Zoe's Tale

Jan 19, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: christmas-2010, sf, 2011, the-scalz

Zoe Boutin-Perry, teenage colonist and idol to the Obin race, gets stranded on Roanoke along with her parents, John Perry and Jane Sagan. While the Roanoke Colony survive with the Conclave breathing down its neck?

Zoe's Tale is a retelling of the previous John Scalzi book, The Last Colony, from Zoe's point of view. Instead of being a pointless rehash, Zoe's Tale ends up being an emotional tale and completely worth the effort.

Re-telling The Last Colony from Zoe's point of view served multiple purp...more

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Sep 23, 2008 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, read-in-2008

John Scalzi returns to his popular "Old Man's War" universe with a parallel novel to the last entry, told from the perspective of Zoe Boutin Perry. Covering the same time frame as the previous entry, "The Last Colony," "Zoe's Tale" examines the ins and outs of the story from Zoe's perspective as a teenage girl and the lynchpin of peace agreeement between several interstellar races.

Hearing how Zoe thinks and reacts to things is fascinating and even though we may know where things are going, Scal...more

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Jan 17, 2009 Ron rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, young

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 26, 2010 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: speculative-fiction

Mmm, brain candy. And I don't mean that in any kind of bad way. This isn't hard SF, it's easy to read, easy to follow, nothing too complicated. It's more about people. I think I liked this more than I liked The Last Colony, though I gave that a similar rating -- it was good to get into Zoe's head, good to see things from a different perspective, and this way you could get to know the Obin a little better, and see what happened behind the scenes, so to speak.

I love Enzo's character, and totally f...more

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Sep 28, 2008 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-books

This inter-galactic science fiction about a teenage girl who is destined to save her planetary colony from certain destruction has a promising start. But I ultimately lost interest due to the fact that every bit of information was conveyed through dialogue, including scenes that would have been better served being experienced first hand by the reader through descriptive action sequences--like battle scenes and explosive attacks. After awhile I grew tired of just hearing about what happened throu...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Andreas rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a parallel book to The Last Colony, retold from the viewpoint of Zoë, the adoptive daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan. If you’ve read The Last Colony, you know the basic framework of the story. The colony of Roanoke is established as a secret holdout (and bait) against the Conclave. The Conclave must be stopped, but the Colonial Union isn’t playing fair.

I enjoyed the first half of this book more than the second. Zoë is a bubbly, sassy teenager with a sharp wit. Scalzi excels at puttin...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Chris Hawks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned, reviewed

Much like Orson Scott Card did when he revisited the events of Ender's Game from a different viewpoint with Ender's Shadow, John Scalzi uses the fourth volume of his Old Man's War series to retell the plot of The Last Colony. I like to think that Scalzi pulls it off better than even Card did, mainly because the whole same-story-from-different-perspectives thing works even better with first-person narratives, and Scalzi's narrators couldn't be much more different: a 90-year-old (mentally) ex-sold...more Much like Orson Scott Card did when he revisited the events of Ender's Game from a different viewpoint with Ender's Shadow, John Scalzi uses the fourth volume of his Old Man's War series to retell the plot of The Last Colony. I like to think that Scalzi pulls it off better than even Card did, mainly because the whole same-story-from-different-perspectives thing works even better with first-person narratives, and Scalzi's narrators couldn't be much more different: a 90-year-old (mentally) ex-soldier, and—in this book—a 17-year-old girl.

It's the teenage-girl viewpoint that gets this book labelled as "YA", I guess, so it amuses me that it's by far the longest book in the series. (To be fair, the language is toned down considerably from previous books, but that comes from being about a bunch of teenagers instead of adults and ex-soldiers.) Speaking as a middle-aged dude, I think Scalzi pulls of the "voice" of a teenage girl quite well. And indeed, it's being able to connect with the main character through her narrative that makes this book work—even more than in previous volumes. Presumably you know the plot of the story already, having previously read The Last Colony, so that plot takes much more of a background role in this book, while the story here focuses more on the characters and their relationships with each other. And it works, it really does. Even when I knew what was going to happen, Scalzi keeps things fresh by not rehashing territory covered in the previous book; choosing instead to show what transpired in-between key events, or what Zoe was up to "off-camera".

