John Scalzi’s non-blogging universe
August 29, 2008 at 4:28 pm by Curt Holman in A&E
In this week’s story “Books vs. Blogs,” I talked with author/blogger John Scalzi about how his popular blog Whatever launched his career as a science fiction novelist. Scalzi serialized his “space opera”novel Old Man’s War as posts on his blog, believing at the time that “This is where it will live forever. Instead, a senior editor at Tor Books discovered it, liked it and was interested in purchasing it, despite the fact that Scalzi had given it away for free, as it were. Old Man’s War is no longer on-line, Scalzi says:
I took it down when it got sold. One can probably still find it online if one looks hard enough, but not legally. “Agent to the Stars,” however, is still on the site.
Scalzi has a “Sampler” page for his on-line fiction, including short stories, unused chapters and a complete novel. I admit that I haven’t read much of that, but I have read all the books in his Old Man’s War universe — in old-fashioned book form. Overall, they’re enormously appealing and accessible reads that can entertain non-sci-fi buffs and hardcore fans alike. Here are capsule reviews, in order, of the four books in the Old Man’s War trilogy. (Wait a minute, that can’t be right.)
Old Man’s War (Published in 2005):
Plot: The military service of John Perry, who enlists in the Colonial Defense Force at the age of 75 and for the first time leaves Earth to experience body modification, basic training, interstellar travel and combat with unsightly aliens.
Verdict: I was a little leery when I started the book and a character who just happens to be a physics teacher walks up to talk about the implications of a futuristic bit of technology – hey, that’s some contrived exposition! But Old Man’s War turned out to be a lot of fun, with more humor and sexiness than one usually finds in the genre. Scalzi has been compared to Robert Heinlein, and I can see that, but more Have Space Suit, Will Travel-lite Heinlein and not The Number of the Beast-weirdo Heinlein. Arguably the narrator “voice” is a little to contemporary and folksy, given that the book takes place a century or two in the future, but it’s almost irresistibly fun.
Quote: “Conquering the universe was getting to me. The unsettled feeling had begun at Gindal, where we ambushed Gindalian soldiers as they returned to their aeries, slashing their huge wings with beams and rockets that sent them tumbling and screeching down sheer two-thousand-meter cliff faces. It had really started to affect me above Udaspri, as we donned inertia-dampening power packs to provide better control as we leaped from rock fragment to rock fragment in Udaspri’s rings, playing hide-and-seek with the spider-like Vindi who had taken to hurtling bits of the ring down to the planet below, plotting delicate decaying orbits that aimed the falling debris directly on top of the human colony of Halford. By the time we arrived at Cova Banda, I was ready to snap.”
The Ghost Brigades (2006)
Plot: The semi-sequel to Old Man’s War focuses on Jared Dirac, a cloned soldier in the Colonial Defense Force’s Special Forces, a.k.a. “Ghost Brigades,” whose lives are informed by superhuman physical enhancements, accelerated intellectual growth, emotional immaturity and constant warfare with Machiavellian space aliens. Dirac’s tour of duty is complicated by the fact that he may contain the consciousness of a scientist who betrayed humanity.
Verdict: Fun, but not quite as successful as Old Man’s War. Scalzi’s still hasn’t mastered smooth exposition and the book’s clichés include an old-school monologuing villain and a too-pat ending. And even though Dirac’s unique condition provided an interesting story, I felt like the internal make-up and dynamics of the Ghost Brigades kind of got a short shrift, even though they, y’know, give the book its title and everything. It’s nevertheless engaging and thoughtful, providing crucial plot points for his subsequent books.
Quote: “On the fifth day, during which the afternoon was spent in an informational session about the disposition of the human colonies and their relationship with other intelligent species (which was to say, bad all the time), the 8th critically evaluated pre-Colonial era speculative fiction and entertainments about interstellar wars with aliens. The verdicts were reasonably consistent. The War of the Worlds met with approval until the ending, which struck the 8th as a cheap trick. Starship Troopers had some good action scenes but required too much unpacking of philosophical ideas; they liked the movie better, even though they recognized it was dumber. The Forever War made most of the 8th unaccountably sad; the idea that a war could go on that long was almost unfathomable to a group of people who were a week old. After watching Star Wars everyone wanted a lightsaber and was irritated that the technology for them didn’t really exist.”
The Last Colony (2007)
Concerning: In the last book of a trilogy, the protagonists of both Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades lead a new colony of human beings, without realizing that the settlement may be the catalyst for a galactic war.
Verdict: Like the others, it’s smart, brisk, readable and very likable. At times the bantering dialogue/narration is a little too cutesy, and some touches don’t ring true: the dialogue of the alien characters often sounds too “human” (someone like, say, David Brin is better at alien characterization). Scalzi doesn’t push the genre in challenging new dimensions, but, the nuts-and-bolts complications of establishing a colony are interesting, and the interstellar brinkmanship is pleasingly complicated.
Quote: “In the first weekend of Zhong Guo, I presided over Roanoke’s first wedding, between Katherine Chao, formerly of Franklin, and Kevin Jones, formerly of Rus. There was much rejoicing. Two weeks later I presided over Roanoke’s first divorce, fortunately not of Chao and Jones. Beata had finally gotten her fill of antagonizing Jann Kranjic and let him off the hook. There was much rejoicing.”
Zoe’s Tale (2008)
Plot: The events of the previous book, The Last Colony, narrated by John Perry, unfold this time from the point of view of Perry’s beloved adopted daughter Zoe – a spunky teenager who’s pleasingly ordinary, apart from being viewed as a borderline-religious figure by a race of aliens called the Obin.
Verdict: If you want something you can blast through in a weekend – possibly even one sitting – try one of these books. It’s not just that he’s constructs snappy, fast-paced, accessible space opera plots with down-to-earth characters (so to speak). It’s because his authorial voice is so relaxed and agreeable, in some of the same ways that his “blogger” voice is relaxed and agreeable. The downside is that it’s a rather contemporary snarky narration – down to the use of the word “snarkily” — which kind of dates the book in the present, even though it takes place a couple of centuries from now. I’d also quibble that Zoe and her teenage friends sound a little alike, but at least they don’t talk in arch slangspeak like Juno and her best friend in Juno. Scalzi also does an adroit job of crafting a novel that stands independently of The Last Colony while running exactly on a parallel track. Zoe engages in some interstellar brinkmanship of her own, but also reflects on established a colony from a teenage perspective, like the heartbreak of doing without one’s “PDA” (a combination personal computer, Blackberry and iPod). It’s probably better to read The Last Colony first. though..
Quote: “Music that was popular on one world was complete unheard of on another. The kids from Khartoum were listening to chango-soca, the ones from Rus were deep into groundthump and so on. Yes, they all had good beats, and you could dance to them, but if you want to get someone wild-eyed and frothy, all you have to do is suggest that your favorite music was better than theirs. People were whipping out their PDAs and queuing up their songs to make their points. And thus began the great Magellan music war.”
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