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Zoe's Tale: Old Man's War Book 4

(Old Man's War #4)

John Scalzi (Goodreads Author)

3.74 · Rating details · 25,928 ratings · 1,667 reviews

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

...more

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Kindle Edition, 340 pages

Published August 1st 2009 by Tor UK (first published August 19th 2008)

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Jun 11, 2015 mark monday rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-modern, teenworld

John Scalzi: Young Adult Author?

YES! this enjoyable book was not just enjoyable for its story, but also for how it helped me realize that John Scalzi has been writing like a YA author since the beginning of his career. it just took an actual YA novel penned by him for me to realize that.

he has so much in common with the modern YA authors I've read:

- pleasant but generic writing style that has no interest in impressing its reader with challenging prose

- pleasant characters who are sympathetic but ...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Dan Schwent rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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

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 ...more

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Aug 04, 2018 Lyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

HOORAY FOR ZOE!

And Hooray! for John Scalzi.

Taking a page from Orson Scott Card’s playbook, he tells the same story from a different POV and gets a great result.

Scalzi published The Last Colony in 2007, the third in his wildly popular Old Man's War universe and it was good SF, garnering a nod from the Hugo award committee with a nomination for best novel.

Zoe’s Tale was published the next year and was nominated for the Andre Norton Award for YA fiction.

That’s right, Scalzi channeled his inner ...more

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Jun 25, 2018 Mayim de Vries rated it did not like it · review of another edition

What is worse than writing a bad book?
Writing it twice under two different titles.

The fourth book in the Old Man’s War series is completely unnecessary. Zoe, an adopted daughter of John and Jane, essentially retells the same story we have already read in “The Last Colony.”

Does it make sense?

None whatsoever. I grant you that some elements, seen from Zoe’e perspective, gain new details, while in the previous books they were either just mentioned or ignored altogether. The question is whether it ...more

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Jul 31, 2014 Mark rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

What a cynical cash grab this book feels like. Good grief. What else can you say about a book that came out the next year after the previous book where the author proclaimed, in post-text notes, that the story had been concluded?

And yet, before long, there arrived Zoe's Tale, a story told in parallel to The Last Colony, first-person in the perspective of Zoe Boutin-Perry, as you might expect from such a titled book. It's basically like if you take The Last Colony and take out 85% of the good What a cynical cash grab this book feels like. Good grief. What else can you say about a book that came out the next year after the previous book where the author proclaimed, in post-text notes, that the story had been concluded?

And yet, before long, there arrived Zoe's Tale, a story told in parallel to The Last Colony, first-person in the perspective of Zoe Boutin-Perry, as you might expect from such a titled book. It's basically like if you take The Last Colony and take out 85% of the good parts. Zoe Gumps her way around the periphery of the story, occasionally re-hashing conversations that already took place, verbatim, in the previous book, with little added value to giving us her perspective on those matters.

There is no tension to be found in the story because the reader of the series is already aware of exactly who does and who doesn't die, and when. There is little entertainment to be found in this teenage angst-heavy story if only because these people don't feel like teenagers stuck on a 20th century-ish tech seed colony. The sense of humor is just so particular, so right now, just this very specific kind of snark that's apparently preserved exactly through the centuries, as humans expand across the fabric of space.

There's little cultural differences to be seen or explored through the ten different groups of colonial people. There's just a whole lot of sarcasm that's very aware of the fact that it's trying to be a book with a lot of sarcasm, rather than just feeling like a book that has sarcastic characters, if that makes sense. About all that's missing is some kind of fourth wall-breaking monologue.

Across the whole book, there is approximately one real, earned emotion. The stuff I slogged through to get to it was not worth the payoff. It's all the more frustrating because there were very scattered interesting parts or phrases, especially more towards the end of the book, once we get out into the things that Zoe experienced on her own, off Roanoke, that Perry, the previous book's narrator, could not have known. The parts with the Obin, the Conclave, and the Consu in particular are mostly solid, even if these also have a tendency to skip over what could have been some of the best parts. Before that, it's a whole lot of meh.

The author addresses some of this in the acknowledgements at the close of this book, observing that he felt like he had left things out of the last book, with readers having pointed out that the werewolves were never really resolved (which, I mean, they weren't) and that he resolved the plot with a deus ex machina - which, again, he did, since Perry knows nothing of Zoe's journey and the device she returns with.

