REVIEW: Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
REVIEW SUMMARY: A weaker outing in the otherwise hugely enjoyable Old Man’s War universe.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: Zoe is a very likable character; previously-unseen scenes filed in plot holes of The Last Colony.
CONS: Not the popcorn action book I was expecting; some action sent offstage; readers of The Last Colony may feel like they’ve been here before.
BOTTOM LINE: Didn’t give me the same kick that I got from Scalzi’s other Old Man’s War books.
Zoe’s Tale may be John Scalzi’s first foray into young adult territory, but he’s on comfortable ground. It’s set in his Old Man’s War universe. More specifically, it recounts the events that occur during The Last Colony as told from the perspective of John Perry’s and Jane Sagan’s teenage daughter, Zoe. As such, it reads like a first-person diary.
The good news is Scalzi channels his inner teenage girl. Yes, that’s a compliment. The narrative would have been intolerable if it sounded otherwise. As it is, Zoe comes across as a junior version of John and Jane, which is to say she’s smart, smarmy and extremely likable. And she has depth, too. Throughout the book, Zoe grapples with her lineage (her biological father bestowed consciousness to the alien race of Obin who see him as a messiah), her identity (all her life has been about what she is, not who she is), her first love, and her place in the world (a staple of all young adult fiction). All this has forced Zoe to be a remarkably mature teenager and a truly endearing character.
The not-so-good news is two-fold. First, being an Old Man’s War novel, I was expecting a tasty action-fest like I got (and immensely enjoyed) with the first three books. And while Zoe’s Tale has action, it doesn’t really kick in until the second half of the book, which means the first half of the book is spent watching Zoe wander around the colony dealing with everyday life while nothing much happens. Even later, when stuff does start happening, some of it is casually brushed aside, presumably because the reader has already read The Last Colony. But it also happens with new material, too. There’s a final, climactic battle scene, for example, that is dismissed by the three words “And they did.” I call this Actionus Interruptus.
Second: Because the novel is written to coincide with The Last Colony, it feels all too familiar. There was definitely a “been-there, done that” vibe going on. And because I knew that “main” story and it was not at the forefront, it felt like I was spending most of my time in the background. Of course, (1) readers who have not read TLC will not experience this since this is a side effect of having read TLC; and (2) This is intentional: the focus is and should be on Zoe. But the book worked best when we see things that didn’t happen in TLC. And Zoe did have some cool, previously unseen adventures. Readers who were confused at the sudden disappearance of the werewolves in TLC will finally get an explanation. And the final political maneuvering of Zoe (despite the Actionus Interruptus) was inspired. Still, when all was said and done, Zoe’s Tale did not give me the same kick that I got from Scalzi’s other Old Man’s War books. More of that stuff, please.
Related posts:
- REVIEW: The Last Colony by John Scalzi
- REVIEW: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
- REVIEW: The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi
- REVIEW: The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
- Authors@Google Presents: John Scalzi
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Interesting. For most of this review I was thinking that it sounded almost like the book would be best for people who hadn’t read the rest of the books in the universe, and thus I might want to read it. But that kind of actionus interruptus thing tends to drive me nuts—it’s the sort of thing that completely derails the pacing & momentum of a book and makes you feel like you’ve tripped and fallen on your face.
I absolutely loved that battle resolution; it was one of quite a few places in the 4-book cycle where I gasped out loud and involuntarily. Seeing the attention drawn to it here makes me realise this is actually a fairly major spoiler, which is (imho) most unfortunate.