The Human Division - John Scalzi

   2013; 493 pages.  Book 5 (out of 6) in the “Old Man’s War” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Military Sci-Fi; Science Fiction.  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    One of the Colonial Union’s (“CU”) spaceships has disappeared!

 

    Okay, that’s not totally unheard-of.  The galaxy is a humongous place, with lots of civilizations and lots of commerce, so it’s not surprising that there are lots of space pirates preying on far-flung commercial freighters, easily avoiding the too-few patrolling military vessels.

 

   But this spaceship was different: it was carrying a top-tier CU Ambassador to a top-secret rendezvous with an alien race called the Utche to open negotiations concerning mutual defense.  The CU ship arrived first, and while waiting for the Utche, suddenly vanished!

 

    Of course, it’s also possible they were ambushed by some unknown enemy and vaporized into nothingness.  We better send a replacement ship, with a replacement ambassador there right away.  It’s vital that we commence developing that treaty with the Utche.

 

    And while we’re in the neighborhood, let’s do a search for the missing ship’s “black box”.  If we find one, it’ll be a sign that someone obliterated the ship with a loss of all hands aboard.  And then we'll have to figure out who did such a dastardly deed.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Human Division is the fifth, and penultimate, book in John Scalzi’s space opera series, “Old Man’s War”.  Its main focus is the galactic rivalry between the Colonial Union, mostly humanoids, and the Conclave, a vast confederation of several hundred alien races, almost all of them non-humanoids.  Surprisingly, at least for those who aren’t reading the series in order, Earth has yet to commit either of the two alliances, ever since finding out that the CU had been using them as a "breeding planet" for a very long time.

 

    Due to the book’s structure (more on this later), there are a whole bunch of characters to meet and greet, but the six main ones are Wilson and Schmidt, Coloma and Abumwe, and Egan and Rigney.  I found the friendly banter among all of them immensely entertaining.  The character development of both the major and minor players is excellent, and thanks to the diverse makeup of the Conclave, we are introduced to more than a dozen fascinating extraterrestrial species, albeit often in just a cursory manner.

 

    The two main plotlines are: a.) who is manipulating the enmity between the Conclave and the Colonial Union, and why?; and b.) will the Earth and the Colonial Union kiss and make up?  The book’s title alludes to the latter plotline.

 

    I liked the “talking baseball” dialogue used to determine if certain suspects were indeed Earthlings as they claimed.  I chuckled at what tripped them up – they thought the Chicago Cubs had yet to win a World Series after more than a century of frustration.  In Scalzi’s timeline, the Cubs had triumphed two years earlier, thus tripping up the suspects.  In actuality, although the “Cubs curse” was still in effect when Scalzi wrote The Human Division in 2013, they won it all in 2016, which invalidates this portion of Scalzi’s story.

 

    The ending is suitably tense and exciting, but also disappointing in that it leaves both main plotlines unresolved.  Further, the overarching storyline about life-and-death in the “Old Man’s War” future, hasn’t been advanced one bit.  I agree with other reviewers, The Human Division is really just an anthology containing 15 short stories, all set in this galactic world that Scalzi created.  The book’s title should be something like “Tales of the Colonial Union”.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Idiosyncratic (adj.) : peculiar; individual; distinctive.

Others: Legerdemain (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,517 ratings and 668 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.08*/5, based on 30,280 ratings and 1,653 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m ruminating on my life, and karma,” Wilson said.  “And what I must have done in a previous life to deserve being spit on by an alien species as part of a diplomatic ceremony.”

    “It’s because the Farnutian culture is so tied to the sea,” Schmidt said.  “Exchanging the waters of their homeland is a symbolic way to say our fates are now tied together.”

    “It’s also an excellent way to spread the Farnutian equivalent of smallpox,” Wilson said.

    “That’s why we got shots,” Schmidt said.  (pg. 12)

 

    “We just got our new mission assigned to us.”

    “Really,” Wilson said.  “Does this one involve me being held hostage?  Or possibly being blown up in order to find a mole in the Department of State?  Because I’ve already done those.”

    “I’m the first to acknowledge that the last couple of missions we’ve had have not ended on what are traditionally considered high notes,” Schmidt said.  Wilson smirked.  “But I think this one may get us back on the winning track.  You know of the Icheloe?”

    “Never heard of them,” Wilson said.

    “Nice people,” Schmidt said.  “Look a little like a bear mated with a tick, but we can’t all be beautiful.”  (pg. 220)

 

“How do we feel about ghosts?” (…) “I prefer my dead to stay dead.”  (pg. 348)

    Other than the major issue of the “anthology” aspect of The Human Division, which we've already discussed, the quibbles are minor.  The writing is clean - just 7 cusswords in the first 10% of the book and no R-rated situations that I recall.

 

    Some of the episodes – specifically numbers 2, 10, and 11 – are really tangential to the main storyline.  Episode 10 is particularly irrelevant, chronicling Hart Schmidt’s going home to spend the holiday “Harvest Day” with his family.