To all of that, I would say WRITE A BETTER BOOK THE FIRST TIME. The only thing this tack-on book does is make the third book seem in retrospect like a lazy, incomplete effort, which he is now trying to solve by patching a second lazy, incomplete effort over it. Plot the previous book better and perhaps it would have been a bit longer, but it would have been a stronger book. Maybe he could have had Perry and Zoe telling these tales side-by-side within the same volume. As a separate entry to the story, it does not measure up. Highly disappointed.

I'm annoyed at myself for checking out the fifth book of the series concurrently, as I now feel obligated to read it despite having just plowed through this morass. Oh well, down the hatch. ...more

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Aug 11, 2017 Veronique rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, favourites-5and4-5

4.5

I must admit that I was a little worried about this novel. To use the same plot as the one in The Last Colony, but told from a different point of view, is a dangerous thing to do. Well, I really should have trusted Scalzi because of course he pulls it off.

Zoe has a great voice, quite similar to John Perry's, with the same humour but tons more sarcasm, and that 'je-ne-sais-quoi' that teenagers have. Well, some. After a few pages, I was sold and completely engrossed in this character's ...more

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Oct 24, 2014 Lindsey Rey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, science-fiction

[3.5 Stars]

Ultimately, I just don't particularly enjoy books that are the same story as a previous book told in a different POV.

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Sep 29, 2017 Niki Hawkes - The Obsessive Bookseller rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Mini Review: Discovering that this cheeky sci-fi series continued book 4 with an even cheekier YA POV was a bag of mixed emotions. I haven’t had the best luck with YA lately, but I loved the character Zoe. If anyone could pull off integrating this unconventional new perspective into an adult series, it would be Scalzi. Happily, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it may have revitalized the series for me. At first I was a bit bored with its shared (or dual) timeline with Last Colony (book 3) because I’ ...more

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Jan 09, 2009 Danielle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone who had issues with lack of explantions from Last Colony

Shelves: sci-fi, pans, ya, 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 ...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Erica Anderson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, 2013-reads

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 ...more

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Oct 10, 2013 Mpauli rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: genre_sf, orga_read-in-2015, rating_2-stars

The book is really difficult to rate, so let me explain quickly why it is only a 2 for me. Zoe's Tale on its own might be a 4 star read. It is filled with the usual Scalzi humor, its prose is very accessible and Zoe is a likeable character.

My issue with the book is that it is "only" a companion novel to the last book in the series. It tells exactly the same story and therefore it has zero tension. It clarifies 2-3 plotpoints from the The Last Colony, but I'm not sure if I needed a whole book for ...more

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Dec 07, 2016 Ivan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Rating probably would be lower if I read right after previous installment since this is retalling of event of in The Last Colony seen through Zoe's eyes. There are few new bits of information mostly regarding Obin but it's basically same story but since I put some time between two books it didn't bother me. It was actually nice to be reminded what was "previously on" in Old man's war series before continuing on.

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Aug 24, 2017 Lata rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-fantasy, x2017-read, x2017-sff-tbr-cleanup

Nice complement to "The Last Colony". I like seeing some of the events from Zoe's perspective, but also like finding out what the heck Zoe was doing with her friend Gretchen and her boyfriend Enzo, while Jane and John were leading the colony. And it was great hearing Zoe's take on Jane, who Zoe loved but could also see as scary, and her two Obin bodyguards.

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Sep 04, 2018 James DeSantis rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was a solid "fill in the blanks" story but not sure the genre/age group it was going for.

It's a story that you can only read when you read book 3 of Old Man's War. With that being said, it feels like a different genre. The teenagers all act like YA novels but younger YA. Not cursing, no sexual talk, basically nothing like real teenagers. Now, I'm not saying I need that in a story, but when you have an adult series for 3 books and then it goes to young teen book, it's weird.

