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John Scalzi, The Last Colony
Jan. 5th, 2008 08:54 amI just finished reading this, the conclusion of Scalzi's trilogy that began with Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades. Unlike The Ghost Brigades, which is relatively self-contained, it's more of an organic sequel and I recommend reading the other two books first.
This is the point at which the series largely turns from military SF to political fiction, and it is fantastic, a thoroughly satisfying conclusion. John Perry and Jane Sagan are out of the army and wearing normal human bodies, and have adopted Zoe Boutin from The Ghost Brigades. They're helping to administer a colony planet when they get the call to participate in a new colonization project—one with settlers recruited from existing colony planets rather than from the technologically backward population of Earth, who are kept uninformed about the nature of the rest of the known inhabited galaxy. The new colony turns out to be located far, far up Shit Creek, and most of what they know about the project is a lie; Perry and Sagan are soon fighting for their own lives and the whole colony's, and maybe humanity's as well.
I'm not a very spoiler-phobic guy, but I really don't want to spoil any of it by describing the rest. If you found the politics of Old Man's War greatly disturbing, I particularly recommend reading this one. When you're done, you can finally read these completely spoiler-infested discussions.
This is the point at which the series largely turns from military SF to political fiction, and it is fantastic, a thoroughly satisfying conclusion. John Perry and Jane Sagan are out of the army and wearing normal human bodies, and have adopted Zoe Boutin from The Ghost Brigades. They're helping to administer a colony planet when they get the call to participate in a new colonization project—one with settlers recruited from existing colony planets rather than from the technologically backward population of Earth, who are kept uninformed about the nature of the rest of the known inhabited galaxy. The new colony turns out to be located far, far up Shit Creek, and most of what they know about the project is a lie; Perry and Sagan are soon fighting for their own lives and the whole colony's, and maybe humanity's as well.
I'm not a very spoiler-phobic guy, but I really don't want to spoil any of it by describing the rest. If you found the politics of Old Man's War greatly disturbing, I particularly recommend reading this one. When you're done, you can finally read these completely spoiler-infested discussions.