 

    There are a couple typos – soliders/soldiers (pg. 86) and It it/If it (pg. 444) which is embarrassing for a publishing-house-issued paperback.  But we’re talking about Tor Books here, and their proofreaders have a long history of shoddy editing.

 

    It was nice to see General Gau show up as a recurring character, but sadly, neither John Perry nor Zoe make even a cameo appearance.  And lastly and leastly: the goat dies.

 

    6 Stars.  I get the feeling that The Human Division was a literary experiment by John Scalzi.  If so, then for me as well as a number of other reviewers, it fell flat.  Plotlines go unresolved, dozens of pages are wasted on tangential stories, and there’s not even any continuity from one episode to the next.  What saves this book, however, is John Scalzi’s writing and storytelling skills – the guy is one heck of a gifted author.  I have one more book to go in this series; here's hoping it isn't subject to any writing tomfoolery.

Fuzzy Nation - John Scalzi

   2011; 301 pages.  New Author? : No.  Science Fiction - Colonization; Hard Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    This just might be the most lucrative day in Jack Holloway’s life.  And that’s saying something since he used to be a lawyer, and even now he’s a licensed contractor for ZaraCorp, hired to do prospecting and surveying on Zara XXIII, a remote and undeveloped planet some 178 light-years from Earth.

    Jack’s about to set off four high-explosive charges in a nearby cliff that might, per his surveying experience, contain a vein of highly-prized sunstones.  If this proves out, Jack’s entitled to 0.25% of the profits garnered from ZaraCorp mining them, which may sound miniscule, but it’s not.

    Alas, Jack does not always play by the rules.  He’s about to let his dog, Carl, do the actual detonating, and ZaraCorp, always sensitive to its safety record, has rules against that.  ZaraCorp is also extremely sensitive to any actions undertaken on its behalf that might be construed as deliberately damaging of the native ecology on these far-flung planets.  Jack can be summarily fired for any violations of these policies.

    But hey, Jack and Carl know what they’re doing (well, Jack does anyway.  Carl just does it for the doggy treat reward), and if everything goes right, four small rips will appear in the wall of the cliff, just large enough for Jack to see if any sunstones are buried within.

    What’s the worst that could possibly happen?

What’s To Like...

    Fuzzy Nation is a “reimagining” (so sez John Scalzi) or a “reboot” (so sez Wikipedia) of H. Beam Piper’s 1962 classic Little Fuzzy, which I read way back in 2011 and is reviewed here.  So it’s a retelling, and not a sequel, of the original tale.  The protagonist, Jack Holloway, is the same, as are a couple of the Fuzzys, but all the other characters are new.  Similarly, the general storyline is also retained, but all the details thereof are new and technologically up-to-date.  The Fuzzys now like to watch Ewoks drop rocks on Stormtrooper heads in old Star Wars episodes, and Holloway likes to listen to audiobooks when he’s traveling.

    The central theme is: what qualities must a species have to be labeled sentient?  To put it a bit more crudely, when we land on a new planet and encounter living creatures, how do we determine whether to communicate with them or eat them?  There are lots of possible factors, but the one that everyone agrees on is: the species must be capable of speech.

    As usual, the dialogue has lots of John Scalzi wit in it, the pacing is brisk, and the characters are all "gray", which I always like.  Our protagonist, Jack Holloway, is a bit of a butthead, and both the good guys and bad ones are interesting to tag along with.  The settings are limited: a couple places on Zara XXIII, and that’s it.  Ditto for the critters: the only ones we meet are humans, Fuzzys, zararaptors, and nimbus floaters.   

    The main storyline revolves around trying to determine if the Fuzzys are sentient, but there are several secondary plot threads, such as whether Jack and his ex-girlfriend Isabel will get back together, whether Jack and ZaraCorp will get rich, and what will happen to the Fuzzys afterward, no matter how their sentience hearing turns out.

    The ending is adequate – you sorta know what the trial decision will be, but the fun is figuring out what kind of evidence will be presented.  The judge who presides over the hearing is one of my favorite characters, she's always in control of things but sometimes just barely.  There are a couple of neat plot twists, but they occur mostly in the secondary plot threads, and in the epilogue.

Excerpts...

    When one lands on the jungle floor with a skimmer, via crash or otherwise, it makes a terrific racket.  Most of the nearby creatures, evolutionarily designed to equate loud noise with predatory action and other dangers, will bolt to get out of the way.  But eventually they come back.  The ones that are actual predators come back sooner, intuiting in their predatory way that a big loud noise might, when finished, result in some small helpless creature being wounded or slowed down enough for it to be picked off without too much struggle.

    What this meant for Holloway was that he likely had two minutes, give or take ninety seconds, to set up the emergency perimeter fence.  After that, something large and hungry would definitely be on its way to see what might be for lunch.  (pg. 112)

    “What’s your general opinion of Mr. Holloway?” Meyer asked.

    “Am I allowed to use profanity?” Bourne asked.

    “No,” Soltan said.

    “Then it’s best to say that our relationship has been a tense one,” Bourne said.

    “Any particular reason?” Meyer asked.

    “How much time do you have?” Bourne said.

    “Just hit the highlights,” Meyer said.

