Tagged: colonial defense forces
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, adjudicates local disputes, and enjoys watching his adopted daughter grow up.
That is, until his and Jane’s past reaches out to bring them back into the game–as leaders of a new human colony, to be peopled by settlers from all the major human worlds, for a deep political purpose that will put Perry and Sagan back in the thick of interstellar politics, betrayal, and war.
If, after The Ghost Brigades, you were still unsure about the ethics of the Colonial Union, you’re going to be sure about them after this. The Colonial Union is pretty much exactly as ominous as the name initially suggested to me. But I’ll get into that shortly.
First off, I want to say that as with every John Scalzi novel, the characters are fantastic. We’re back with John Perry, only now he’s retired. Until the Colonial Union throws a wrench into his plans for being a small community leader on the farming world of Huckleberry. So he, Jane and Zoe are thrown straight into a colonization project on a new world. Since many of the other races in the universe have banded together to stop colonization and the frequent wars that errupt because of it, this is way more risky than it sounds as the discovery of their colony could lead to all of their deaths.
John is a wonderful character and seeing him in this morally ambiguous situation really brings out his better traits. He clearly knows that colonization on a large scale like humans do is wrong when it pushes alien races out of their home worlds but at the same time he can’t really change the entire basis of the Colonial Union. So he has to make sure his new colony of Roanoke stays undetected and therefore safe. But while John is stuck between a rock and a hard place, his ingenuity eventually allows him to succeed where it would have been so easy to fail.
The plot is fantastic. John Scalzi crams a lot into just over 300 pages. We go off and see our characters found a new colony, learn that they’re not where they’re supposed to be, struggle to try to make the colony functional and eventually fight for their lives when the Colonial Union and the rest of the universe face off. At the same time, this is also a wonderful personal story. The relationship between John and Jane is wonderful and loving but not without its struggles. And of course Zoe is now a teenager and life is never simple when you’re a teenager on a new colony with two alien bodyguards with their own agendas and struggles. In the end, The Last Colony is a both a very human story of love and survival and a political thriller that asks you to question the world around you, particularly the motivations of various governments.
This is the third book in the Old Man’s War series and although the ending is satisfying in itself, it leaves open so many possibilities in the next few books. I can’t really get into the details of the ending because that would be a massive spoiler but let’s just say I definitely did not see that coming. John Scalzi is one of the few novelists who consistently surprises me and I honestly can’t wait to read more of the Old Man’s War series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
(Cover picture courtesy of Geeky Scifi.)
The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF’s toughest operations. They’re young, fast, strong, and totally without normal human qualms.
The universe is a dangerous place for humanity—and it’s about to become more dangerous. Three races we’ve fought before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest secrets. To prevail, the CDF must find out why Boutin did what he did.
Jared Dirac—a superhuman hybrid, created from Boutin’s DNA—is the only person who can provide answers. Jared’s brain should be able to access Boutin’s electronic memories, but when the memory transplant appears to fail, Jared is given to the Ghost Brigades.
At first, Jared is a perfect soldier. then, as Boutin’s memories slowly surface, Jared begins to intuit the reasons for Boutin’s betrayal…and the fact that some of humanity’s enemies have worse things in mind than our mere defeat.
Just like the first book in the series, Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades was nothing like I expected. If you thought it was a little cliché for the Colonial Defense Forces to be the undisputed ‘good guys’ as it seemed in the first book, you’ll love the spin John Scalzi puts on the CDF in his sequel. Trust me, you do not want to read this book if you’re squeamish because here we see the ugly side of the CDF and its Special Forces, the Ghost Brigades.
Enter our protagonist, Jared Dirac. With some questionable ethics, he was specially grown and implanted with the consciousness of another man in an attempt to figure out why one of the leading scientists turned traitor. I won’t even pretend to understand John Scalzi’s science-filled explanations for consciousness transfer, but fans of hard sci-fi will love them. There’s also some throwbacks to earlier sci-fi writers who experimented with the ethics surrounding consciousness and souls. Of course all this involves some pretty heavy ethical debates, but that’s just a sign John Scalzi actually puts faith in the intelligence of his readers.
Jared is an interesting character. Since he’s born an adult, he’s also born without a personality and must develop one when it’s seemingly clear that Charles Boutin’s consciousness hasn’t taken. We get to see the Ghost Brigades very intensive training, see some of their horrible missions and watch as Jared’s personality slowly develops through all of the crazy events. And just when you think you’ve guessed how things will end for poor Jared, you’ll find out that you’re wrong. John Scalzi is just that good at making believable plot twists motivated by the characters themselves.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
(Cover picture courtesy of 52 Books 52.)
John Perry did two things on his seventy-fifth birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it to the stars. The bad news is that, out there, planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.
Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of our resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Forces, and everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join up. The CDF doesn’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth, never to return. You’ll serve two years in combat. And if you survive, you’ll be given a homestead of your own, on one of our hard-won planets.
John Perry is taking that deal. He thinks he knows what to expect. But the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger.
I enjoyed Old Man’s War. Not in the snobby critic “it was an intelligent read with many messages too complicated for you common folk” way. I mean it was thoroughly entertaining: I laughed so hard I cried for a whole minute, read passages aloud to the people around me and read it in one sitting (that’s 3 hours of reading), not even pausing for dinner. Now that, my friends, is the mark of a good book.
Just as a bit of background information, I knew Old Man’s War would be funny yet have deeper messages. I’d been following John Scalzi’s blog Whatever for about three years until I actually picked up one of his books, so I was familiar with his writing style. But that didn’t prepare me in the slightest for his debut novel. It’s science fiction with actual science in it, but it’s explained so well that even someone like me that does not have a strong background in science can understand things perfectly.
This is what science fiction is really about. John Scalzi takes us on a fantastic journey to other worlds, dazzles us with the technology of a possible future, puts us in the skin of an interesting character and, best of all, gives us important questions to ponder while making us laugh. Unlike in a lot of sci-fi, things are not in black and white. We don’t know who the good guys and bad guys are because both sides commit unspeakable atrocities, which is the reality of war. We never really answer the question of who is good and who is bad; it’s left up to the reader to pass judgment, which suits me just fine.
John Perry really is an intriguing character. Since the book is in first person, we get to know him intimately but we never tire of him. He’s well fleshed-out and has a believable background, but also changes as he fights for the CDF. I don’t want to go into too much detail or I’ll spoil things, but John does end up in some pretty tough ethical dilemmas, especially when it comes to the mysterious Ghost Brigades.
Plot twists, science fiction with real science, fantastic settings, realistic characters…you can’t ask for anything else. And that’s why Old Man’s War got the honour of being the book I chose for my 250th review. I absolutely love it and would recommend it to anyone! Seriously, you need to read this book.
I give this book 5/5 stars.