Zoe Boutin Perry gets to tell her version of the story previously told from the point of view of her parents. That’s great for YA readers who have not read The Last Colony. For the rest of us, ZOE’S TALE can still be a fun read, but it’s not essential. We already know the beginning, middle and end.
I’m not thrilled, as well, that this is billed as the fourth book in the series Old Man’s War. Because it’s about a teenage girl. The point of the series is that people old enough to retire on Earth are given new bodies and careers in the stars, provided they first serve in the interstellar army. John Perry and his new wife Jane Sagan have retired a second time, becoming peaceful colonists. They adopted an orphaned girl, Zoe, and settled down on the farming planet Huckleberry. That’s where we start with Zoe.
The seventeen-year-old girl is ready to travel and agrees to accompany her parents to a new colony world. This turns out to be a complicated scenario, as told in John Perry's version of the story. The settlers have to cut contact with other worlds, use basic tech and may be targeted by predatory alien spaceships. If they’d known, maybe they would not have come along. But here Zoe is, with her friends made on the trip, ready for adventure. The dangers are considerably lessened because Zoe has two large and bristling alien beings from the Obin race standing guard behind her. So, even for newcomers, it’s not going to be that suspenseful a read.
John Scalzi has written this story to fill in details that were skimped over in the original and to give another point of view. There are downsides, such as battles being described in a couple of lines because Zoe wasn’t there, so you still need to read The Last Colony to get the full story. We learn more about the Obins, see Jane Sagan not as a constable or a lethal warrior, but as a mom, and leave Roanoke to travel to the Conclave and hold peace talks with General Gau. There is plenty to cover.
ZOE’S TALE will suit some science fiction fans better than others, so it’s good to be aware of the content before rushing out to buy it. Anyone wanting a fun YA tale with an ominous planet may love it, and we don’t know what part Zoe and her parents may yet play in future books.
From New York Time bestselling author John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale, fourth book in the Old Man's War series is now available for the first time in trade paperback with a new introduction by the author.
How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history?
I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.
Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try to make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.
It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.
Old Man's War Series
#1 Old Man’s War
#2 The Ghost Brigades
#3 The Last Colony
#4 Zoe’s Tale
#5 The Human Division
#6 The End of All Things
Short fiction: “After the Coup”
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Agent to the Stars
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