Now, if you haven't read TLC yet—or previous books, for that matter—I think Zoe's Tale will work for you. Scalzi puts in enough detail, I believe, for the reader to make sense of what's going on. But I'll go out on a limb and guarantee that you will get much more out of this book having already read that one. Likewise, I find myself appreciating TLC much more now that I've essentially read it again, but from another perspective and with some of the gaps filled in. The two books together make for a more fulfilling reading experience than either one of them by itself.

It's not a perfect book by any means, but it's nice to get to know a number of characters better that were more or less peripheral in TLC, and to have some plot-related things explained a little better. And apparently Scalzi is incapable of writing something that's not an absolute page-turner.(less)

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Jan 06, 2010 Architeuthis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2000s, fiction-that-speculates

Along with legions of others, I'm a fan of John's blog, The Whatever. (Well, it's actually just Whatever, but for some stupid reason it amuses me to say THE Whatever. Anyway.) And, when you read someone's blog, you're entitled to refer to them on a first-name basis. I don't know why I feel this way, but it just seems right, doesn't it? Anyway.

So, me and John go way back. Like four months. And for all of that time, I've been curious to get my hands on one of his books and see if they live up to t...more

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Jul 18, 2009 Dave Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars

one of those books that's just bad enough to not want to read, yet just good enough to not quit.

well, i liked Scalzi's other books. and, while i cant say that they were amazing, i definitely thought that they were entertaining--even though i had some issues with the content. i tell my friends that its "sci-fi lite".

but this wasnt very great. but, as i said, its just good enough to make you want to not quit--which is extremely annoying. i guess that's the best word to describe this book: annoyin...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Danielle rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who had issues with lack of explantions from Last Colony

Shelves: sci-fi, ya, pans, 2009-read

First impressions: This DEFINITELY reads like a YA book, even though it was shelved in the adult section of my local library. Zoe is an annoying little wench. Everyone just has the perfect retort for every comment. The weird part about it being a YA book is that it's not a stand-alone novel; if I hadn't already read the entire Old Man's War series, I don't think this would make sense. Or at the very least, it would come across as trite.

Many of the initial chapters say things like "My dad gave t...more

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Sep 13, 2010 Margaret rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, from-library, authors-qrs

Scalzi retells the events of The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoe Boutin Perry, who is John and Jane Perry's adopted daughter and near-goddess to the alien Obin (who were given consciousness by Zoe's real father). Since much of The Last Colony, especially the ending (which was on the deus ex machina side), depends on Zoe's actions and choices, it seems reasonable to retell from her perspective.

Scalzi does a reasonably good job telling a complementary story without repeating too much, tho...more

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Nov 18, 2009 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars

OK, read the cover blurb CAREFULLY. This is a redo of the previous book in the "series" (it's not realy serial anymore, is it?) The Lost Colony. Redone from Zoe's point of view with more detail and clarification on two topics: the intelligent wolf-things, and what Zoe did while she was offworld in order to come back with the momentum sucking device. Furthermore, it's targetted at teen-ages, both because it's from Zoe's perspective and because the type face is big.
So I'm pretty disappointed in Sc...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Donald rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of the series, female fans of science fiction

Shelves: sci-fi

This book, evidently the last in the Old Man's War series for at least a while, follows the adopted teenage daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan through the events of the last book, The Last Colony. As such, the story isn't going to have any real surprises for anyone who has read that book.

The story is mostly a retelling of the last one, with events seen from another perspective. There are new elements, and they all seemed well done. We get an explanation of a couple plot points that were lacki...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Erica Anderson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-reads, science-fiction

I think "John Scalzi" is actually a teenage girl who's too smart for her own good. I began this book with the expectation of dropping it after a few chapters. How much could the perspective of a teenage girl interest me, after all, especially when channeled through a male writer?

In Zoe, Scalzi has created a sympathetic, believable and incredibly perceptive character. Though she's more self-aware and clever than any teenager I've ever known, I was willing to go along with it simply for the pleas...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Mutlu rated it 2 of 5 stars

Yaşlı Adam'ın Savaşı serisinin son kitabında; John Perry , Jane Sagan'ın evlatlıkları ve Charles Boutin'in kızı olan Zoe'nin ağzından "Son Koloni" nin hikayesini dinliyoruz. Seri bu kitapla son buluyor.

