Bookish Thoughts

I read Scalzi's Lock In right at the beginning of the pandemic. It posits a future world, about twenty years after a pandemic has come through, killing 1% of the population and leaving another 1% paralyzed. It ended up being a lot lighter than I expected, which was for the best given my whole state of mind at that time. But this companion book takes a closer look at the pandemic itself and the immediate response and aftermath. The crazy part is that it was written in 2014, and still got a bunch of stuff right. It's always so weird when science fiction starts to read more like historical fiction. It becomes a fun exercise in looking at which predictions were correct and which were wrong. Scalzi's pandemic hit the globe much more consistently, having started at an international scientific conference. So the initial impact is a lot bigger. But it still comes in waves, like the real pandemic did. And there's still an incredible rallying of everyone. Another interesting dif...

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge. I mean, replace "not too long from today" with "last month" and "Lock In" with death, and this is the world that we're currently living in. Aside from the robots that those with Lock In syndrome use to interface with the world, this isn't science-fiction so much as science-fact. There was a chance that reading this now would hit a little too close to home, but I was also hoping that it might prove cathartic. Thankfully it worked out. The book actually takes p...

The penultimate book in Scalzi's Old Man's War  series was actually a collection of short stories that built into a novel. The last book is a collection of novellas. It's not quite as successful as the previous book, mostly because there's a little less room for error. I didn't like one of the short stories, but it didn't much affect my liking of the book as a whole, since it was akin to not being fond of a small side plot. But when I didn't like one of the novellas, that was a quarter of the book that felt wasted to me. Which makes it sounds like I liked this book less than I did. And I did ultimately appreciate that novella, but not until the very end. I spent most of it wondering where I recognized the main character from and why she mattered to the overall story, but it all came together in the last few pages. The other three novellas were fantastic and built to a suitably satisfying conclusion. I think there's still a lot of room for Scalzi to r...

It's been fun to watch John Scalzi grow as an author over the course of this series. It started off as pretty basic military sci-fi (albeit with a fun protagonist/narrator), and has become a sandbox for him to slowly start experimenting. In this book, he decides to play with structure a bit and composes the novel out of thirteen inter-connected short-stories. I love when authors decide to take chances like this, and I think it paid off big here. The short stories mostly follow a diplomatic team as they race around the galaxy trying to form unions with other alien species in the wake of the rift between the Colonial Union and Earth. Some of them are longer, some are shorter. Some of the stories aren't about them at all and their relevance only becomes clear later. All in all, I'm impressed with what Scalzi pulls off here. I'm getting excited to read more of his stuff (lucky for me he's nearly done with a new trilogy that I'll be able to dive into when I finish ...

This was my favorite John Scalzi book yet, and it's likely to be my favorite of the entire series. A lot of that is due to the protagonist/narrator. Zoe has a fantastic voice, and it was so much fun to read about this smart, sarcastic girl coming of age. But I also think Scalzi is starting to get the hang of the book writing thing. This novel is paced much better than any of the previous ones and there are fewer dangling threads left at the end of it. Zoe's Tale is actually a retelling of The Last Colony , but from Zoe's point of view instead of her father's. This is one of my favorite author tricks. I love revisiting a story from a different perspective. Scalzi did this to fill in gaps and soothe angry fans after the previous book, which was supposed to be the end of the series. Honestly, I would have been madder about that one if I'd thought it was the end. There were so many unanswered questions. But with this one he does a stellar job of redressing his mistak...

This book moved a lot faster than the previous one, with all sorts of fun political maneuverings and a really exciting battle scene. The mysteries set up in the previous books start to unravel here as the Conclave finally takes power and humanity makes its first move against the assemblage of alien races. But as John and Jane try to usher their fledgling colony through these power plays, it becomes less and less obvious which side is in the right. I liked that this book got back to John Perry, who has a fun sarcastic voice that makes the book more interesting to read. It was also nice to see him and Jane together, post army, figuring out how to make a life with their adopted daughter. And I really liked that we finally get to draw the curtain back on the Colonial Union and see their various failings as a government. I'm a little concerned that I'm having a hard time remembering characters from book to book. A lot of them don't really make a huge impression. When they tu...

I was surprised when I picked up this book and found that it followed a completely different character than the first book in the series. In fact, the protagonist of Old Man's War  is only mentioned in passing at the very end of the book. There are plenty of other minor characters from the first book who also appear in this one, but the main character is someone completely new. This book follows the clone of a traitor. Initially he remembers nothing of his previous life, but his commanding officers are hoping that his memory will return and provide some insight into what the traitor did and why. In the meantime, we get to learn more about the special forces and the larger threats to the human race start to take shape. Where the first book just threw the humans against a whole bunch of different alien species, this one introduces alliances and plans among the aliens. This allows for more of a plot rather than a montage of battles, and it helps make the mystery at the heart of the ...

This isn't the first of John Scalzi's books I've ever read. But Redshirts  is a bit of a one-off. It's not connected to any of his other series, and it's not really considered indicative of the rest of his body of work. By going back to the beginning, I feel like I'm finally going to see what the hype is all about. Old Man's War  is a lot of fun. It's a classic science-fiction setup, with a never-ending war between humanity and a series of alien species. The twist being that all the soldiers are septegenarians. You can enlist in the army on your seventy-fifth birthday in exchange for a new, younger body, a chance to see the universe, and a possibility of settling on one of the new colonies, assuming you survive your ten years of military service. The book follows John Perry. He and his wife had intended to sign up together, but she died a few years prior. So, with nothing really to live for and not knowing what to expect, he  joins the military by hi...

John Scalzi's novel, Redshirts , has a very fun premise. It's told from the point of view of an ensign, stationed on board a ship where ensigns have an unusually high likelihood of being killed in strange ways on away missions. It doesn't take too long for Dahl and his friends, all new transfers to the ship, to figure this out and start searching for a way to stay alive, despite the heavily stacked odds. This book is a really straightforward, quick read. It's almost bare bones, making it much more plot driven than character driven. But that plot is exciting and twisty, growing ever more meta until the fourth wall eventually shatters. It was, at times, a bit too clever for me. But fun nonetheless, and packed with Star Trek and Galaxy Quest references. A fun bit of escapism to wile away a few hours.