    “He’s lax with CEPA and ZaraCorp regulations, he’s argumentative, he tries to lawyer everything, he ignores me when I tell him he can’t do things, and he’s just all-around a jerk,” Bourne said, looking at Holloway.

    “Any positive qualities?” Meyer asked, slightly bemused.

    “I like his dog.”  (pg. 244)

“Squids don’t make sandwiches.”  (pg. 104 )

    I had a couple of quibbles, most of them minor.  There’s a bunch of cussing in the book (I counted 13 instances in the first 50 pages), but it needs to be said that the target audience here are adult readers, not the YA audience H. Beam Piper wrote for. 

    The storyline mentions two other sentient races that we Earthlings had already encountered in our stellar travels: the Urai and the Negad, and what the factors were that made us conclude they were sentient.  It would’ve been neat to work them into the storyline somehow, but alas, that doesn't happen.  I think this is Piper’s fault more than Scalzi’s though.

    Finally, because this is a reimagining/reboot, if you’ve read Little Fuzzy, you kinda know how the storyline is going to unfold.  In the Author’s Note, at the book’s beginning, John Scalzi gives H. Beam Piper’s version due praise (Fuzzy Nation was authorized by the H. Beam Piper estate), but this is one of those rare situations where it’s probably best to either one, but not both.

    Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading Scalzi's reboot, although that was perhaps helped by the fact that it’s been nine years since I read H. Beam Piper's version.  One tends to forget a lot of the details in any book after that amount of time.

    8 Stars.  Fuzzy Nation might be a bit redundant, but it’s still an entertaining read due to John Scalzi’s writing skills.  Add 1 Star if you’ve never read Little Fuzzy, you're going to really enjoy this book.

Zoe's Tale - John Scalzi

    2008; 400 pages.  Book 4 (out of 6) in the Old Man’s War series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Military Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

    Zoe Boutin-Perry is a lucky girl.  The Chosen One.  

    She’s the adopted daughter of Major John Perry and Lieutenant Jane Sagan, the husband/wife team of colony leaders on Huckleberry, a colony on a faraway planet.  But she’s also the biological daughter of the late Charles Boutin, who gave the alien race called the Obin that which we call “consciousness”.  The Obin revere her because of this “gift” from her dad and have sworn to defend and protect her no matter what.

    By treaty, the Obin have been permitted to assign two of their kind as bodyguards to Zoe, with the provision that the pair are also allowed to monitor and record Zoe’s feelings as she grows up.   The Obin may have consciousness now, but they sorely lack any emotions.  They are eager to learn how to “feel” human.

    All of this makes Zoe an important player in galactic politics.  Certain alien empires, by taking her hostage, could gain important leverage in the galaxy; and killing her might have some military advantages.  But there's a cost, at least in Zoe's mind.  The presence of two hulking, powerful alien bodyguards makes finding and keeping a boyfriend a daunting task.  No one wants to be killed because his kiss was erroneously interpreted as a hostile act.  So it’s not surprising that Zoe has a secret desire.

    To just be a normal teenager.  With normal friends, with no one trying to kidnap or kill her, and with a normal boyfriend.

    Good luck with that, Zoe.

What’s To Like...

    Zoe’s Tale is the companion to the previous book in the series, The Last Colony (reviewed here).  It takes place at the same time, and in the same setting, but is told from the viewpoint of Zoe, the daughter of the two protagonists.  John Scalzi divides it into three parts, namely:

    Part 1:  (pgs. 1-128) : The resettlement move from Huckleberry to Roanoke.

    Part 2:  (pgs. 129-280) : The first year on Roanoke.  Life without electronics.

    Part 3:  (pgs. 281-400) : Zoe’s diplomatic mission.

    Most of what I liked in this book is a repeat of the good things about The Last Colony.  There are crazy-kewl critters, well-developed characters, and a blurring of the difference between a good guy/creature and a bad guy/creature.  The “how can we live without our electronics?” theme is once again deftly and lightheartedly explored, and this time it’s supplemented by Zoe’s personal struggle to come to grips with “why can’t I just be allowed to live a normal life?” motif.

     As in any John Scalzi novel, there is an abundance of wit, perhaps even a bit more here since we’re following a bunch of sassy teenagers and their interactions.  There’s also some a couple of romances to follow, and Enzo’s love poem “Belong” (pg 298) is a powerful bit of prose.  It’s fun to watch Hickory and Dickory, the two Obin bodyguards who are also assigned to learn all about human emotions.  They struggle with the complexities of romance, since they’re hermaphroditic.

    Cusswords are both rare and mild, and mostly spoken by Zoe.  It’s nothing you wouldn’t hear in any normal YA conversation.  I liked the role the Colonial Mennonites play, and laughed at the term “Roanokapella”.  The book is written entirely in the 1^st-person POV (Zoe’s), and the chapters are reasonably short: 25 of them (plus a prologue) to cover 400 pages.  The author’s “Acknowledgements” section (pgs. 401-406) is worthwhile reading.

    The ending was a mixed bag for me.  I found the Action parts a bit too conveniently contrived, but OTOH the titular “Zoe’s Tale” resolution was great.  This is both a standalone novel and part of a completed, 6-book series.