Zoe, karmaşık bir ailevi geçmişi olan politik ve kültürel ( kimi yerde dini ) sayılabilecek bir figür olmasının yanında 16 yaşında bir kız. Kendini, hayatı ve insanları acımasız bir evrende tanımaya çalışan bu genç kızın verdiği kararlar ve olmayı tercih ettiği kişi bir koloni ve 2 ırkın kaderini...more Yaşlı Adam'ın Savaşı serisinin son kitabında; John Perry , Jane Sagan'ın evlatlıkları ve Charles Boutin'in kızı olan Zoe'nin ağzından "Son Koloni" nin hikayesini dinliyoruz. Seri bu kitapla son buluyor.

Zoe, karmaşık bir ailevi geçmişi olan politik ve kültürel ( kimi yerde dini ) sayılabilecek bir figür olmasının yanında 16 yaşında bir kız. Kendini, hayatı ve insanları acımasız bir evrende tanımaya çalışan bu genç kızın verdiği kararlar ve olmayı tercih ettiği kişi bir koloni ve 2 ırkın kaderini belirliyor. Ailesinin desteği ve sevgisiyle geçmişinin yüklerini sırtlayan başkalarının gurur ve günahlarını taşıyan genç kız, kendi kanatlarıyla uçmayı öğrenmesinin öyküsünü bizimle paylaşıyor. Hikaye bilmediğimiz bir hikaye değil, serinin 2. ve 3. kitaplarının farklı bir ağızdan özeti olarak da algılanabilir.

Sürekli olduğu kişi için değil de simgelediği şeylerle yargılanan genç kız, bir young - adult romanın tüm içeriğini taşıyan karakter pozisyonunda : büyüme sancıları, kendini keşfetme, aşk, ihanet, aileyle çatışma, mahremiyet arzusu, küstahlık, isyan... Bu young adult romanın bir bilim kurgu olması ve militarist yapısı ise diğer eserlerden ayrıldığı nokta.

Yazarın dili tüm serilere göre daha düzgün ve alaycı tarzını çok fazla karaktere dağıttığı için karakterlerin özerkleşmesini ve ayrı algılanmasını engelliyor. Amerikan esprilerine daha az yer vererek doğru bir seçimde bulunmuş olan yazar, mizah dozunu çok fazla kaçırmamış bu kez. Hala tasvirlerde sıkıntı olduğu gözden kaçmamakla beraber dilin akıcı olması bu eksiğin gözden kaçmasına neden olabilir. Sosyal dinamikleri ve benlik, bilinç kavramları üzerinden 3 kitap kurgulamış olan yazarın konuyla ilgili daha çok çalışması gerektiği açıkça ortada.

2. kitaptan beri seriye dahil olan ve önemli yer işgal eden Obin ırkı zeka sahibi ancak benlik oluşturamamış olan, üstün yaratıcı ırk Consu'ların genetik mühendisliği ürünü. Obinlerin bilinç ve benlik arayışı bir anlamdan matriyarkları olan Zoe'nin hayatı deneyimlemesini gözlemleyerek yaptıkları bir eylem. Zoe'nin korumaları onu hep gözetliyor ve koruyorlar. Bu durum mahremiyet arzu eden genç kızı kızdırsa ve üzse de aileden kabul ettiği korumalarına karşı güçlü bir bağlılık ve sevgi duyuyor.

Eleştirmem gereken yan ise bu sosyal dinamiklerde yatıyor. Obinler zeka sahibi ama benlik geliştirmemiş bir ırk demiştim. Bir bilim kurgu eserinde dahi mümkün olmayan bir motif bu ne yazık ki. Benlik, yani ben - öteki ayrımını yapamayan bir ırk fonksiyon sahibi olamaz; bir kültür geliştirip uzaya açılamaz, çünkü ben bilinci oluşmazsa grup bilinci oluşmaz, dolayısıyla kültür ve uygarlık gelişmez. Aslında alt metinle desteklendiği takdirde çok güçlü eleştiri niteliği taşıyabilecek bu motif çok kısa kaçan bir kurgu oyunu olmaktan öteye gidememiş.
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Oct 11, 2012 Tal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars

a part of it actually made me tear up.

I won't say the book was his best, but he definitely reached his best prose in several moments throughout it.

And, because it ran con-current with The Last Colony, it covered nicely some things that TLC seemed to hurridly skip over, and it did a better job of making me not care about the things Zoe didn't live through. It wasn't concerned with big picture stuff, it was concerned with _her_ life. Still some of Scalzi's problem with haste, more telling than sho...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Laura by: Cousin George

Shelves: being-human, evolution, terraforming, coming-of-age

This book cracked me up. I am reasonably sure it was not written as a comment on Twilight. And yet. The POV teenage girl character, Zoe, is such a critique of Bella that I kinda want to leave her something in my will.

