Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Zoe's Tale
Book Review: POV means everything in a story . . .
Summary: 4 Stars
I stopped only a few pages into Scalzi's latest, thinking to myself, "I've read this story before." But I knew it was also a brand-new book. Only one thing to do: Cheat and read the author's Afterword first. Where I discovered I was both right and wrong. This is indeed the same story that was told in The Last Colony -- but from a different perspective and with some essential information added. John Perry and Jane Sagan, late of the Colonial Union's military forces and now semi-retired low-level bureaucrats on a bucolic colony planet, have adopted young Zoë Boutin, biological daughter of the man who provided artificial consciousness to the Obin, one of the many hundreds of species filling our part of the galaxy. This makes Zoë very special indeed to all the Obin; in fact, her welfare is a significant part of the peace treaty between the Obin and humanity, and she has two Obin bodyguards whose job is to keep her safe. Then John and Jane are recruited to lead the settlement of a new colony of a special character, and Zoë, now fifteen (I think) has to set about making new friends and dealing with a new home. Of course, the Colonial Union, being controlled as it is by the worst sort of politicians, hasn't told the settlers of Roanoke anything about the real reasons they were sent there, nor why they're being set up as bait, nor why they're worth more as dead symbols than as live settlers. And it's eventually down to Zoë to upset the CU's applecart and save her family and friends. Because this is Zoë telling the story in first person (the same story, more or less, that was told by her parents in the previous book),we learn a lot more about certain events and gloss over certain other things that we witnessed in much more detail from her parents' point of view. We also hear it all in Zöe's intelligent and precocious, but still adolescent voice, so that the whole thing comes across somewhat like a very well written Heinlein-style juvenile. Can't say fairer than that. Reading the two books a year apart allows you to forget and then re-learn much of the detail, which is why I would not recommend reading them back to back. But Scalzi is one of the best sf writers working these days and you definitely should read both of them.Book Review: Not even exiting enough for the excercise bike
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm stupid.
I was very disappointed with The Last Colony, but still decided to go ahead and buy Zoe's Tale. Being sleep-deprived with a 7-week old baby, I thought this book could be the right level. That was wrong, and I should have known better.
Zoe's Tale contains so little action and is such a regurgitation of The Last Colony that I quickly resorted to reading it only on my exercise bike. Even pedaling away at 90 rpm, this book was barely engaging enough to keep my attention.
After reading The Last Colony, I felt that Scalzi didn't put the right level of effort into this series any more. I was a fan of the Old Man's War and even The Ghost Brigades, but the Last Colony wasn't military sci-fi anymore; it was a family tale with a space setting.
Zoe's Tale is just The Last Colony retold from another perspective, with 5% new content added in the end.
Although Scalzi in the afterword complains how hard this book was to write, I still feel that both TLC and ZT are rip-offs of an existing successful franchise. The author is just trying to milk the last few dollars from the universe he built, and is really not giving the readers their due. Not for their money, and certainly not for their time.
Book Review: Teenagers Only
Summary: 2 Stars
If you must read this book find a library and skip the first 200 pages. Nothing like Scalzi's other books and barely science fiction, more like Nancy Drew.Book Review: A Goddess with a Real Face
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the fourth book set in the Old Man's War universe, but it's not a continuation of the story arcs he established in the first three, but rather a retelling of the events of the third book, The Last Colony, but told this time from a very different perspective, that of sixteen year old Zoe Boutin-Perry, daughter of a traitor, the object of a major treaty between the Colonial Union and the Obin, and adopted by John and Jane Perry.
Now doing something like this is fraught with peril, as readers of the earlier books will certainly know how everything ends, and will therefore have little sense of suspense throughout this work. It is even more perilous for a middle-aged man to attempt to find the correct `voice' for a teenaged female, one that rings true and will appeal to younger readers, and still engage readers of much greater ages. I'm happy to say that Mr. Scalzi quite deftly succeeded very, very well with both the characterization and being able to still hold at least this reader glued to the pages, even without the suspense.
Zoe herself is a full-bodied person, one you'd definitely like to meet, someone you come to care about a great deal over the course of this work. She's not perfect, she makes mistakes, occasionally her sarcasm and biting comments might make you grimace, and there is an element of unthinking `me-ness' to her, an attitude that she's unique. But in this case, she really is unique - not many girls can say that they are the goddess-object of an entire alien race. But besides her, several of her close friends also come alive as real people, something that's a little rare in first-person perspective works. Gretchen, Magdy, and Enzo are very much real people, and even better, real teenagers.
Certain aspects of other major players are given better backgrounds, most especially the Obin and Zoe's two Obin bodyguards, Hickory and Dickory, and a certain story `hole' in The Last Colony gets a better, fuller explanation. These are nice touches that help hold your interest.
Scalzi's writing style has much to do with your enjoyment of this book. It's witty, sarcastic, funny, thoughtful, and incredibly easy to read, a trait he shares with a writer he's often compared to, namely Robert Heinlein. But beyond this, in this book he also grabs your jugular of emotional response, expertly playing you like a harp, and making you at time furious, sad, and very strongly up-lifted to the point of tears. It's just this strong emotional content that makes me think this book is better than The Last Colony, and on par with the first book of this series, Old Man's War.
All in all, a great accomplishment, one that should appeal to both teenagers and old codgers like me.
---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Book Review: More character time leads to Scalzi's best so far
Summary: 4 Stars
(I received a Zoe's Tale ARC through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program)
Zoe Boutin Perry was never a significant character on her own merits in the previous John Scalzi book "The Last Colony" - a key to parts of the plot, but more important there for what she was than who she was. Combine that with her involvement in the one big plot gap of the book - where key events happened offscreen - and there's plenty of room for something like "Zoe's Tale", which covers roughly the same time period but from the perspective of Zoe rather than her parents.
And Zoe's Tale it truly is - though the previous books in the Old Man's War series were primarily from first person perspective, they were not as focused on a single character. As a result, Zoe may be Scalzi's best established character; the note-perfect sarcasm was a little overplayed (Scalzi is great at snark) but not by much. Plus, it allows him free reign with her primary conflict - growing as a person and facing the issue of who she is as a person versus her role as a icon to an alien species and part of a treaty between that species and humanity.
The personal focus also causes a problem, however; it's not as easy to switch the grand events occurring during the novel. This leads to some strained info dumping on occasion as the reader has to be caught up on the background plot to understand what's going on. Scalzi also manages to write himself into a corner later on, setting up a big fight scene that he can't write out - it would completely throw off the books pacing and is too large to manage - so he has to offhandedly dispatch it in 7 words.
For all that this is a parallel to the third book in a series, it feels accessible as a standalone book; the plot dumping helps, but the book is mostly shaped well on its own. There are a couple minor points that a new reader is unlikely to get - the roles of Phoenix and Earth, certain aspects of the CDF - but they're not significant distractions. Zoe's Tale is as good a place as any to start with Scalzi, and a good book in its own right.
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