By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Just a summary of my arguments.
Firstly, we've got a canonical problem here.
PRIVATE QUARTERS OF FORMER SHIPMASTER JUL 'MDAMA, BEKAN KEEP, MDAMA, SANGHELIOS: JANUARY 26, 2553 IN THE HUMAN CALENDAR.
...
"I don't have time for this," Jul said. "I have to go to the kaidon's assembly. The Arbiter's going to be here soon."
I was under the impression that the Arbiter returned to Sanghelios on March 3rd, 2553, after attending the memorial service on Earth. Rtas says that he wants to see Sanghelios, this implies that neither of them have seen their home planet for a while.
So how can Thel be on Sanghelios in January? That doesn't really make sense.
Now I've heard the argument that Thel landed on Earth and went back to Sanghelios and then back to Earth for the memorial service and then back to Sanghelios... No.
For Thel to have gone back to Earth, he'd have had to go on the Shadow of Intent, that was the only Sangheili ship at Earth during the memorial service. Rtas says he wants to see Sanghelios again to know that it's safe, so what has he been doing in 2 months then? As Ship Master, Rtas would've picked up Thel from Sanghelios and taken him to Earth, yet Thel escaping from the wreckage of the Dawn on Earth and the memorial service happen in a very close time-frame as we can see from the juxtaposed flashback at the end of Halo 3, so he can't have gone back there.
So the book is flawed...
My other complaint is the story itself. Thel and Lord Hood want to sign a peace treaty to ensure that there are peaceful relations between humanity and the Sangheili, and yet, Parangosky & ONI are quite content with causing MORE war and committing espionage against the Sangheili. So they're provoking a race that could be their potential and valuable ally... Okay...
u dumd ONI?
And then there's Halsey. I'm sorry but it just seems like Traviss doesn't quite understand her, we're seeing a completely different character here from what Nylund portrayed in TFOR, FS and GoO. And the worst part of it? It's all for the sake of drama because there's not much else going on in the Dyson Sphere, so there has to be a spontaneous character drama. Halsey doesn't really have any need or motivation to be resentful towards Mendez, she was on perfectly good terms with him in GoO when she knew he was involved in the S-III Project. Why has this suddenly changed? She's basically being demonised for no real reason.
I don't know... I'm not all that excited to be honest, everything I predicted seems to be coming true.