Set in the same universe as Old Man's War, and immediately following it, this nonetheless defies the concept of a true sequel by being about almost totally different people. Unfortunately, while it may be marginally less predictable than Old Man's War, it also lacks the strong sense of character and depth of personality that the prior novel had. For me, that sapped it of most of the reasons to want to keep reading. I knew that I loved Zoe's Tale (which I read before reading any of these) and I'd heard that The Last Colony was also good, so I got through this mostly in order to get from here to there. If I hadn't been pre-invested in the series, I probably would have put it down. Everything the first one had in terms of plot is there, and more, and ironically for the book that I'm giving a lower rating to, it was packed with a lot more interesting and engaging ideas, especially toward the end. However, the characters just seemed very flat to me, and I honestly didn't care a whole lot what happened to them.