John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War has everything I want out of science fiction: space battles, politics, religion, cosmologies to make you think about your own preconceptions, and heart. If you aren’t familiar with this modern classic, OMW centers around John Perry, an old man nearing the end of his life. In the OMW world, once you hit a ripe old age you can enlist in the space marines. You are legally dead once you enlist, and you never come back to Earth. You say your goodbyes and head […]
Business is Business
I was planning on saving Lock In for another time, but after listening to The Dispatcher, I needed to listen to Lock In. I listened to the Wil Wheaton narration. Listening to Wheaton’s narration made me think of Armada, which I had just listened to him narrate. Very briefly, the title of this review was “That’s how you do nostalgia, Cline!” I changed it because that would have been unfair to John Scalzi, Ernst Cline and their respective books. Just so you know, though, Scalzi […]
Patience and Time and Silence
Last year, John Scalzi’s written for Audible novella, The Dispatcher, narrated by Zachary Quinto, was offered for free. I snapped it up, but didn’t listen until yesterday. Scalzi is one of those authors who has been on my list, but remained unread. I enjoyed both Scalzi’s story and Quinto’s performance. In the near future, people who are murdered come back to life. No one knows why or how, just that it happens. It has given rise to a new profession, the Dispatcher. Dispatchers are trained, […]
The war’s over (for now)
The back half of Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series contained decidedly experimental volumes — the alternate-POV Zoe’s Tale, and the serial-format books discussed in this review, The Human Division and The End of All Things. They progress essentially chronologically, but through the viewpoint of several humans and non-humans. Dealing with the fallout from the events at the end of the third book The Last Colony, the human-governed Colonial Union (CU) and its military arm, the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) must contend with the recently enlightened […]