Can I ask what you think ruined the fiction?
I read the book and had no issue with what happened.
Let's see. Traviss basically ruined every single established character from previous books and made some of the dumbest fucking decisions to the Halo canon. Let's make a list.
First off, ONI. What the fuck? No, seriously. What in the flying FUCK!? They want to incite a civil war? Did these morons forget that were it not for the Arbiter and the Elites that the entire Human race would be fucking extinct!? Are you shitting me right now? That'd be like Britan turning on the US at the end of WWII
it's clear that the Elites viewed humanity as a worthy and honorable opponent, based on certain passages from earlier books and stuff that came with the Legendary editions of the games. Indeed, we lasted far longer than any race the Covenant fought before being absolved. By the end of the war, even the youth of Sanghelios, notably N’tho ‘Sraom, were becomign human sympathizers. However in Glasslands, every major Elite character sans the Arbiter feels that humanity is now vermin and must be eliminated. Somehow I doubt Bungie intended the alliance between the Elites and Humanity to become this hostile, drama-ladden relationship when the remarks of several Elites in the novels, the Conversations and the growing human sympathizer movement among the Elites is taken into question.
Now obviously, of course these guys have been fighting for 30 years and they shouldn't just automatically be best friends, but why the fuck would either side want to fuck with the other for any logical reason.
1)The elites were lied too in attacking humanity. Continuing with that line of thinking of "Oh, Humans need to be wiped out." is essentially saying "Hey Prophet of Truth, even though you lied to us and nearly wiped our kind out, let's continue to serve your will indirectly by being morons.
2)Humanity is recovering and all ONI wants to think about is causing a civil war between the Elites? At the very least they should be neutral. Not allies...but not enemies either.
Dr. Halsey: The actions of Dr. Catherine Halsey have always been shaded in grey. Yes, she kidnapped children, cloned them and turned them into the Spartan-IIs. However, she did this because it was the only good option left to combat a colony-wide insurrection that had no qualms regarding nuking colonies killing millions of innocent civilians, bombing public areas that kill innocents just to get at a single UNSC or CMA official, and hijacking ships and killing the crew.
At least she cared about the children, knowing each one by name, not their number, in and out of their armor, testing the augmentations before administering them and by giving their parents closure with the clones. However in Glasslands, no positive opinion is given to Halsey. She is reduced to a paranoid, emotional wreak who everyone hates because of the S-II program. Meanwhile Colonel Ackerson creates suicide soldiers to merely buy time for the UNSC and nobody seems all that mad about him, heck Parandosky was going to give him the S-IV program.
Even Mendez hates her? His hands are just as dirty as hers as he fucking trained the Spartans themselves and now he's calling her out on something he had a more hands on approach with?
[*]Lucy Punched Dr. Halsey. A SPARTAN....PUNCHED....a FEMALE CIVILIAN. And all she got was a broken nose or black eye?! What the fuck is this bullshit?
[*]Humanity recovering and reverse-engineering Forerunner technology in a ridiculous amount of time. Even if you do accept the handwave that "Oh Humans are the heirs to the Forerunners of course they'd understand it better than others", humanity was almost at the brink of extinction. Any form of common sense would be to rebuild the fucking basics before jumping head first into reverse engineering ancient technology that literally NO ONE understands...at all.
[*]Spartan IVs existing period. Especially in the incredibly short amount of time.
[*]Great Schism essentially became pointless.
Basically the whole book is "Halsey's a monster who deserves to die!" and "Poor Spartans, I just wanna hold 'em and tell 'em it'll be okay!" every other line. Worse, oh so much worse, Travis not only basically retcons Halsey's entire attitude and reasons toward doing it, but she makes her an idiot who can't defend herself against those who accuse her. The same people, in fact, that helped her carry the whole thing out. And then did it again. And again. And again.
The Conflict Ball that drives some of the plot is braindead stupid. The hypocrisy is insufferable.
343 may have *got* Halo on a Gameplay and Visual level, but if Glasslands is a sign of what's to come for the actual story, then the series died at Halo 3 in my eyes.
