“The Ballad of Halo Jones, Volume 3” by Alan Moore, Ian Gibson

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Rating: 3/5 Stars

The third book of the Ballad of Halo Jones, this one initially finds her down and out. Out of funds and options, she is now stuck on a nowhere planet and drinking to forget her sorrows. But change would come when the opportunity for a job comes along.

But the job offer would actually be enlistment (via the shipmate she met in the previous book) into the military conflict between Earth and the worlds of the Tarantula Nebula. She gets basic training and is assigned to patrol duty. She then gets to see first hand the conflict that is happening and wonders whether it is worth it.

When she gets sent to the planet Moab, a heavy gravity world that plays havoc with time, she begins to question the futility of war but gets involved in a relationship with the general in charge of the war. When the war winds down, questions begin to be asked about the general’s methods, especially one that Halo discovers, to her horror, that she was involved with on the cruise ship in the previous book. At the end, she makes a decision about her relationship with the general and decides to make her own path in the galaxy again.

A book that is darker than the previous two, this one shows a Halo that now world-weary and disappointed with her life. Whatever happens to her from now on is not yet known as future planned episodes of Halo Jones’ story were not written, but if there were, they would surely explore yet more fascinating aspects of her life.

Book read from 2020/08/06 to 2020/08/10