Great Premise Fails to DeliverThe best part of THE HALO REVELATIONS turned out to be the Amazon-written descriptive blurb. There is nothing inaccurate about the blurb, but it contains just about all there is to the novel. I should also note that THE HALO REVELATIONS probably should be marketed as YA fiction as one of the principal protagonists is a 15 year old boy who is at least as clever and brave as any of the other adult protagonists.Young Nick Farrady is the son of famed archaeologist Doug Farraday who is killed in an accident in the Himalayas just after finding the eponymous crown-like Halo. A decade later, video of Doug dancing around and acting like a lunatic while wearing the Halo surfaces on YouTube, destroying his reputation and making Nickk and his family the community laughingstock. Following up on leads from his father's old partner Henry Applegate, the author of "Ancient Aliens"-type pseudo-science books who had put Doug up to the Tibetan journey in the first place, Nick finds the recently returned Halo, tries it on, sees amazing things and sets out to get the Halo to some scientists from SETI who will help him decide what to do with it.Unfortunately, after this great set-up, most of the rest of the novel entails the FBI, NSA and other agencies, some benign, some not so benign who all want control of the Halo. There is very, very little science in the science fiction. The SETI scientists manage to find a tight beam laser signal coming from the Pleiades, but no attempt is made to decode the signal and find out what is being said! There is basically nothing about the technology behind the Halo, or what its original purpose was. About the only "research" that author had to do to write this was read a few "Chariots of the Gods" - type books and a couple of Wikipedia entries. All of the potentially interesting stuff - who were the aliens, where are they now, why did they leave, what were the other artifacts that they left behind that are only briefly alluded to near the end of the novel - is simply not dealt with. Instead, the bulk of the novel is a mix of government procedural and lots of verbiage about what the revelation of the existence of the Halo could mean to the world.As I mentioned, this is written (intentionally or not) for a YA audience. The writing is fine - nothing wrong with it, but it is exceedingly simple. The language is absolutely squeaky clean, even when realism would demand a few four letter words in the dialogue, and there are no scenes containing sex or violence or anything that I wouldn't want my 9 year old to be reading. All in all, pretty disappointing and likely of interest only to those who enjoy pseudo-science, not real science fiction.J.M. Tepper "The Halo Revelations" by J.S. Colley is an interesting novel focused on the possibility that aliens may have visted mankind in the past and influenced their evolution and culture through these interactions. I have always been fascinated with the possibility of extraterrestial life and this novel tackled this subject in a fairly interesting way unlike many sci-fi books that focus on aliens waging war on Earth or some futuristic setting of humans interacting with aliens.While the novel features viewpoints from antique dealer and author Henry Applegate, NSA agent Ronnie Vagnetti and Liz Farraday and SETI scientist Jane Carter. The main character and the focus of the story is Nick Farraday, the son of Liz and famous archaeologist Doug, and his quest to prove the validity of his father's discovery of an ancient alien artifact."The Halo Revelations" is an entertaining read that holds the reader's attention and makes it hard to put down. However, early parts of the novels seemed to be a little lacking. While the danger facing Henry Applegate and the Farraday is evident due to the actions of many shadowy groups trying to locate the object, it seems like these situations were resolved a little too quickly and without much difficulty. Despite some minor issues I had with the novel in the beginning, Colley did an excellent job with the final half of the novel. Colley introduces interesting histories of some of the secret societies with ties to the object and thought provoking questions about the origin and intent of the object discovered by Nick's father. The ending left plenty of room for sequels and I hope Colley follows up on these other orders and answers to unanswered questions such as the one posed by some of the characters: if aliens had visited Earth in the past, why did they leave and will they come back?Regardless of whether or not you believe in the ancient alien theory, "The Halo Revelations" is an entertaining novel with an interesting premise.
What do You think about The Halo Revelations (2012)?
2.5 stars. I really don't understand the high reviews on Amazon and here . . . .
—xmfh
Lots of conspiracy theories thrown around made it an interesting read.
—Fey
