I can’t get Hungarian covers for all the books. It makes me sad I don’t live in Hugary any more, so don’t give me grief about it.
As mentioned previously, The Last Colony/Zoe’s Tale was the end of an arc. The Human Division is the start of the next. Now as Forrest Gump said, “I am not a amart man.”, I’m not. In writing up my thoughts about the read through, I find myself realizing things I’m sure everyone else got the first time around. And The Human Division, as the title of a military sci-fi book has always made me think about just one definition of Division. I completely missed the more obvious one.
As an aside, this reminds me of a question I ran into in high school English that gave me trouble for years - decades really. I don’t remember the exact question any more, but it was basically about how a different spelling of “A Separate Peace” could change the meaning. And I kid you not, it wasn’t until many, many years later I finally realized they were talking about the word Peace. I just kept thinking, “There aren’t other ways to spell separate are there?” I told you, I’m not a smart man.
Back to the point. We have a new arc. Some familiar characters to link to the previous books, some new characters, same world and we keep moving the story forward. it was originally published as a set of 13 serial stories. I never read it that way - just as the full book. It all ties together really well. We come back around to a much more “military” feel than the last two books, in my opinion. We don’t lose the big picture story but it just get’s a little more fighty. We also pick up a lot of mystery that will drive the arc.
I really enjoyed it of course. I mean, if it’s not clear, I’m a Scalzi fan boy. Other than Red Shirts I’m pretty much a full on fan of it all. And even then - that book is executed so well - I just don’t like that kind of story. Anyways - The Human Division is solid. Ton’s of adventure, intrigue and awesome super soldier fun.