Kewlest New Word …

Proscribed (past participle) : forbidden; condemned; denounced.

Excerpts...

    “At least I’d get to see you every once in a while.”

    I didn’t have a good answer to that.  So I just gave Enzo a kiss.

    “Look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad or guilty or whatever,” Enzo said, when I was done.  “But I would like to see more of you.”

    “That statement can be interpreted in many ways,” I said.

    “Let’s start with the innocent ones,” Enzo said.  “But we can go from there if you want.”  (pg. 198)

    This General Gau was in his way a remarkable person.  He wasn’t like one of those tin-pot dictators who got lucky, seized a country and gave themselves the title of Grand High Poobah or whatever.  He had been an actual general for a people called the Vrenn, and had won some important battles for them when he decided that it was wasteful to fight over resources that more than one race could easily and productively share: when he started campaigning with this idea he was thrown into jail.  No one like a troublemaker.  (pg. 273)

“He writes me poems.  I document his physical ineptitude.  That’s how the relationship works.”  (pg. 121)

    The big issue I had with Zoe’s Tale, and one that can’t be circumvented is: If the reader has read The Last Colony (and I have), then there really are no twists, surprises, and/or tension in the storyline.  You’ve read it all before.

    I like that the author takes the time to address the storytelling omissions from the previous book (which he recounts in the Acknowledgements), but perhaps it would’ve been more effective to just issue a new version of The Last Colony.  Yes, as John Scalzi points out, that would mean lengthening the book.  But the critter-danger episode is hastily resolved here, and Zoe’s diplomatic efforts, part 3 in this book, would only add about 120 powerful pages to the story.

    So the 320-pages of The Last Colony would now become, say, a 460-page tome.  That’s not much longer than Zoe’s Tale, which is 400 pages long.  It would also negate the other issue I had with Zoe’s Tale: there just isn’t  much action in it.

    6½ Stars.  If you’ve read the first three books in this series, you can skip Zoe’s Tale without missing anything vital to the overall plotline.  If you’ve read only the first two books, then you can choose either The Last Colony or this book for the next part of the saga.   You can even read all four books, as I did, and be adequately entertained despite encountering nothing new.  John Scalzi's writing skills apparently are sufficient for telling the same story twice.

The Collapsing Empire - John Scalzi

   2017; 329 pages.  Book One of a yet-to-be-named series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Epic Science Fiction; Intrigue.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    It’s all about the Flows.

    The Flows are a galactic “stream” (for lack of a better term) that allow interstellar travel.  They’re not a wormhole, nor are they magic.  You don’t instantly transport to some way-out-there corner of the galaxy.  But a trip that would normally take thousands of years now can be done in weeks, months, or just a year or two, all by entering a Flow at one of its portals.

    If the exit portal of a Flow is close to a planetary system, then galactic exploration and settlement are possible.  Of course, most planets do not sustain life, so “settlement” usually entails building and living in a complex underground.  To date, only one planet beside a Flow, a far-flung place called “The End” sustains terrestrial life.  But all the Flows have a portal close to one planet, appropriately dubbed the “Hub”. Alas, it is uninhabitable, so an orbiting space station, Xi’an, has been constructed above it, in addition to the underground metropolis.

    Once in a great while the Flows “shift”.  The Flow to Earth did just that, quite some time ago, cutting our mother planet off completely from the rest of the colonies.  Its civilization collapsed in short order.  Since then one other colony has also lost its Flow.

    But now there is an astrophysicist who's doctoral thesis claims the rate and degree of shifting is about to speed up.  Her calculations indicate that poor old, out-of-the-way End will soon be the new Hub for all the Flows.  A sobering hypothesis.

    Maybe someone should peer-review that thesis.

What’s To Like...

    The Collapsing Empire is the start of a new series by John Scalzi, which will at least be a trilogy.  There’s a lot of worlds-building to be done, and a lot of characters to meet and greet.  In a nutshell, there are three main protagonists – Kiva, Cardenia, and Marce, and three main antagonists – the Nohamapetan siblings – Ghreni, Nadashe, and Amit.

    The overarching storyline concerns how the collapse of the Flows is going to affect civilization.  The hypothesis presented about this is that everyone is interdependent for survival.  Indeed, the confederation of all the colonies is called the Interdependency.  The character development is superb, as is the storytelling.  If you’ve read other books by Scalzi, you’ll expect this of him, and he does not disappoint.  The baddies are just as resourceful as the good guys.  Well, some of them are, and if you’re one of the less-resourceful ones, at least make sure you can follow instructions.

    There’s a nice balance of Action and Intrigue, and the Science Fiction is, for the most part, “Hard”.  There are no extraterrestrials (at least, so far), and the only exotic fauna/flora I recall is haverfruit.

    I liked the “network seed implantations”, which allow the reigning emperox to communicate with computer projections of all the past rulers.  This same sort of concept was used in Harvest Of Stars, which I read recently and is reviewed here.  The names of the spaceships were also really kewl: “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby”, “No, Sir, Don’t Mean Maybe”, “Some Nerve!”, et.al.  And the importance of Peer Review is rarely seen in sci-fi stories; its appearance here was a nice touch.

