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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi


This book is one of the five novel nominees for a Hugo Award this year. Voting is happening now and the winners will be announced at Worldcon in Montreal, Quebec in August.

The rest of the novels are:
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
The Graveyard Game by Neil Gaiman
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
Saturn's Children by Charles Stross
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Zoe's tale is set in the same universe as the Old Man's War, Ghost Brigades, and the Last Colony. Zoe is the adopted daughter of John and Jane from the previous books and Zoe's Tale is a rehashing of Last Colony as told from Zoe's POV.

That's it.

Okay, I give Scalzi points for writing a YA book from the viewpoint of a teenage girl who is Queen to an alien race. I award points for taking the same story and turning it 180* and retelling it from a different character's view.

But really, I was looking forward to picking up a story about Zoe in later years, after her and her family were forced to leave Roanoke and she grew up and went on to do great things or something. For myself, it was a mildly interesting read that I probably wouldn't have finished if it wasn't for the Hugo Awards.

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