Like Bella, Zoe is the unreasoning object of devotion of alien creatures. Zoe’s father gave them a gift that their gods withheld from them. Zoe is the object of devotion, protected and cherished. Devotion that also makes her a target.

(Full disclosure: I have never read Twilight. I...more

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Jun 12, 2012 D.L. Morrese rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is essentially the same story as told in ‘The Last Colony’ but from a different point of view. So why would I give it five stars? Simply because it is done so well. It caught my interest, made me smile, jerked my emotions, and reintroduced me to people and places that I became well acquainted with in Scalzi’s other ‘An Old Man’s War’ books.
Technically, this should probably be considered a Young Adult novel because of the teenage protagonist. There is nothing wrong with this. Other authors (...more This is essentially the same story as told in ‘The Last Colony’ but from a different point of view. So why would I give it five stars? Simply because it is done so well. It caught my interest, made me smile, jerked my emotions, and reintroduced me to people and places that I became well acquainted with in Scalzi’s other ‘An Old Man’s War’ books.
Technically, this should probably be considered a Young Adult novel because of the teenage protagonist. There is nothing wrong with this. Other authors (myself included) have written YA spinoffs set in the same world and with overlapping characters from their adult novels. This, however, is not a spinoff. This is the same story related in ‘The Last Colony’ but from the perspective of John’s and Jane’s adopted daughter, Zoe. She was a great minor character in previous books and an exceptional protagonist in this one, which is told in first person, giving us insights into how she deals with being an orphan, the adopted daughter of the colony leaders of the planet Roanoke, and something like a goddess to the alien species known as the Obin.
The aspect of the book that feels a bit unnatural is some of the dialogue between Zoe and her friends. They are almost too witty, and Zoe and her friend Gretchen have more self-confidence than seems likely for two teenage girls. Of course, they are not normal teenagers. After all, who wants to read about hormonally powered, angst driven, girls whose major concern is how to attract a boyfriend? ... Oh, right. Those. Do yourself a favor and read this instead. Zoe has angst, she has hormones, she even has a boyfriend, but she also has intelligence, common sense, and wisdom beyond her years.
Scalzi has become one of my favorite authors, and I would love to see more stories set in this universe he has created. How does Roanoke fare? How does the Colonial Union deal with the Conclave? Do they join them? Do they oppose them? Is the C.U. overthrown? And what about Earth? It’s an interesting world and there are many more story possibilities here. If he does continue with this thread, though, it will leave him with less time for his other writing, which would be a shame. Perhaps he could be cloned...
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Mar 07, 2012 Sineala rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, science-fiction, fiction

This is a retelling of the events in The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoe, John and Jane's adopted daughter, who incidentally is beloved by an entire alien race, and who has a fairly large part to play in Last Colony -- although most of it there was offscreen and rather deus ex machina as these things go. This book shows you that... and pretty much everything else.

It does actually address my major criticism of TLC (other than the end), which is the plot thread about the "werewolves." Zoe'...more This is a retelling of the events in The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoe, John and Jane's adopted daughter, who incidentally is beloved by an entire alien race, and who has a fairly large part to play in Last Colony -- although most of it there was offscreen and rather deus ex machina as these things go. This book shows you that... and pretty much everything else.

It does actually address my major criticism of TLC (other than the end), which is the plot thread about the "werewolves." Zoe's got something to do with them here, which is good. And there is of course the end, which readers of the previous book will be familiar with already. (I would not suggest picking up this book blind.)

My issues are... with the rest of the book. The author seems unsure how to write a teenage girl -- I mean, I can tell he wasn't one -- and so a lot of it is giving her A BFF and A Boyfriend and having it all generally come off as sounding like trying to write a teenage girl by having watched movies about them. It's awfully... generic. I mean, that wasn't my adolescence, dude. And for a book that is supposed to be about a teenage girl, I'd have liked her to sound like it.

Toward the last half of the book, Zoe ends up sounding entirely like one of Scalzi's adult protagonists, and, what's more, one of his soldier-characters. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that these books are going to portray, say, teaching Zoe self-defense as a reasonable solution (because, hey, mil-SF), but judging worth/utility by physical self-defense skills and prioritizing those above all (and in fact putting them in the final resolution)... seems a little weird for a book that's supposed to be about a teenager who isn't like her parents. If I'd wanted to read more of people punching people I could reread the first book, you know?

