The End of All Things by John Scalzi
It’s been more than a decade since I first read Old Man’s War. While I have enjoyed every book in the Old Man’s War series leading up to this aptly-named ultimate novel, I have been hesitant to start this one. The reason? The series is too good! I just didn’t want to have it end. After all, I did just recently finish up reading The Expanse series. A guy can only take so many sci-fi series endings at once! But, as they say, all good […]
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Reviewing books in the middle of a series is always tricky because, by definition, spoilers are inherent. The fact that the the cover of this book says it’s a sequel to Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades already gives away certain information about the plot, let alone the back cover summary. All that aside, I will try to just give the bare bones of this plot along with this statement of the trilogy – it’s a fun, entertaining, and satisfying series. Now, to The […]
What better way to go out on CBR bingo than on the “this is the end” square for the last of the Old Man’s War series entitled The End of All Things? Poetic. This wraps up the war between the CDF and Conclave (with special guest Equilibrium) in Star Wars fashion – with politics! Ok, im being unduly harsh, Scalzi does what he’s done this whole series to great effect – taking an interesting idea from his last book and expanding on it – particularly […]
In one of my Old Man’s War reviews I mentioned that Scalzi’s strong suit wasn’t in crafting disparate personality types; his best characters are all (presumably, but I’m confident on the logic) stand ins for John Scalzi, which is fine because I like them all. This book has more than a dozen characters we share a POV with. It’s a lot, and it doesn’t play to the author’s strengths. I had a tough time separating characters for just this reason, and it somewhat undermines Scalzi’s […]
The more John Scalzi I read, the less convinced I am that he can write characters who aren’t John Scalzi. Mind, that’s not entirely a criticism as I thoroughly enjoy John Scalzi, and so I like all his characters who are very clearly him as well. Same reason I like Bill Murray; you don’t buy a ticket to a Bill Murray movie for the same reason you see a Meryl Streep movie. Disappearing into a role is not the same as embodying a character so […]
I do love some sci-fi, and I’m fully aware that Star Trek TOS owes as massive a debt to old western serials as sci fi owes to Star Trek. But man, I just can not get into westerns. At all. I watched The Searchers specifically because it’s the best western out there and thought “yeah I’m sure it is, and it took all of my focus to pay attention to it” after the credits rolled. So it’s not scalzi’s fault I didn’t love this, as […]
