Reading a Halo novel made me realize that the act of reading anything isn't necessarily better than watching tv.

I've been reading a book called Halo: The Fall of Reach. The reason I was reading it was that I was a fan of the now canceled series on Paramount + of the same name minus "The Fall of Reach." There are a few similarities between what we saw in the series, and what we got on Paramount +.  But the big ideas that are present in The Fall of Reach would have been super costly to pull off (I think) in a television series, and the series looked really good. The fight scenes were fantastic. But the space opera like space battles would have taken a Star Wars level budget, and I don't know if that was ever possible for this television show.

As I was reading the book, I kept thinking: have I ever picked up a book that basically explained exactly what it was in the title? I mean...it's about the fall of Reach to the Covenant, who are these super advanced aliens pushing humans to the brink of extinction. "Reach" is a critical planet in the human civilization, protected by all of the human forces, and housing humanity's most important shipyard facilities. The destruction of Reach is a terrible thing. But usually, in a title, it isn't so obvious, right? It would be like naming Return of the Jedi to The Emperor Dies in the End. That just seems kind of...I dunno...a bit "spoiler-iffic?" But what do I know?

The book itself is decent entertainment. It's a consumable for fans of the franchise. But it isn't high literature. Aside from telling you exactly what it is in the title, it seeks to introduce characters like John a.k.a. "The Master Chief" and "Kelly" (these two are both Spartans) and some military brass who you end up liking because they are very clever, and then a doctor named "Halsey" who is also clever if not a bit unscrupulous. None of the characters are ones you can really like, because they don't have much of a personality. However, they do kick ass and take names repeatedly, which I suppose is what you expect from the Halo franchise. And when you frame your story against the high stakes of Armageddon for humanity, does personality really count? All that matters is that you are good at your job. And there is some deep satisfaction at watching people who are good at their job just go to work.

I do have some criticisms in the reading of the book, though. All of the chapter heads have an official "date" thing and time of events printed in courier font to make it look like someone typed them as official orders, or record-keeping. These things added nothing to the read. But, I get it. The nerds who love Halo want to feel like this world of military "super people" is real. It just got a little bit annoying to slow down and commit to memory when (in the Halo timeline) the last chapter started so that you could say, "Oh, this is just a few hours more" or "wow, this is three years later--I guess nothing happened in that three years except military training." 

And there's also the obvious need to keep these books clean of sexual details and other kinds of things because the audience for the books dovetails to the younger side. The way you write books and stories like that is you provide tons of high stakes combat so that there isn't time to get to know anyone. To quote Jesse "The Body" Ventura in the old movie called Predator, this is the "I ain't got time to bleed" moments of storytelling.

So you have all of these characters with the bodies of Olympians and yet they don't have any sex, don't have any relationships, and don't do anything because they are always fighting. It would seem silly to ask: why are you always fighting? When it is clear that the reason for all of the fighting is that humanity has been pushed to the brink. Duh? Don't you get that? Geez... I find some of this as a convenient excuse for a writer to not have to invest anything in the characters other than "they are kick ass" and I'm going to write the ways in which "they kick ass."

Maybe I wouldn't notice these things if I hadn't gotten old. But who knows? I see a lot these days that makes it harder for a person to suspend disbelief. However, after having read The Fall of Reach, I think I'm more convinced than ever that books aren't a sacred thing. There's this oft repeated mantra that I've run into over the years where someone says, "Any reading is great. That person is at least reading." I disagree.

I literally see no difference in educational content to the pulp fiction of The Fall of Reach to any one of the many Star Wars series on Disney +. Sure, there are no moving pictures, and this kind of book may "stimulate your imagination." But any other benefits you might get from books is woefully absent here. Even Halo's satirical message of fascism buried behind patriotism doesn't seem to translate well unless you realize that "authoritarian rule bad!" and know what to look for. But it certainly doesn't come across as bad. Rather, it seems to come across as desirable. It is entertaining, and it does scratch a kind of itch. Maybe in the end all that matters is that we enjoyed ourselves on empty calories.