Monday, April 23, 2007

Just Read: The Last Colony by John Scalzi

I have a longish post -- which I'm not sure if I'm going to publish -- called "Ruminations on the 'Old Man's War'-iverse," where I poke at the background details that have been bugging me since Old Man's War. (I seem to do this a lot; I have another unpublished post about Darkover, and there's one thing about Kage Baker's Company series I'm trying to put into the right words. I have the kind of mind that likes to have everything tied up in neat little packages, so when books I like have details I can't quite believe in, it's like a rash I have to keep scratching.)

Anyway, leaving my bizarre idiosyncrasies out of it, this is another swell adventure novel from Scalzi, ending the loose trilogy of Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades. This is the one with the big revelations about the universe (my other post, if I ever publish it, is my attempt to avoid spoilering them while obsessing about some of the same issues), and quite a big finish.

I still think Ghost Brigades is the best of the three by a slim margin, but this is the kind of adventure novel that SF needs more of -- intelligent and fun, accessible and dealing with interesting skiffy questions. (Oh, and it's written in first person, which I usually like.)

It also was published less than a week ago, so all I should say about the plot is that John Perry is our narrator again (as in Old Man), and that he and Jane Sagan are tapped to lead a new colony...and then stuff happens.

No comments:

Post a Comment