Zoe's Tale

John Scalzi is always fun to read, but this was in many ways not a necessary book. A retelling of “The Last Colony” from the point of view of Zoe, the 16 year old daughter of the principals of the last story. On the one hand, Scalzi at least avoids “The Ender’s Shadow” trap of completely undermining the other side of the story, on the other hand, there isn’t much there. The last 50 pages are vintage Scalzi, but the rest wanders. And of course Scalzi has trouble finding the voice of a 16 year old girl, but at least he errs on the side of making her too precocious, not too superficial.