don't feel as earned as they should, and Buck's constant wise-cracking grated at times, but I cared about the characters and the set-pieces were fun and diverse and always found a way to raise the stakes. Its probably one of the better Halo novels since Glasslands. Highly recommended for Halo fans.

Imagining Nathan Fillion again. Every time I read a book with “Buck” as the main protagonist, I imagine reading it with Nathan Fillion’s voice. The author does such a great job is getting his slang and sentence structure down, that it is impossible to do otherwise.

I listened to this book via Audible.Halo: Bad Blood is very much a story about bringing the band back together, whether they like it or not. The book sees the Alpha Nine team from Halo 3: ODST reunited as they go on a mission that immediately follows the events of Halo 5: Guardians. Cortana has all sentient species on the ropes and of course ONI has an idea of how to fix it.This story is a great follow up in many ways, to the two previously mentioned games and also to Matt Forbeck's earlier nove...

It’s really nice to get a true sequel to Halo 5, especially since we’ve been waiting for infinite for, soon to be, 5 years. If our friend Covid has anything to say about it, that wait could probably be longer.I can only say that I mildly enjoyed this book. It’s good to get some nuance to the Created threat but holy sh*t if the book didn’t bored me. The first half was just a series of fetch quests. ”Go there, get that”, the quest gets compromised, ”Save yourselves”. This was repeated 3 times. In

I feel bad rating this book so low but, unfortunately, it wasn't that enjoyable to me. It's not any fault of Matt Forbeck but a result of the fact the story is intimately and irrevocably tied to HALO: GUARDIANS which I consider to be the nadir of the franchise. This a sequel to HALO 5 and picks up after the events of the game when beloved sci-fi character Cortana is made to make a turn to a bad guy.Matt Forbeck makes the best of events with Nathan Fillion-inspired character Edward Buck being the...

dear Nathan Fillion, as much as I love Scott Brock’s narration, you read the first one, and the character is really you in a Halo skin. Narrate this! Narrate this NOW!

Easily the best Halo novel, if not the best video game novel I have ever read. A big issue which video game adaptations always seem to come across in my experience is difficulty in expressing actual emotions in their characters, especially in the military shooter genre. Characters like the Spartan II's and Marcus Fenix just float from set piece to set piece not feeling anything about whats going on around them. With Halo Bad Blood this isn't the case. Whether its because of Bucks first person pe...

Okay okay yeah maybe this is the second 4 star halo book. I'd give 3.5 stars but I cant because goodreads. Yeah lots of it was still action-y but I love buck and veronica's relationship and I thought the ending was cute. And the fact that this book actually tried to talk about the moral concerns that the prior book (new blood) set up regarding mickey's betrayal and the front, well I thought that was a great way to handle a real topic. Its something I'd love to see more of out of these books. Rea...

A fun mission reviving enjoyable characters from Halo ODSTReally likeable characters. Good fill in between Halo 5 and Halo 6. Explores some relationships and has lots of action. Links alot of lore together, but relies more on story experienced in game and in the "New Blood" book by Matt Forebeck.

Can Spartan Edward Buck let go of the treachery his former Alpha Nine team mate, Mickey Crespo, wreaked when on their last mission he pointed a gun to his head? And how will Buck trust him when they are forced to bring the team back together for their newest ONI mission?If you’ve never played the game or read any of the previous books, for the first few chapters you might feel a bit lost, but Matt Forbeck keeps you entertained with a great story and lots of action. I may not have been a Halo fan...

Slow paced work of useless tangents, more new worlds and everything a halo fan doesn't give damn about. Raises more questions than answers (BTW: it answers nothing). That is if u ever manage to finish the bookUnnecessary characters. Needless expansion of story. None of the important questions were answered. No main characters were in play. Nothing substantial ever happens. There is so much left to explore in the main story arch itself that will not be touched by games but somehow, telling us age...

For those of you out there who are fans of the HALO series and have invested in both the previous HALO books and games, this may be an acceptable read for you. Unlike other series books, which take the time to introduce a new reader to the world and lore, providing at least some level of description and world building, this book doesn't bother. This book assumes you know the physical description of an Unggoy or how the various spacecraft appears in the series, or pretty much anything about the w...