    The Collapsing Empire is a quick and easy read, despite having a complex plotline.  There’s a new cosmos with lots of new people to get acquainted with, and John Scalzi kept my interest from beginning to end.  There’s also quite a bit of sex, mostly initiated by one character, but I found that to be amusing, not objectionable.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Squick (v.) : to cause (someone) to feel intense disgust; to cause psychological discomfort.  (the word has only been around since the 1990’s.)

Others : Heuristic (adj.);Assonant (adj.); Cockwomble (n.; a Britishism).

Excerpts...

    “You’re traveling light.”

    “My other bag got boosted.”

    Ndan nodded.  “Sucks.  When you get squared away go to the quartermaster and get a new kit.  You’ll be charged extortionate rates but that’s your problem.  You got marks?”

    “A few.”

    “If you’re short, come find me.  I can lend.”

    “That’s very kind.”

    “No it’s not.  It’s business.  My interest rates are also extortionate.”  (pg. 177)

    ”You want to risk a lot on a doctoral thesis, sis.”

    Nadashe shrugged.  “Worst-case scenario, we’re wrong about the shift.  The result is you’re the Duke of End and I’m the Imperial consort.”

    “Actually the worst-case scenario is you don’t marry Rennered and Ghreni is arrested for treason, and the shift happens anyway,” Amit pointed out.

    “You’re not helping,” Ghreni said, to his brother.  (pg. 226)

 I am emperox of all humanity, and my life sucks.  (pg. 258)

    There are some negatives.  There is an abundance of cussing, mostly from the mouth of Kiva.  I wasn’t offended, but it did feel overdone.  Also, the publisher is Tor Books, and that seems to always mean a poor job of editing.  Here, a character’s name “Jansen” becomes “Jensen” a mere eleven pages later.  And pluralizing “emperox” becomes “emperoxs”, not “emperoxes”.  These are sloppy things, but minor.

    A more serious issue is one raised by a number of reviewers at Amazon: that there isn’t really an ending, just a pause in the storyline.

    Well, that’s a valid criticism, but to be fair, the book does end at a logical point.  The Collapsing Empire is not a standalone novel, but at least it doesn’t close with a cliffhanger scenario.  It kind of reminded me of the way The Fellowship of The Ring, Book 1 of LOTR, finishes.  Phase 1 is done; read the next book for Phase 2.  I suppose if Tolkien can get away with it, so can Scalzi.  But it is disappointing.

    8 Stars.  Subtract 1 star if you can’t stand novels that aren’t standalones.  My advice is: wait three or four years until the series is complete, then borrow the books from your local library.

The Last Colony - John Scalzi

    2007; 320 pages.  Book 3 (out of 6) in the Old Man’s War series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Military Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    For John Perry and his wife Jane, life in the colony Huckleberry is just about perfect.  They’ve both retired from the Colonial Defense Forces, which means they had to give up their synthetically enhanced (and green) fighting bodies. But it was worth it, and now they're content to watch their daughter Zoe grow up in a normal environment.

    Ah, but leave it to the CDF to come calling to try to sweet-talk them into a new adventure.  No, it won’t be in the armed forces again.  All the CDF wants them to do is to head a brand new seed settlement on a brand new world.  There’s really no risk; it’s a planet the Obin have willingly given to the humans in exchange for a different one.

    Of course, the CDF always has an ulterior motive for everything they do.  And they’ve decided to name this new settlement “Roanoke”, after the legendary “lost colony” back on Earth.

    Hmmm.  I wonder why they’d choose the name of a failed colony?

What’s To Like...

    The Last Colony is the third book in John Scalzi’s tremendously popular (just try to get copies of them from your library without putting a hold on them) Old Man’s War series.  Structurally, it reminds me of the first book – there’s not a lot of action at first as Scalzi sets the stage and our two protagonists help their settlers start building civilization from scratch on a new planet.  But just like in the first book – if you are patient, the thrills and spills and kills arise eventually, in abundance, and just keep on going up through the final page.

    The world-building is, as expected with a Scalzi novel, detailed and believable.  I liked the “fur trees” on Roanoke, as well as the new critters – fanties, yotes, and whatever long-clawed things made those scratches on the settlement’s walls.  Once again we are treated to an array of interplanetary races – the Obin, the Arrisians, the Whaid, and four or five others.

    The best part of the world-building is the characters themselves.  John, Jane, and Zoe we already know.  But is Manfred Trujillo a help at Roanoke or a snake in the grass?  Ditto for Generals Gau and Rybicki.  The former is in theory a foe, and the latter an ally.  But those designations get delightfully blurred.  And if Hickory, Dickory, and Savitri don’t make you chuckle at times, something’s wrong.

    Finally, there’s the twists and turns in the plotline and the multiple layers of deception.  Everyone has hidden agendas, and it seems the closer they are to John and Jane – and especially Zoe – the less they can be trusted.  The Obin rules for Hickory and Dickory protecting Zoe may be amusing, but if saving Zoe means killing John and Jane, they will do it.

