Zoe's Tale: Old Man's War, Book 4

Much of this book is a repetition of the original story in The Last Colony. Since you may already know that, I will attempt to avoid more disclosures that could be spoilers. While you many know the past, you start right away seeing things from her perspective. She is a teenage girl right out of 1960's Iowa, pure and simple, living in idyllic Huckleberry. How she became that girl is glossed over, as it is in previous works. One would expect a more cautious and wary personality from what we know of her.Here she is. You learn the backstory first. This young girl has some reason to be jaded or suffering from a sense of victimhood, but is happy and well adjusted to life with her odd parents. Dad is an ancient American, but not as ancient by a few hundred years as he needs to be for this story. Formerly a modern warrior himself he would be capable of wiping out the entire colony personally. Her mom is an artificially created human who sprang full grown into life as an elite warrior, capable of laying low entire Seal teams and dad. How does Scalzi make them loving and caring parents modeled from the days of Leave It To Beaver? I don't know. He sort of slips into it in his previous books, but it makes sense in Scalzi's Old Man's War series is as curious a blend of political corruption and idealism triumphant as you would ever read and believe. These people belong in that universe as he pulls that off again. They all must be from Iowa. And the two alien bodyguards? Bodyguards who would easily kill everyone she knows, including her mother, to keep her from any harm and are the representatives of a powerful alien race that worships her. The threat of displeasing her keeps them in line, barely. Now, you may wonder how any adventure could come to a girl surrounded by such an array as this. You don't know teenage girls.From a teenage girl's point of view of her life on the Last Colony of Roanoke you have: intelligent and dangerous pet alien monsters, slobbery dog, benign neglectful parents with just the right touch of mature wisdom, boys, girls, boys and girls again, politics, an alien planet complete with more aliens, and one other revered meta, keeping important secrets from the adults. You have to love that last one, from Tom Sawyer to Harry Potter, untold secrets are where the drama is.There's a story for you. Yet you still believe she is just your average middle class 1960's midwestern American girl with an iPad.She is immediately thrust into an adventure from her agraian life right into the rigors of colonizing an alien planet. Typical of a teenage girl, she discovers the terrible secret of the the mission before her parents, the leaders of the colony. Not by much, but a coup none the less that begins the story of how she and her friends are working their way to the same conclusion of the story as her parents and the rest of the colonists. The story is about her, her female and male friends and how life with the powerless develops parallel to the powers-that-be. She eventually becomes the story and the proud progeny of her parents. Although she's not, really. You may not notice that until you think about it.She is believable to me in the context of the story, There are some jerks and stops as the story gets started, but then Scalzi has to make this work and he does.Zoe is sort of like a midwestern Podkayne. The similarities between the two jumped out at me as I started this book. Not that the stories are anything alike other than teenage girl heroines written by male writers. But I think she is the teenage girl men who like women think of, when they are not designing killer aliens and enhanced humans with neat hardware to deal with them.Definitely worth the read and completes The Lost Colony nicely.

I believe this to be the best of the series. A beautiful story about growing up, love of family, loyalty, principles and friendships that give meaning to every life.Funny, exuberant, sad and exciting. All the things that give value to our lives.

I read all of Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series in sequence, including Last Colony, then Zoe's Tale. In case anyone doesn't know, Zoe's Tale covers the same ground as "The Last Colony," but this time it is from the point of view of Zoe Boutin-Perry, rather than her parents. Between the two, I consider Last Colony to be the better book. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy Zoe's Tale, too. And I highly recommend it if you want an introduction to Scalzi's writing and don't want to read the more 'military' stories that he has written. Just consider that if you think you might like the military aspect, then Zoe's Tale is probably NOT the place to start.Zoe's Tale, though a fine book, is really more of a YA story. It focuses much more on relationships than on events. John Scalzi still shows his great skill at characterization and his clear, concise writing style that is so effortless to readIt does take place at the same time with the same general frame as Last Colony. It nicely rounds out some of the questions I had, but some events and details that were very important in The Last Colony aren't even mentioned in Zoe's Tale, and vice-versa. In some cases it is almost like 2 parallel worlds.Essentially Zoe's Tale is more of a coming of age story, and gives you a much better understanding of the Obin as a race, and of Zoe as a person. It also gives more detail on one or two very important things that happened towards the end of Last Colony, but even then it doesn't go into the detail you would expect for such important occurrences.Zoe's Tale is also, clearly, a character study. I actually marveled at Scalzi's ability to capture the mind and heart of a teenage girl. Very nicely done. And some of the relationships are interesting in and of themselves, especially Zoe with her friend Gretchen and her Obin bodyguards, as well as her relationship with Enzo, the boy she comes to love. I liked it, but if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, then this book probably isn't for you. You can feel free to stop at "The Last Colony" and not worry that you have missed too much.Now, if Scalzi writes more stories about Zoe, or the Conclave, or the Obin, or the new choices that Earth makes among the stars, and I suspect he will do exactly that, then this book might assume more importance as a key pivotal point in the series. But as things currently stand, you can choose to read it or skip it.If you do read it, just don't expect it to be quite the same as what has gone before.