Not that it isn't good, because Scalzi is always very readable and easy, but I think I just had this weird dissonance where "teenage female protagonist in SF" primes me for a certain kind of story (say, Tortall or Valdemar or Pern) about growing up and learning who you are that this... isn't.(less)

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Jan 19, 2013 Kiri rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a fast read, with the same rollicking pace as the rest of the books in this series. Scalzi is great at witty banter, okay at character development, and simply skips over any scene-setting or descriptions of the environment. In this particular case, Scalzi attempts to re-tell the events of The Last Colony from the perspective of a teenaged girl, Zoe. Scalzi enjoys his wit so much that he grafts it from John Perry onto Zoe, which is okay, but doesn't work quite as well. She's simply not t...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Aram rated it 2 of 5 stars

This novel is fascinating in a way. Scalzi takes events from past novels (mostly the previous book in the series) and re-frames them through a new character. Zoe's voice is strong and her characterization excellent. The same is true of her group of friends. In that it succeeds. However, having read the previous books, there is simply too much repeated here.

The narrative is fragmentary (out of necessity, because there is so much to the main plot that Zoe doesn't witness) and the only two fragmen...more

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Mar 15, 2012 John David rated it 3 of 5 stars

One thing that you have to be aware of about this book is that it's a retelling of the last book in the series from the perspective of Zoe Boutin Perry rather than Administrator John Perry. That's the difference between this book and the previous one in the series, The Last Colony, and that's all it is. It isn't the story of Zoe's life before or after the events in the previous book. That defines and constrains the story, and for those of you you have already read the book, it will be the book's...more One thing that you have to be aware of about this book is that it's a retelling of the last book in the series from the perspective of Zoe Boutin Perry rather than Administrator John Perry. That's the difference between this book and the previous one in the series, The Last Colony, and that's all it is. It isn't the story of Zoe's life before or after the events in the previous book. That defines and constrains the story, and for those of you you have already read the book, it will be the book's greatest weakness.

In deciding whether to buy this book, the reader faces the same paradoxes and problems that come up when deciding whether to buy a special edition DVD. Sure, you watched it before and liked it, but did you like it enough to buy it again and go through it all one more time?

While tending to be more self-contained than the other Old Man's War novels, it doesn't really tell the story of Zoe's life, despite what the title suggests. I would have liked to see what happens to her for a few more chapter after the end of The Last Colony. Instead, Zoe's Tale ends even before the point where The Last Colony did.

The portrayal of events from Zoe's perspective often seems contrived. She's constantly underfoot, spying on and witnessing the same events told, and she's constantly going on secret adventures that mirror the adventures of the adults.

At points, her own personality shines through, such as in the teaser opening, which is a treat, but most of the time it's just a rewritten version of what you've probably already read by this point, with the addition of lots of mooning over the boy Enzo. There are a few additional anecdotes, but nothing too substantial. All the additional narrative could have probably gone into a short story, like the other short stories

I think this book could really have benefited from being written by a guest author, someone new to the series. John Scalzi's writing style just isn't varied and versatile enough to make the same material interesting twice. That's a shame.

I'm not saying you shouldn't read it. After spending three previous books with the Old Man's War universe, I felt fond enough of the characters and the universe to plow through this one too, for the sake of completion. But I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the previous books before. That's where the strength of this one lies, probably; It'd be a good introduction to the series for people who haven't read any of it yet. (less)

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Aug 30, 2012 Booknblues rated it 4 of 5 stars

Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi is far out of my normal reading comfort zone being a Science Fiction Space Opera and a young adult novel, but I couldn’t help but enjoy it with its mix of normal teenagers and exotic space creatures like the hermaphroditic Obins, Hickory and Dickory.

I’ll admit to loving an action book and Zoe’s Tale certainly has enough of that from traveling the universe to coming face to face with new creatures on the new colony of Roanoke which Zoe’s parents are leaders of.

I was impr...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Karen Wyle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Scalzi wrote this novel after using The Last Colony to finish the story arc he began in Old Man's War. At the end of The Last Colony, he predicted that he would not return to that universe any time soon. Various fan questions and comments led him to change his mind, and the result may be my favorite of the series. Something about the risk Scalzi took, in using a female adolescent POV, seems to have energized him. His trademark blend of suspense and emotional depth is very much in evidence.