Excerpts...

    Gau’s lieutenant approached him.  “What did he mean when he said you’ll hear his answer, General?” he asked.

    “They chant,” Gau said, and pointed toward the colony, still under spotlight.  “Their highest art form is a ritualized chant.  It’s how they celebrate, and mourn, and pray.  Chan was letting me know that when he’s done talking with his colonists, they would chant their answer to me.”

    “Are we going to hear it from here?” the lieutenant asked.

    Gau smiled.  “You wouldn’t be asking that if you’d ever heard a Whaidi chant, Lieutenant.”  (pg. 167)

    “You don’t trust him, “ Jane said.

    “Let’s just say I have concerns,” I said.  “Rybicki didn’t go out of his way to offer up anything, either.  I asked him if he thought the Conclave would let us just walk away from this planet if we wanted to, and he suggested that they wouldn’t.”

    “He lied to you,” Jane said.

    “He chose to respond differently than total honesty would dictate,” I said.  “I’m not sure that’s exactly a lie.”  (pg. 187)

“There’s a goat in your office.”  “I thought we’d sprayed for those.”  (pg. 4)

    John Scalzi’s writing is once again superb, but this was the first book in the series where I felt the storytelling was at times rushed and disjointed.  Opportunities for excitement were missed, and plot holes developed.

    In the former category, Zoe gets sent on a diplomatic mission critical to Roanoke’s survival.  But she’s just a kid; so will she be in over her head?  Will there be witty repartee?  Will she have difficulty winning over the person she is meeting?  We’ll never know, since Scalzi zips straight to the result of her diplomatic task, skipping all details in between.

    The plot holes are even more vexing.  At least one of the indigenous species on Roanoke’s planet is both sentient and savage; and gave the humans all the trouble they could handle in the first encounter.  Kewlness. But then they completely disappear from the story, and their threat is thereafter totally ignored by the colonists.  WTF?

    But these are afterthoughts that only arose when I was done reading the book.  Overall, The Last Colony is an exciting page-turner that kept me up way past my bedtime as I wondered how the human race was going to avoid being blasted into stardust for their indiscretions.

    8 Stars.  Listen, The Last Colony wasn't quite as good as the first two books, but it still kept me on the edge of my seat.  And frankly, maintaining the level of excellence of Books 1 and 2 (reviewed here and here) borders on the impossible.  So do yourself a favor - read this series in order, so you can see right away Scalzi at his best.

The Android's Dream - John Scalzi

   2006; 394 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Thriller.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    It’s all about the sheep.

    But not just any old sheep; a very rare and genetically-engineered breed of sheep (it has blue wool) called the Android’s Dream.  The alien Nidu are demanding that Earth supply an Android’s Dream to them, as compensation for a diplomatic incident: one of our ambassadors murdered one of their ambassadors, and it falls upon the State Department’s Harry Creek to go find and procure one.

    There’s just one hitch.  There are only a few Android’s Dreams around, and someone seems to be bent on killing them all.  And when Harry gets in the way, well, they’ll just kill him as well.

What’s To Like...

    The opening two sentences of the book are “Dirk Moeller didn't know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident.  But he was ready to find out.“  That should give you a heads up that The Android’s Dream is not going to be as serious as John Scalzi’s magnum opus, Old Man’s War (reviewed here).  But neither is it a total departure in form and genre – the trademark Scalzi space opera and action-thriller elements are still present.

    The character development is good.  Harry Creek is your classic protagonist, and there’s a typical love angle in the plotline.  But the secondary characters shine.  I especially liked Archie McClellan and Takk, and Brian Javna was a nice twist.  Even the evil characters are interesting, and they are just as resourceful and powerful as the good guys.  Similarly, should hostilities break out between we Terrans and the alien Nidu, the two sides are evenly matched, although both sides are relative wussies on a galactic scale.

    As always, John Scalzi’s wit, humor, and subtle social commentary are on display.  We can partake of Nugentian venison, get a good work-out playing wall-ball, and find spiritual guidance through the Church of the Evolved Lamb.  You may also learn a thing or two about legal and diplomatic wrangling, which may come in handy should we ever have to deal with space invaders.  And if using flatulence to make offensive remarks doesn’t tickle your funny bone, something’s wrong.

    There is an adequate amount of both action and intrigue.  This is space opera, so be prepared for some cussing, violence, and adult situations.  This is a standalone novel, and in the end everyone ultimately gets their just desserts.

Kewlest New Word ...

Collimate (v.) : to accurately align (an optical or other system).

Excerpts...

    “The principle is simple,” Fixer said, handing the slightly curved thing to Moeller.  “You pass gas like you normally do, but instead of leaving your body, the gas enters into that forward compartment.  The compartment closes off, passes the gas into second department (sic), where additional chemical components are added, depending on the message you’re trying to send.  Then it’s shunted into the third compartment, where the whole mess waits for your signal.  Pop the cork, off it goes.  You interact with it through a wireless interface.  Everything is there.  All you have to do is install it.”

    “Does it hurt?” Moeller asked.  “The installation, I mean.”

