A good week for young adult science fiction! John Scalzi's long-awaited debut YA novel, Zoe's Tale, has just hit shelves. This is a young-adult story in the popular and thrilling Old Man's War universe, and it's got all the heart and smarts I've come to expect from Scalzi. Run, don't walk, and get another copy for your kids while you're at it!
In the touching fourth novel set in the Old Man's War universe, Scalzi revisits the events of 2007's The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoë, adopted daughter of previous protagonists Jane Sagan and John Perry. Jane and John are drafted to help found the new human colony of Roanoke, struggling against a manipulative and deceitful homeworld government, native werewolf-like creatures and a league of aliens intent on preventing all space expansion and willing to eradicate the colony if needed. Meanwhile, teenage Zoë focuses more on her poetic boyfriend, Enzo; her sarcastic best friend, Gretchen; and her bodyguards, a pair of aliens from a race called the Obin who worship and protect Zoë because of a scientific breakthrough made by her late biological father.
Zoe's Tale
See also:
* Forever War with better sex, Starship Troopers without the lectures: Old Man's War
* Sequel to Scalzi's Old Man's War: The Ghost Brigades
the latest
latest episodes
Thanks, Cory. That looks like a fine choice for our neighbor boy who is also (I hope) reading a copy of Little Brother that I got him (either that or he's moving the bookmark on the sly). I may also have a read of it but I'm still trying to work up the courage to finish Perdido Street Station. We are entertaining the English relatives this week and I'm sure there's a bookstore on the agenda today at some point.
From what I understand through reading his blog, it's not actually an official "YA" novel, just a regular novel that might appeal to the YA audience. I believe that it's being shelved in regular SF/F.
I'd [I] consider Zoe's Tale actually to be the fifth. (Old Mans War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and _Sagan's Diary_ being previously penned).
At any rate, I'm totally looking forward to it and continued expansion of the Old Mans universe.
FYI - The Last Colony is finally realeased to paperback this month.
When I started reading Zoë's Tale, I thought "wait; why are we reading the same story from a different point of view?" I soon realized that this is not the case; it's an entirely different story that covers the same time period, and overlaps heavily in events.
You could argue that it's the same plot, in the sense that all novels set in the Civil War period have the same plot (Secession, war, lots of people die, Union wins, slaves freed, Reconstruction, carpetbaggers). But "plot is a literary device; story is a force of nature." The force of nature here is Zoë herself; she's a character unlike any other you're likely to encounter.