YMMV / Halo: The Fall of Reach

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Catherine Halsey – is she a benevolent scientist who is trying to give the kids a better life and, by extension, save the human race from extinction, or is she just a cold-hearted and methodical bitch who has a near-complete absence of moral fibre and is simply a Well-Intentioned Extremist?
  • Cortana herself wonders if Halsey is pure evil or a Well-Intentioned Extremist after learning what the Spartans went through as children. Her conclusion? Perhaps a little of both.
• First Installment Wins: For Halo novels, this one is generally one of the better regarded novels alongside the other parts of Eric Nylund's informal trilogy (First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx). 343 Industries must think so as well, as the book has been rereleased in various formats three times.
• Funny Moments: The first time John is in MJOLNIR armor, he tries to salute a superior officer… but since he's not used to his physical modifications and the armor, he ends up smacking himself in the face. Not exactly a dignified way to introduce yourself.
• Moment of Awesome: John and the 12-year-old Spartans taking down a bunch of soldiers guarding a Pelican, in full military gear, with nothing but winter clothes, a fake broken leg and a bunch of rocks.
  • The prologue, when Blue Team takes down a thousand Grunts, four plasma turrets, and five Banshees using nothing but what they brought to the battle with them.
  • The Keyes Loop, all done without an AI. That's right, he guessed calculated not only the math needed to pull it off, but correctly predicted just how the enemy would react to his seemingly crazy stunts. Keyes was known as 'The Schoolmaster' but this feat proves just how he can school his foes in space; Easily.
    • It's worth noting that in the Halo 'verse, Covenant ships regularly destroy superior numbers of UNSC ships. Keyes himself notes that it would normally take seven UNSC destroyers to take on the four Covenant ships. He's in a lone destroyer that is smaller, undergunned, and slower than each of the four Covenant ships, and he still wins.
• Narm: The novel outright says that the battle of Sigma Octanus IV (which occurs shortly before Reach) is the first time the UNSC encounters the Hunters, and the first time they encounter Elites is during the Fall of Reach itself, meaning that for 27 years humanity has been fighting legions of Grunts, and that somehow the Covenant didn't feel like deploying their Elite Mooks into battle. This was quickly retconned by subsequent expanded universe material.
• Tear Jerker: The deaths of Sam and Linda, though the latter does come back.
  • Sam’s death is already rough, but somehow the worst part of it is how poorly Kelly takes it.

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