I wasn't convinced there was enough story for a second book, but it worked rather well.

Zoe's Tale is a retelling of the previous Scalzi book, [b:The Last Colony|88071|The Last Colony|John Scalzi|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312021759s/88071.jpg|18279847], from Zoe's point of view. At first, I was wondering what this would bring to the story, retelling the prior book from a teenaged girl's perspective, but I sincerely enjoyed it. There is just enough new information to keep it surprising and Zoe's voice is really engaging.

Fine, with some great moments however it really suffers from reading it straight after reading The Last Colony. I can't justify giving it 2 stars because it's nor bad, it's just mostly pointless.

It's an interquel that completely overlaps The Last Colony to a fault. The whole book would have been significantly better if it had been cut down a bit and just folded into The Last Colony as another POV strand.


Also no one, particularly the otherwise worldly intelligent teenager, points out the boyfriend is a self involved pretentious prat. I assume the point is she's 16 or so and doesn't notice it butr really someone should.

Not my favourite in the series. It provided some clarity on the previous book but not enough to warrant the story told from another side.

Same story as the previous part, different angle. Well written but very predictable. Hm. Anticlimax.

Stick with it

Having read the first three books one after the other over a week long business trip with lots of airplane and airport time, I began this with everything fresh on my mind. It meant that the first half of the book was somewhat boring revision and I struggled to see the point.

Then I got to the detailed new matter - stories of Zoe's life not revealed to or by her parents. These made it all worthwhile. They added depth to the third book in a most interesting way. Well worth persevering.

I'll admit; I was hoping that this book was going to be about an older Zoe, making her own story in the universe. I got the latter bit and not the former, and that is definitely ok. I didn't realize that there was so much more going on with this character than what had been presented in The Last Colony.

This book follows Zoe Boutrin, daughter of Charles who promised consciousness to the Obin, mainly throughout her time spent on Roanoke Colony with her parents John and Jane. Much of the story is that of [i]The Last Colony[/i] told from a different perspective, but I found it to be just as entertaining and interesting as the original point of view. Scalzi did a very good job of writing from the POV of a smartass teenager, and I really enjoyed some of the excellent banter between Zoe and her friends. Definitely worth a read if you enjoyed the rest of the [i]Old Man's War[/i] series, and also interesting to see what it's like to grow up as the patron saint or goddess of an entire species, once you've hit teenagerhood.