I actu...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Dorothea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The third book in the Old Man's War trilogy, The Last Colony, was a big disappointment to me. Zoe's Tale is, almost, the book that The Last Colony should have been. It's the story of the same events, but from the perspective of the other book's narrator's adopted daughter, Zoe Boutin.

Zoe is about 10,000 times more interesting than John in The Last Colony. Here are some things her perspective fixes:

+ Zoe's a teenager, so she's still learning a lot about how to live with other people. That makes u...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Igor Stolarsky rated it 2 of 5 stars

Oi, where to begin. Ender's Shadow this is not. I'm a little baffled by what Scalzi was thinking when he decided it was a good idea to release a YA novel that requires reading a least one and preferably three normal adult fiction books to have the context to understand it. This book doesn't hold much for fans of the first three books (more on that later) and I cannot imagine that anyone introduced to the Old Man's War universe by this book would have the first idea about what the hell is going o...more Oi, where to begin. Ender's Shadow this is not. I'm a little baffled by what Scalzi was thinking when he decided it was a good idea to release a YA novel that requires reading a least one and preferably three normal adult fiction books to have the context to understand it. This book doesn't hold much for fans of the first three books (more on that later) and I cannot imagine that anyone introduced to the Old Man's War universe by this book would have the first idea about what the hell is going on and why any of it is important because any summarization of what's going on outside the narrator/protagonist's world is delivered in the uncaring, bored, annoyed, and slightly contemptuous tone of a snarky fifteen year old girl.

Which brings me to my next point: Zoe is apparently extremely obnoxious. I absolutely hated the tone of narration in this book. Leaving aside the ridiculous dialog, unbelievable characters, and occasionally absurd plot points, I just really, REALLY did not like being inside Zoe's head. She's bitchy, annoying, judgmental, and absolutely unrealistic. It comes across less as a teenage girl and more as a middle aged man's caricature of a teenage girl, and not a particularly flattering or even fair one at that.

I did enjoy getting some more information about the Obin and the little grace notes that were added to the main OMW story, and Scalzi isn't a completely inept author so there are moments that go over well, but these were few and far between and mostly drowned out in obnoxious faux teenage girl chatter. I've never been a huge fan of Scalzi's dialog, but the stuff in this book is straight up noxious.

Cycling back to where I began, I just simply don't understand who this book is for. It's going to be childish and annoying for anyone coming off of the other OMW books and a confusing, patronizing trudge for anyone coming into it cold, even YA audiences (Scalzi narration seems to actively hold the reader's intellect in contempt for the first half of the book). I think what it really came down to is that Zoe didn't really have much of a tale to tell; the entire thing comes off as forced and uncomfortable with itself; something ironically more likely to be put forth by an awkward teenager than an accomplished author like Scalzi.(less)

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Dec 01, 2011 Kat Hagedorn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy, teen

http://tinyurl.com/83rjdax

Ok, THAT'S why this book seemed so darn familiar. I get to the end and read the Acknowledgements. This book is essentially a remake of the end of the true trilogy, The Lost Colony, only told from Zoë's point of view, about what she did to help save the colony, how she met the werewolves, and what the Obin are really like.

And it's a load of romping fun because Scalzi got to write in his own voice, and by that I mean his blogger voice. Plus, I will admit to tearing up at...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Peter Simko rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

The back cover says it all: "It's a story you know. But you don't know it all." The fifth book set in the Old Man's War Universe tells you the same story as The Last Colony did, but it does that from Zoe's perspective. It could have turned out to be boring, but luckily it didn't. The main reason behind that is that Zoe is a very interesting and kind of adorable character. So even though there aren't many new scenes, or plot twists that you didn't know about beforehand, Zoe's view makes the novel...more

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Feb 22, 2013 K H rated it 1 of 5 stars

Unbearable

I guess middle-aged men just shouldn't write books from a teenage girl's perspective. The first three books of the series were amazing with a believably wise old man in a new body. But John's adoptive superhero daughter Zoe is just annoying with her overly girlish manner, always thinking about hugs and having a perfect dream boyfriend whose biggest aim is to write her constant poems while she always solves all problems perfectly,pacifiying angry creatures with the "power of the song"....more

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title link	preview: Zoe's Tale
avg rating	preview: Zoe's Tale Goodreads rating: 3.74 (5718 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2102600.Zoe_s_Tale?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1301108028l/2102600.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2102600.Zoe_s_Tale?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi[/url]

Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War #4)

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