Title: Zoe's Tale
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor UK
Format: Paperback
Pages: 335
Release Date: June 5th 2009
How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history? I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human.
Seventeen years old.
Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes. It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.
Zoe's Tale is the fourth novel from John Scalzi set in his Old Man's War universe (Old Mans War (review), The Ghost Brigades (review), The Last Colony (review)), although this time we have another viewpoint. Previously we've followed either John Perry or his wife, Jane, but in Zoe's Tale we get what the title make obvious - the story of Zoe, their adopted daughter. We also have another first in that the events of Zoe's Tale run parallel to those in The Last Colony. So, does Zoe's Tale live up to the promise of Scalzi's previous novels? Is Scalzi able to write as effectively as a 17 year old girl? Does the book work when we're getting a story re-told? The answer to all of these is a resounding yes!
I won't lie - I'm a big fan of John Scalzi and find his writing compulsive reading, but the thought of reading a story following events that I had already followed didn't do much for me. Perhaps this is why I didn't import the US hardback when it was released last year, although I feel that the wait I had between The Last Colony and Zoe's Tale was needed. If I had read both of them back to back I think I would have been a little less likely to enjoy it as much with all events fresh in my mind. The break between them allowed the time needed and it let me come to this with a fresh perspective.
Basically, John and Jane are asked to lead the first colony world founded by current colonists (rather than Earth natives). With a threat from the Conclave - a gathering of races now turning towards more peaceful solutions than the fighting that has gone on for many, many years - to all other races not a member that any colony founding will be dealt with by, if necessary, deadly force. John, Jane and Zoe are thrown into the deep end of the Colonial Union politics. Zoe, a person regarded by the Obin as a figure of near-messiah status due to her fathers work, is seventeen year old trying to settle into new colony life after leaving everything she knew behind. And this is how we see it - through her eyes, seeing things that a teenager does that adults don;t necessarily pick up on.
As we see things from Zoe's side it gives the opposite viewpoint to the military one we had in The Last Colony. We also get to find out a little more about events that took place during The Last Colony that weren't fully covered in the book, or events in the previous book that have some follow on side-events here. These are mainly minor, from the children's point of view of the strange attempts at breaking into the village, the attacks on the village and, ultimately, the arrival of the Conclave. The biggest addition is the time Zoe spends apart from her parents in trying to find a solution to the whole Conclave/Colonial Union problem. This is outlined in The Last Colony, but getting to see it first hand and experiencing everything properly certainly adds to the story.
Scalzi once again delivers an excellent story with great characters. Yes, the viewpoint is not one you'd expect from an author who has given us some pretty great military sci-fi books, but it works. In a book where the main downside is that it's reliving previously told events - which isn't as bad as it sounds, not by a long shot - John Scalzi has given us a story with everything he's known for in his typical flair. Very highly recommended!
Overall rating: 9/10
Buy from: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com
2 comments:
I thought this was excellent, but I actually read this before The LAst Colony and think I liked it even better because I didn't havde all the information Zoe was missing, so I bought into her point of view completely.
That's what I wanted to hear! It's always difficult judging whether it would fit okay without that previous knowledge, but Scalzi does it again!
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