Review: Zoë's Tale

Zoë's Tale is the fourth book in John Scalzi's Old Man's War series. (Here are the links to my reviews for the previous books in this series: Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony.) The events in Zoë's Tale happen in parallel with The Last Colony and, where the previous books are told from John and Jane's points of view, this story is told from their adopted daughter Zoë's viewpoint.

For those of us who have already read The Last Colony, this is great companion piece. The overall plot is the same, so there are no twists and turns, but instead there is depth. For example, I knew when a major character was going to die and was still moved, almost to tears, over that character's death. Scalzi's treatment of that scene was well-written and just seemed spot on for what a teen girl would feel.

Still, in some ways, I wish I could have read this on its own and I think someone who has not read the rest of the series may actually get more out of it than I did. [If you want a virgin eyes opinion, I suggest you go read this review by Jen of Devourer of Books. (Then come back here!)]

Scalzi has said (on his blog) that he wrote Zoë's Tale to be "young adult" friendly. I think he's pulled it off quite well and that teens would enjoy this book.

Buy Zoe's Tale on Amazon.