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Zoe's Tale

An Old Man's War Novel

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Zoe's Tale

By: John Scalzi
Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
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How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history?

I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.

Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.

It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.

 Adventure Fantasy Military Science Fiction Space Opera
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Critics' reviews

“The Last Colony will kick your butt across the galaxy and make you care.” —Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column, on The Last Colony

“Scalzi's captivating blend of off-world adventure and political intrigue remains consistently engaging.” —Booklist on The Last Colony

“In Heinleinesque fashion, the book is loaded with scenes of comradeship, isolation, ruthlessness and the protocols, which govern the lives of active-duty soldiers. But this is where Scalzi, famous for his blog ‘The Whatever,' surpasses Heinlein. Scalzi weaves in subtle discussions of humanity's growing fear of aging and our simultaneous attraction and repulsion to the Frankenstein-like creatures we are able to create.” —San Antonio Express-News on The Ghost Brigades
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I‘ve read and listened to all parts of the Old Man‘s War series by John Scalzi, so at first I thought: Why should I read this book. It’s part of the same story told from a different perspective. Can’t be that interesting. And how wrong was I! The story is elevated immensely by this second perspective. Every fan of the OMW series should absolutely read or listen to this (audio) book!

Gorgeous story told in a wonderful way

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This isn't a story of its own, but rather the companion or B-side to Scalzi's last novel that's a required read.
As such it adds not only an unusual viewpoint to known events but also skillfully fills in some gaps and answers some open questions that really made me curious while reading The Last Colony.
Due to Zoe's perspective the focus shifts. Especially in the first 2/3 less of the series military sci-fi action and intergalactic politics, but more witty dialogues, characters and sarcasm. Which all works surprisingly well. For me, the experiment was a successful one.

The B-Side of The last colony

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Schöne Erweiterung der Serie, es werden bereits grob bekannte Ereignisse vertieft und aus Sicht von Zoe dargestellt. Kleines Manko: Leider ist die Aussprache der Namen nicht abgestimmt mit vorhergegangenen Büchern, was zumindest anfangs etwas Verwirrung stiftet.

Interessanter Einblick in bekannte Ereignisse

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First I thought: shall I really get the story a 2nd time? A yes in was worth it. I really loved the story. And Tavia was amazing

What a nice surprise

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Both Scalzi as the author and Gilbert as narrator manage to make a story where the big events are already known from the previous books in the series interesting, impressive!
The only minor issue I have is that the narrator pronounced names differently than previous narrator, which might be a bigger issue for someone with stronger OCD tendencies :-)

well done

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