    Fixer rolled his eyes.  “You’re shoving a miniature chemistry lab up your ass, Mr. Moeller,” Fixer said.  “Of course it’s going to hurt.”  And it did.  (pg. 9)

    Takk understood that Earth was positively littered with houses of worship and that people were always claiming that their god of choice wanted them to do one thing or another.  But in his personal experience the only time he heard people invoke their deity was when Takk was about to beat the hell out of them or turn them into a snack.  And even then, more than half the time they invoked defecation instead.  Takk found that inexplicable.  (pg. 276)

It’s hard to describe to anyone who is not in fact a sentient computer.  But imagine you’re a tapeworm, and then suddenly you’re Goethe.  (pg. 376)

    There are some quibbles.  The entertainingly madcap prologue – farting as a weapon -  was fantastic, but felt disjointed from the rest of the story, which was decidedly more focused on thrills-&-spills and political intrigue.  Scalzi wrote some of his novels as serial installments; perhaps The Android’s Dream is one of them.

    The ending felt contrived and for me was somewhat anticlimactic.  The Nidu, who appear to have the upper hand in the matter the whole way through, are all too easily persuaded to fight amongst themselves.

    But these are minor criticisms.  The major problem is something that Scalzi probably had no control over – a wretched job of editing by the publishing house, Tor.  The grammatically grating “He been…” was bad enough, but jeez, when you run into the misspelled word “supercede” (sic), it makes you wonder whether Tor even bothered to use Spellchecker when editing Scalzi’s manuscript.  Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

    8 Stars.  This isn’t John Scalzi’s finest work, but it’s still a good read.  Add 1 star if you can ignore all the typos and errata.  I couldn’t.

Redshirts - John Scalzi

    2012; 314 pages.  Full Title (at least on Amazon) : Redshirts – A Novel With Three Codas.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; TV Spoofery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Welcome, new crewmen, to the spaceship Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union!  Or as we affectionately call it here, “The Dub U”.  You are here because of some …um… unplanned openings in the Intrepid’s crew and we wish you best of luck in your new assignments!

    Among the many perks of serving on this flagship, is the opportunity to visit new alien worlds as part of our regularly-occurring “away missions”.  You will accompany the highest-ranking members of our command team on these missions, and most recruits find them to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

    That is all for now.  Please pick up your red shirts on your way to your new quarters, and again, Welcome aboard!

What’s To Like...

    The book’s title is slightly misleading; the band of crewmen that we follow here don’t wear red shirts.  But anyone who even occasionally watched the Star Trek of Spock and Kirk (or has seen its internet memes), knows what a redshirt is, and it is a treat to watch John Scalzi explore this phenomenon and offer at least one possible explanation for it.  The main protagonist is Ensign Andrew Dahl, and he and four other recruits quickly learn that when Captain Abernathy or any of the other top officers on the Intrepid come looking for volunteers for an away mission, the savvy veteran crewmen know to make themselves scarce.

    Redshirts has the same relative balance of Action and Personal Interaction as the original Star Trek had, so if you liked that series, you’ll enjoy this book.  The difference is that the storyline follows five of the ordinary crewmen, not the command team.  The book is divided into three roughly-equal-in-length parts, which we'll call The Paradox, The Solution, and the sub-titular Three Codas.

    The writing is great and strewn with wit, which is what we've come to expect of John Scalzi.  This is much “lighter” in tone than his Old Man’s War series, but it still comes with at least one thought-provoking topic – predestination.  There are “tips-of-the-hat” to some fellow authors, such as Jasper Fforde, and the unforgettable Denise Hogan.  And to Star Trek, of course.   

    There is cussing here, as is true of all of Scalzi’s books that I’ve read so far.  This is a standalone novel with a pair of endings – one at the end of the second section; the other after the three codas are done.  And as a chemist, I would give anything for the “Magic Box” the Intrepid has in its science lab.

Kewlest New Word...

Chuppah (n.) : a canopy beneath which Jewish marriage ceremonies are performed.

Excerpts...

    “Hey, Jer,” Finn said, walking up to him.  “It’s me, Finn.”

    Weston squinted.  “Finn?  Seriously?  Here?”  He smiled.  “Jesus, man.  What are the odds?”

    “I know!” Finn said, and then shot Weston with a stun pulse.  Weston collapsed.

    “That was your plan?” Dahl said a second later.  “Hoping he’d pause in recognition before he shot you?”

    “In retrospect, the plan has significant logistical issues,” Finn admitted.  “On the other hand, it worked.  You can’t argue with success.”

    “Sure you can,” Dahl said, “when it’s based on stupidity.”  (pg. 128)

    “Do you think our lives make any sense at all?” Hester said.  “You’ve got us living in a universe where there are killer robots with harpoons walking around a space station, because, sure, it makes perfect sense to have harpoon-launching killer robots.”

    “Or ice sharks,” Duvall said.

    “Or Borgovian Land Worms,” Hanson said.

