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keyboardandcouch 's review for:
The Human Division
by John Scalzi
I liked this, though I can see how others wouldn't and I can imagine being immensely frustrated if I had been a subscriber to the weeklies and expecting something more like the Old Man's War novels.
These linked short stories are a window into the fear, confusion and chaos in the Colonial Union and on Earth following the shake-up at the end of The Last Colony. The tales mostly occupy an awkward niche, not quite epic conflict but not slice of life stories of 'ordinary' people either. The clue is in the title really, the characters of "The Human Division" have moments of brilliance and heroism, they visit strange lands and influence momentous events, but they are still in many ways, functionaries, cogs in a larger machine and have nothing like a full understanding of the events they are embroiled in.
We end on a cliffhanger, that will presumably re resolved in this summer's sequel, "The End of All Things", but I found myself not that bothered by the cliff hangers as this collection seemed to be so much about the battles rather than the war it seemed fitting.
These linked short stories are a window into the fear, confusion and chaos in the Colonial Union and on Earth following the shake-up at the end of The Last Colony. The tales mostly occupy an awkward niche, not quite epic conflict but not slice of life stories of 'ordinary' people either. The clue is in the title really, the characters of "The Human Division" have moments of brilliance and heroism, they visit strange lands and influence momentous events, but they are still in many ways, functionaries, cogs in a larger machine and have nothing like a full understanding of the events they are embroiled in.
We end on a cliffhanger, that will presumably re resolved in this summer's sequel, "The End of All Things", but I found myself not that bothered by the cliff hangers as this collection seemed to be so much about the battles rather than the war it seemed fitting.