I ran through all these and by the time I was reading “The Human Division”, the new book was out. I had a signed copy sitting in my living room. So I was a little motivated to get to the end and dig in.
I was also experiencing something I’ve run into in the past when I go back and re-read something that was originally spread out over a long time frame. Everything hits harder when you are into it over a much more compact time frame. You ‘know’ everyone a little bit better and the world just feels a bit more concrete.
“The End of All Things” might be my favorite book of the series so far. It was published as a series of novellas and they are impactful. I hate to be a plot spoiler so I’m not going to discuss specifics but they all really put on display Scalzi’s ability to be at once irreverant, exciting and deeply heartfelt. I don’t think it’s an easy thing to do - to put all these elements together and keep a balance. A lot of what I read can be very action oriented, but doesn’t have the same emotional pull. All the humor is here, and the cool battle scenes and future military tech. But, and maybe it’s just me, I feel like the emotional component is the strongest of the series.
This is the last post for my re-read and I’m going to try and post a full review for “The Shattering Peace”. That’s a lot more work, so we’ll see if it happens, but I’m going to try.