    Weinstein held up a finger.  “I was not responsible for those land worms,” he said.  “I was out for two weeks with bird flu.  The writer who did that script loved Dune.  By the time I got back, it was too late.  The Herbert estate flayed us for those.”  (pg. 196)

“It doesn’t bother you that a science lab has a magic box in it?”  (pg. 63)

    As intriguing as the Redshirt phenomenon is, it is an almost impossible task to write a story about it, lasting over 300 pages.  To be sure, John Scalzi does a good job of stretching the subject, and in the hands of a lesser writer this would have been a very tedious read.  And yet...

    The action, though plentiful, gets repetitive, and I grew impatient with the protagonists and how slowly they grasped the situation they were in.  The Codas are necessary due to the need to tie up the plot threads involving characters beyond our five protagonists.  But it made for an awkwardly structured book.  Apparently, Scalzi likes to serialize his books first, and Redshirts had that “feel” to it.

    Still, if you make it through the repetitive action in the first part of this book, you’re treated to a great storyline in the second.  And the codas do nicely tie all the loose threads up, if you’re the type of reader who needs that.  Which I am.

    8 Stars.  8 stars for Part 1; 9 stars for Part 2; 7 Stars for the Codas.   Certainly not John Scalzi’s most serious literary effort, but in a strange sort of way, his most ambitious one.

The Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi

    2006; 343 pages.  Book 2 (out of soon-to-be 6) in the Old Man’s War series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Military Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

    Well, it was worth a try.  The brilliant scientist, Charles Boutin, betrayed mankind to aliens who are our sworn-enemies, and nobody can figure out why.  But a copy of his consciousness was left behind, and someone got the brilliant idea of implanting it into a ghost brigade embryo.  Of course, the embryo will also develop its own consciousness, but maybe Boutin’s will override it, talk, and reveal the reasons for his treachery.

    But alas, it appears the guinea ghost, Jared Dirac, has no subconscious competition going on; the implant of Boutin's mind had no effect.  Jared is released back into the Ghost Brigade to be just another soldier.

    And then the weird memories began to surface.

What’s To Like...

    The Ghost Brigades is the sequel to the opener in this series, Old Man’s War, and frankly is every bit as superb a story.  The structure is the same – Intro, Training, First Mission, Main Mission – and it works just as well this second time around.  We now follow a member of the Ghost Brigade, Jared Dirac, instead of one of the realborn, John Perry.  FWIW, Perry doesn’t even appear in this sequel, which I thought was very unusual.

    All the characters, and moreover, all the species, are “gray”.  Space opera lovers will enjoy the species John Scalzi serves up; in addition to humankind and the crablike Consu from the first book,  we now are introduced to the insectoid Enesha, the birdlike Rraey, and the bizarrely tinkered-with Obin.

    This is a “hard” science fiction work, and at times the storyline slows down as Scalzi discusses the physics behind the various techno-novelties, such as the Brain-Pal and the Skip Drive.  But the lags are brief, the technology fascinating, and there are lots of plot twists to keep you turning the pages.  The character development is masterful and deep; for example, it's fun to watch the relationship between Jared and Seaborg evolve from jealousy to grudging respect.

    If you’re looking for excitement, this will serve as a standalone novel.  But it moves the series’ overarching story along as well, and naturally, your understanding of what’s going on is better if you read Old Man’s War first.  The ending is nothing short of fantastic.  Prude Alert : There is some cussing, but you'd expect that in a military environment.

Kewlest New Word...

Bolus (n.) : a small rounded mass of a substance.

Excerpts...

    The verdicts were reasonably consistent.  The War of the Worlds met with approval until the ending, which struck the 8^th as a cheap trick.  Starship Troopers had some good action scenes but required too much unpacking of philosophical ideas; they liked the movie better, even though they recognized it was dumber. (...)  After watching Star Wars everyone wanted a lightsaber and was irritated that the technology for them didn’t really exist.  Everyone also agreed that the Ewoks should all die.  (pg. 98)

    “It’s ugly but it’s state-of-the-art,” Wilson said.  He walked over and slapped the refrigerator-looking object.  “This is the smallest Skip Drive ever created,” he said.  “Hot off the assembly line.  And not only is it small, but it’s an example of the first real advance we’ve had in Skip Drive technology in decades.”

    “Let me guess,” Jared said.  “It’s based on that Consu technology we stole from the Rraey.”

    “You make it sound like a bad thing,” Wilson said.  (pg. 204)

“Fear is existential.”  (pg. 286)

    The thought-provoking debates between the two protagonists – Jared Dirac and Charles Boutin – spotlight the crux of the story - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?  For that matter, does such a black-&-white dichotomy even exist?

    John Scalzi also tackles some sub-themes of this question, including topics like assisted suicide, self-sacrifice, the killing of hostages, and, in the Jared's case, predestination versus free choice.  And while it would be easy to dismiss the aliens as unalterably brutal, the human forces can get down and dirty as well.

    It is always a treat when a sequel is just as good as the first book, and that’s the case for The Ghost Brigades.  John Scalzi’s writing is both exciting and witty.  Yes, I’ve been sucked into an unfinished series, but with four more books in the series and several “one off” Scalzi novels as well, I have a long way to go before I've read everything by him.

    9½ Stars.  Highly recommended, but read Old Man's War first.