I was really going to read a different author but I’ve also really wanted to finish the Old Man’s War sextet so I went ahead and read this instead. I loved it. Which is really no surprise. I really like Scalzi’s writing style, sense of humor, and the OMW universe. I started reading this book about 6 weeks ago and got hammered by work and only finished it this past weekend while on a short 3 night camping trip near Zion.
The premise of this book is that it is about 12-13 short stories that each tell their own story but also build on the prior characters and world in the previous books. And the stories slowly grow and build on each other to a climactic ending. Spoiler alert (not really): I am going to read “The End Of All Things” next just to see how it ends up.
I can’t really imagine the challenge of writing these interconnected stories. Each is good (some less so in my opinion; there is one story which is just one of the main characters in the series going home for ‘thanksgiving,’ and that one didn’t do a lot for me… although it was interesting to see that there were people living real lives behind the scenes of the endless war and political and diplomatic intrigue in the main series of stories) and the total group of stories tells a building tale. The main stories follow the crew of a diplomatic ship that keeps getting the worst possible assignments, and yet they are somehow the center of a growing conspiracy… someone is pitting the Earth, the CDF and the Conclave against each other, but we don’t yet know who! Parts of the stories reminded me of the Niven story (a quick google search tells me it was Ringworld but I think it was pervasive in his Ringworld universe) that had selective breeding for luck by the Puppeteers. Just typing that gave me a jolt… its been a long time since I read Niven and I’m remembering a series of short stories set in the Ringworld universe… might have to look them up. Anyway, this crew seems to be selectively being bred for BAD luck.
Well, I won’t give anything away but I found this book to be delightful. And, then, after dark, sitting in camp, reading with a headlamp, I came across this GEM. And knowing how well crafted it all was, he set this up across several hundred pages and it made me laugh out loud.
Incredible. Thanks for the laugh, John Scalzi.