Review: The Last Colony, by John Scalzi

The Last Colony, by John Scalzi, published in 2007 by Tor Books







Summary:

The main character of each of the two previous novels in the "Old Man's War" series are reunited in The Last Colony: John Perry and Jane Sagan. John has retired from the Colonial military and has been given a new civilian body (pretty much like normal humans, as opposed to military bodies, which feature all sorts of upgrades). Jane has retired form the Special Forces (meaning she is a clone grown from a dead volunteer's DNA and has spent her entire 10 years of life as a soldier), and is also given a civilian body. John and Jane have married, and are minor members of the bureaucracy in the local government on a peaceful colony world. Together they are raising an adopted daughter, Zoë.

Towards the beginning of the novel, John and Jane are approached by the Colonial government and asked to serve as the leaders of a brand new colony being planned on a world the Colonials have traded for from another alien species. In this series, interstellar civilizations compete fiercely for inhabitable worlds to colonize, very frequently resulting in all out warfare. To obtain a new world without fighting is almost unheard of, so everyone is eager for the new colony to succeed.

Herein follows minor spoilers:

Immediately upon arrival, things go wrong, beginning with the fact that they arrive at the wrong planet. This is followed by the fact that the Colonial government lied to the new colonists and sent them to the wrong planet on purpose. This is followed by the fact that a brand new interstellar, interspecies government (that humans refused to join) has declared an immediate moratorium on all new colonies and actively hunts new colonies down and destroys them. Which is further followed by the fact that the Colonial government "let slip" the existence of the new colony on purpose to try to undermine the authority of the new interstellar, interspecies government. On top of all this, the planetary survey the humans did prior to colonization was incomplete and hasty and the planet has dangers that the colonists are only just discovering. And John and Jane, as representatives (and dupes) of the Colonial government, are perceived by their fellow colonists as liars and their authority as leaders of the colony is undermined.

My Opinion:

An interesting story, but not as fun as the two previous books. (See my review of Old Man's War.) There is much less emphasis on military action, so fans of military SF might feel shorted here. There is lots of political intrigue, both at the interstellar level and at the level of the new colony itself. This I like. We also get a more nuanced view of the relations between humans (led by the Colonial government) and other alien species. Some species consider humans to be the scum of the galaxy! And they may not be that wrong! There are a few points that didn't quite work for me, including a heavily played up threat to the colonists on their new homeworld which is never quite resolved and then conveniently disappears for the rest of the book when the "A" plot picks up more steam.

The Roundup:

A fun book to read. I am not disappointed to have given the author and his publishers my money, and I hope they view my purchase as incentive to produce further good works. This book was read by me on my Kindle, and I never would have purchased it had tor.com not offered Old Man's War for free a while back. This single free e-book has lead to the purchase of two more Scalzi books, whic I hope is viewed as incentive to offer further free e-books for established authors with popular series in print.

Next up: Black Magic Woman, by Justin Gustainis

Sidereal

What other people have to say about The Last Colony:

John DeNardo at SF Signal

A review by Russ Allbery

Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column book reviews

lorin_arch at arch thinking

gav at NextRead

Wherein a Prolonged Absence Is Explained, at least Partially, with a Further Promise of Better Behaviour

..... and I woke up in a bathtub full of ice, and all my hair was missing!

Eh, okay not really. I fell into a space-time vortex and only recently returned from an alternate reality where George H.W. Bush's son was the President of the U.S.A.

Okay, not really either, though I wish..... Actually it was the confluence of being really busy at work and re-reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. That's been discussed so much on the Internet already that its not really worth saying anything here. Except, damn -- cutting out that whole Faile-Shaido thing and the Bowl of the Winds could have saved three whole books, and perhaps enough trees to cover the entire state of New Jersey.

Next up, a review of The Last Colony, by John Scalzi.

Sidereal

New Word: malsearchification

malsearchification: noun. The use of another person's browser to conduct an embarrassing Internet search. This is most often done at work, when discovery of such a search on one's own web browser might lead to ridicule, humiliation, or legal action.

a visual example of a result from a malsearchification.

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Further Conversations with Sidereal Jr.

Wherein my 4 year old son rediscovers Plato's Theory of Forms.


S. Jr. : I love pancakes. They're so pancakey!

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New Word: coaster nazi

coaster nazi: noun. a person who insists upon placing a coaster under your drink, no matter what. A coaster nazi will surreptitiously slip a small disk beneath someone's cup, glass, mug, stein, chalice, grail or beaker, unless the opportunity presents itself to "out" the offender in the loudest way possible and thereby introduce a parable in which the damage inflicted by excessive moisture upon a wooden surface leads to an environmental catastrophe that renders the Earth inhospitable to life.

Coaster nazis can usually be identified by a disproportionately high number of coasters relative to the number of horizontal surfaces in their homes that are large enough to support a drinking vessel of any type. Other signs include a tendency to secrete coasters (or in extreme cases, napkins) on their persons, or limited kleptomania, exhibited only in bars, and focused totally on those small cardboard coasters with beer brand logos on them.

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Conversation with Siderealette

In which my two year old daughter is proven to be more intelligent than every living Republican......

Siderealette: Daddy, big cars bad de Earf.


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Someone Who Just Doesn't Get It

From an interview on time.com, with a British political journalist named Dennis Sewell, who has written a book on the influence of Darwin's theory of evolution on politics:

All things considered, do you believe Darwin was a great luminary in the path of human progress?
What has the theory of evolution done for the practical benefit of humanity? It's helped our understanding of ourselves, yet compared to, say, the discovery of penicillin or the invention of the World Wide Web, I wonder why Darwin occupies this position at the pinnacle of esteem. I can only imagine he has been put there by a vast public relations exercise.

This is what happens when supposedly educated people don't receive enough education in science. While it is certainly one motivation of science to produce inventions (e.g. ones that allow uninformed journalists spout off on topics on which they don't know very much and can't be bothered to actually reseach), the first and foremost goal of science is to explain things. Darwin "occupies this position at the pinnacle of esteem" because he provided an explanation that, in turn, provides a framework for understanding how nearly every biological thing you see around you got the way it is. On top of being a very profound explanation of the nature living organisms, Darwin's theory helps us understand important, practical things like the emergence of strains of diseases that resist antibiotics, and drives our understanding of the applications of things like genetics in the natural world.

In my mind, what this guy is saying is the equivalent of saying: "What's the big deal with Newton, it's not like he invented the Ipod or anything."

Sidereal