So this is the ...more

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Sep 06, 2008 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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, ...more

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Feb 17, 2016 Michael Cairns rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

This was a fun, fast, sci fi yarn, the type unashamed newspaper reviewers would call a 'romp'.
We pick up Zoe as she's turning from naive teenager into someone far more aware of her place in the world. And what an amazing place is it. Zoe forms the treaty between humans and another race of people called the Obin. Her father helped them out before he died, so she has become their link to him and the person they use to model their new found consciousness on. The book explains it much better, you'll ...more

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May 19, 2013 Kat Hooper rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

Originally posted at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

Zoe’s Tale, the fourth book in John Scalzi’s OLD MAN’S WAR series, is the same story we were told in book three, The Last Colony, except it’s from Zoe’s perspective. Zoe is the 17-year-old daughter of the traitorous scientist Charles Boutin. Jane Sagan and John Perry adopted Zoe when she was a small child and they’ve been farming on one of Earth’s colonies for years. Now, though, the family is off to lead the settlers of a new Originally posted at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

Zoe’s Tale, the fourth book in John Scalzi’s OLD MAN’S WAR series, is the same story we were told in book three, The Last Colony, except it’s from Zoe’s perspective. Zoe is the 17-year-old daughter of the traitorous scientist Charles Boutin. Jane Sagan and John Perry adopted Zoe when she was a small child and they’ve been farming on one of Earth’s colonies for years. Now, though, the family is off to lead the settlers of a new colony called Roanoke (uh-oh). When they get there they realize they’ve been duped and life on Roanoke has a lot more going on than just terraforming a new planet.

While I was reading The Last Colony there were several times I wondered “what’s Zoe doing?” or “what does Zoe think about this?” or even “is Zoe the sweet innocent teenager her parents think she is?” I guess John Scalzi knew I was wondering those things, because the sole purpose of Zoe’s Tale is to let us know what Zoe was doing and thinking all this time. Thus we hear the same plot again — there isn’t really any plot progression — but we do get to know Zoe and we get information about the events that only Zoe experienced in The Last Colony. Mostly these occur at the end of the story when Zoe has a major role in saving Roanoke colony.

I liked getting to know Zoe in this novel, but I found the lack of new plot to be disappointing. I also was not convinced by Scalzi’s characterization of Zoe, mainly because she and her teenage friends banter with each other as if John Scalzi was writing their dialogue. They’re just too clever to be believed.

My favorite characters in Zoe’s Tale were Hickory and Dickory, the aliens who revere Zoe’s father and act as Zoe’s bodyguards. Their lack of a sense of humor, literal interpretation of human speech, and deadpan delivery of their lines is charming. I listened to Tavia Gilbert’s narration and she does a wonderful job with them (and Zoe and the rest of the characters, too). Hickory and Dickory also supply some background information about one of the alien races that I hope we will see more of in a future installment.

If you’re not interested in a sometimes angsty teenage girl’s perspective of the events that occurred in The Last Colony, there’s no reason to read Zoe’s Tale. If you haven’t read The Last Colony you could read Zoe’s Tale instead — you’d be caught up with the story so far. I don’t know if Scalzi plans for Zoe to be protagonist in a future book. If she is, then I’ll be glad I read this story of her childhood and teenage years.

I’m giving Zoe’s Tale 3.5 stars for those who haven’t read The Last Colony. In that case it’s an enjoyable novel with a lot of plot and some great characters. If you have read The Last Colony, I’d give this book a 3 star rating. It’s just not enough new plot. ...more

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Sep 05, 2012 David Sven rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Zoe's Tale is a retelling of the previous book in the series The Last Colony from Zoe's perspective (My Review of The Last Colony http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...). Its basically exactly the same story minus most the interesting bits told by a teenage girl. As much as I enjoyed that story the first time around, after 80% into this last book it was really dragging.

The only redeeming feature of the book was the next 15% which deals with Zoe's diplomatic mission to the Conclave. We didn't ...more

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Feb 11, 2017 Silvana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sff-2018-reading-challenge, sci-fi, space-the-final-frontier, kindle-google, growing-up, mine-mine-mine, reading-with-friends

3.5 stars. Scalzi's first book that made me cry. Thrice. Well, the first two were more like sniffles, but I did bawl the third time.

This is much, much better than the tepid The Last Colony. Zoe's POV is not a retelling; there were so many events unfolding that you could only see through her eyes, especially the ones with the Obin and other aliens. I think her relationship with Hickory and Dickory is my favorite part of the book, as heartbreaking as it is.

I was rather worried that it would be ...more

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Sep 06, 2008 Jennifer rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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 ...more

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Jul 09, 2014 Kaethe Douglas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, humor, fiction, music, romance, beloved, native-peoples, ya, adventure, friendship

2012 January 2

Scalzi totally nailed it. I really, really, really want Veronica to get to this soon, and tell me what she thinks. Telling the same story from a different point of view allows him to expand on bits that received less attention in The Last Colony, but it also allowed him to tell more about the regular lives of the colonists, and how they manage to amuse themselves. I loved it, snarky teenaged heroine and all.

