The Last Colony Review

Title: The Last Colony
Author: John Scalzi
Date Purchased: 2/11/2017
Price Paid: $3.17
Date Finished: 2/28/2021
Rating: 4/5

It’s interesting how a project like this can uncover things that, for whatever reason, just never quite surfaces in a person’s consciousness. While I could be talking about my book buying habits or the fact that once I start a series I need to finish it, I’m talking about my love for science fiction.

Clarifying a bit here, I’m finding that I really love space opera or military science fiction…basically, if you give me some alien planets, spaceships, maybe some ridiculous technology? I’m a happy reader. I’ll have to explore that more once I’m able to just read whatever I want.

It has been many years since I read the first two books of the Old Man’s War series, and I was worried that I was going to be incredibly lost. Thankfully a few quick Google searches brought me up to speed on the first two books and I was able to dive into book three.

The Last Colony picks up the story of John Perry and his wife Jane Sagan as they live a normal life outside of the Colonial Defense Force. Retired, they now live on the colony planet of Huckleberry with their adopted daughter Zoë.

Life is soon interrupted by a visitor from the past, and we’re off on another adventure. John and Jane are asked to oversee the colonization of a new planet, Roanoke, and after some deliberation they agree. Packing up their lives, they load onto the starship Magellan and head off for their new lives.

At this point, the proverbial shit hits the fan.

Apart from the aforementioned love of space operas, this book resonated with me because Scalzi does a great job of turning this into a mystery novel. As the plot unfolds, more and more details of their situation are revealed and we find that few things are exactly as they seem.

I’ve read a few of his books already, and Scalzi has a knack for being able to mix a good deal of wit with a story that acts as a metaphor for the human condition. It doesn’t take a lot of reading between the lines to see his criticisms: he rails against government secrecy, colonialism, imperialism, and many other issues.

The characters are not the deepest that I’ve ever read, but I found that I didn’t really care as much. With a fast paced story that always seemed to have another twist and turn, the lack of depth wasn’t as pronounced.

My primary complaint about this book is one that Scalzi has already addressed. Throughout the first three books, the majority of the alien races are presented without a real detailed description. There are occasional brief descriptions of alien anatomy that leave the reader going “oh, so they have eyestalks”.

When asked about it, Scalzi pointed out that he didn’t feel like he needed to give detailed descriptions of the alien races. But not doing so, the reader was free to picture the aliens in any way that they wanted. This does make sense, but it’s interesting to see what happens in your mind without a description.

I really enjoyed this book and I’m quite curious about the next book, Zoë’s Tale, as it’s a retelling of this book from her point of view. We’ll see if I get the same feeling as I did from this one.

Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book, and the first book was one of my favorites. I recommend this series…at least through book three!