Loved the other books in the series so far. I came into this one a little wary though as i'd heard it was simply a retelling of the last book, The Last Colony but from the perspective of Zoe instead. I figured I would give it a go though as it was cheap and I hate to miss out on relevant narrative of an ongoing series but 10% into the book I just had to stop.So far John Scalzi's Old Man war series has been great Space Opera / Military sci-fi with interesting ideas, great characters and pacing. Going from that to a the mind of an angsty teenage girl was just such a sharp U turn narratively and to be honest I found it just painful to read. This isn't what I wanted from this series at all and it seems like such a strange inclusion.I decided to just pass and hope the next book in the series doesn't carry on like this or rely on something super important that happened to Zoe in this retelling because if it did? I won't know about it.- Weird change of writing and pace for the series.- Zoe was pretty insufferable very quickly.- Retelling what already happened in the last book is rarely interesting.

Wish I had read the other reviews before I bought this. It is not a continuation of the previous book but the same story told from Zoe’s perspective.Zoe obviously had a big role to play in the last book and also had the potential to be an interesting and complex character. However this retelling was a misjudged way to explore that character in my opinion.I, like others, wanted to see the plot move on. It didn’t.I did not finish this book, which is very rare for me as I usually plough on until the bitter end no matter what.From the 1/3 of the book I read, the writing was decent- some witty thoughts and conversations involving Zoe. But the pithy and humorous musings of a teenage girl is not why I bought the book. I wanted a story and this didn’t give me one (that is one that I hadn’t already read).Feeling cheated is a bit strong, but I feel disappointed the author deemed this suitable for sale without being clear about what it is. It is not the next part of the saga as labeled on Amazon but the same part again. If this was truly for the fans as he has said, it should have been released as a freebie or at least heavily discounted and clearly labeled for what it is.

This re tells the story told in The Last Colony (Old Man's War) from Zoe's first person viewpoint. It revisits the story from the point at which John Perry and Jane Sagan are asked to take on the leadership of Roanoke colony. Zoe, their adopted daughter, a teenager considered a special person by the Obin who were given the gift of (artificial) consciousness by her birth father Charles Boutin. As a result she has to Obin minders who (as part of a peace treaty) relay her every activity back to their planet for all to see. This charts Zoe's relationships with her minders, a girl who quickly becomes her best friend, and her first boyfriend. There are things that Zoe experiences that her adoptive parents don't know about, and one section where Zoe's actions affect the outcome when Roanoke is threatened.Mr Scalzi gets the teen voice right and it's fun following Zoe filling in the gaps like Rozencrantz and Guildenstern filled in the gaps in Hamlet.

I consider John Scalzi one of the better writers of the genre, based on the last three books in the series. Intrigue, decent characters and a few unforeseen twists and turns.Imagine my surprise to be re-reading the last book, The Lost Colony, but now through the eyes of a what reads to be a 40-year-old teenager. I've clearly not been buying into the series for the young adult angle and I'm not sure at which point Scalzi thought it a good idea to switch genre and target audience without progressing the plot - readers of the last book know what will happen.Read at your own peril, I feel a bit cheated, personally.

I bought it by default as I had really enjoyed the previous 3 books in the series, what a mistake - I should have read the reviews first. Written from the perspective of a "sassy" teenage girl it's a completely pointless re-telling of the 3rd book. It adds nothing to the narrative of the series and frankly appears to be aimed squarely at a teenage girl readership - which isn't me!