~~Library~~personal copy.

2014, September 2

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Oct 03, 2009 Andy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

OK, read the cover blurb CAREFULLY. This is a redo of the previous book in the "series" (it's not really 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 off-world in order to come back with the momentum sucking device. Furthermore, it's targeted at young readers, both because it's from Zoe's perspective and because the type face is big.
So I'm pretty disappointed ...more

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Jul 09, 2015 Jonathan rated it did not like it · review of another edition

**This reviews will contain spoilers for "Last Colony", and as a result, for this book as well. However, if you already read the Last Colony, this book is spoiled for you anyway.**

I honestly don't know why this book was written.

This is a retelling of the Last Colony from Zoe's point of view. There might be compelling reasons to return to an already told narrative - to add a new perspective, to elucidate events which were unclear in the first telling, to squeeze a successful frnachise's teenage ...more

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Jul 27, 2017 Sana rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: officially-whelmed, disaster-the-opposite-of-aster, read-in-2017, murder-is-terribly-exhausting, friendship-of-the-unshakable-kind, aliens-really-got-it, salt-squad, space-trip

Well, that's left me feeling quite whelmed to say the least. Mainly because Scalzi simply does not know how to write a teenage girl. (I appreciate that he admits in the acknowledgements that Zoe as a character is bound to not work in some places). Or a teenage romance.

Moreover, the way Zoe talks mostly sounds like a young John Perry which isn't exactly a compliment because so much of the witty banter just felt forced and no. I think there was some halfhearted attempt at meta involved here ...more

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Mar 04, 2015 Gaby rated it did not like it · review of another edition

“It was one of those moments that you just can’t describe. So I won’t try anymore,” says the narrator during the climax of the book. This sentence should be printed on the cover of “Zoe’s Tale” as a candid warning from the author to potential readers. Where to begin? Telling the same story from two different perspectives could work as long as each perspective is unique and brings something new to the table, but as Scalzi’s characters have the same voice and personality, that’s really not the ...more

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Mar 09, 2010 Nikki rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 ...more

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Sep 06, 2019 Steve rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, science-fiction, read-in-2019

DNF at about 20%

I'm not sure what the purpose of this book was. Was it to "prove" Scalzi could write YA material? Was it simply a cash-grab? I was hoping it was a book that continued the Perry's story, maybe moving on to the next generation starring Zoe in all-new adventures. Alas, it was not to be.

It's a complete retelling the previous book, The Last Colony, from John and Jane's adopted teenage daughter's perspective. I liked Zoe's character in the previous books, but I don't really need to ...more

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Jun 21, 2017 Megan Baxter rated it liked it · review of another edition

Companion novels are a tricky business. If you want to write a second book that goes over most of the same terrain as a previous book, you really need something new you're trying to say, some way in which reading the second book will irrevocably change your experience of the first. Otherwise, it's an exercise, it might even be fun, but it's not necessarily going to stand up to the weight being placed upon it.

Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy ...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Bradley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, sci-fi

I've been a big fan of Scalzi ever since Old Man's War, but I was slightly worried that Zoe's Tale would be a some milking of The Last Colony, which is a POV change of that novel. I'm not entirely certain it was necessary, except for the fact that it develops what might have been a serious dues ex machina event and makes everything hunky-dory. It may sound as if I didn't like the novel, but that's plainly untrue. This was an excellent YA novel, and I have to admit I love the concept of an ...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Laura by: Cousin George

Shelves: being-human, terraforming, evolution, 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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topics	posts	views	last activity
Worst of the series so far...	6	74	Sep 20, 2018 06:49PM
Fantasy Buddy Reads: Zoe's Tale [June 10, 2018]	16	21	Jun 27, 2018 02:28PM
Fantasy Buddy Reads: Zoe's Tale [Sept 2017]	26	20	Oct 04, 2017 02:33PM
Around the Year i...: Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi	1	19	Jul 24, 2016 12:29PM
Space Opera Fans : [BOTM] - SERIES PICK - Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi	7	27	Sep 08, 2014 11:48AM

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About John Scalzi

John Scalzi

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John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.

(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)