I have to come clean - I read the rest of the series, and the new books without writing the rest of the posts. So now I’m going back and trying to remember. I feel bad. But not too bad. Life got busy and I needed to finish the series so I could get to my new book. Ok - so my conscience is clear. Here we go.
Zoe’s Tale is the end of an arc. And it is apparently Mr. Scalzi’s favorite. I heard him say this at a book signing, and he mentioned he’d said it before - so feel free to check - it made sense. He was writing about the kind of person his daughter might become at the time. ( If I remember right, apologies if I messed that up.) Regardless, I think a person may see it differently and I’d like to speak to what are possible objections to the book.
- Why would I read the same book again? This feels like Nintendo selling me the same games over and over.
- Why would I read a juvenile by a guy not known for juvenitles? This feels like a commercial offering to make more money off fans.
They are pretty tighly related. Here’s my answer to both.
The story is really different from The Last Colony. Yes, same world, same time frame, lots of overlapping characters - but so very, very different. It holds as a stand-alone frankly. You could hand this someone, they could read it and love it. I know I did. And this re-read I read them back to back with very little time between them. If it was going to feel repetitive, this would have been the time to feel it. I didn’t. Think back to whe you were a teen. How much of your life did your parents have zero idea what you were up to?
For number two. I have no idea if that factored in. Mr. Scalzi isn’t stupid and is very open in talking about the commercial aspects of his work. But I think that the story is compelling and even if the motivation were cynical, the story isn’t. The problem is when you have stories that are so obviously trying to ride some trend or target some audience, but don’t tell a good story. This is a good story.
That’s it. Zoe’s Tale is great.