author : John Scalzi

I was a bit hesitant to read this. Scenario: author has gained fame, goes back and publishes his first novel (originally written in 1999, slightly updated for intervening events). First novels can be a bit gruesome. This isn't: I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Tom Stein is an up-and-coming Hollywood agent, who has just negotiated a career changing contract for one of his clients, when he's called into his fearsome boss's office. There he's stunned to discover he has a new client: the alien Yherajk, who want to make contact with Earth, and realise that they need an agent to do so. How can Tom "sell" to humanity an alien race who look like a bucket of something disgusting, and smell worse? Fortunately they are very moral, very patient, and have a sense of humour.

There's great humour here, but it's not broad slapstick: it just emerges from the bizarre situation Tom finds himself in, the even more bizarre egos of some of Tom's more human clients, the fact that the aliens have learned Earth culture from our TV broadcasts (and realise that this is a problem), and the sheer silliness of the movie industry. And it's not all comedy: there are also some truly moving scenes. And a massive coincidence needed to resolve the plot.

Ever wondered what Starship Troopers would be like with a Heinlein stage three protagonist, instead of a stage one? Wonder no more.

John Perry, widower for the last eight years, enlists in the Colonial Defense Forces on his 75th birthday. Whisked away from Earth with a load of other 75-year-olds, he is fixed up with a new younger fitter stronger greener body, put through boot camp, and sent out to fight aliens.

This is fast, frenetic, and fun -- with several very affecting moments. Perry is not naive, but a few of his fellow geriatrics are (or bigoted: age-hardened naivety). He learns quickly, but the universe is bigger, weirder, and more hostile than he can always cope with. The style is strangely flat -- even when the characters are discussing deeply-felt emotions -- and seems the more realistic and compelling for that. There's closure to this book, despite it being the beginning of a series.

Charles Boutin is a traitor to the human race, selling out to aliens and planning for war on Earth. The Colonial Union have only just discovered this, and they also discovered a recording of Boutin's consciousness, made immediately before he defected. So they grow a clone body, and download the recording. But it doesn't "take", and they are left with Jared Dirac, just another Special Forces soldier, who they send off to train for war. He does well, until Boutin's memories do begin to surface...

This is a direct sequel to Old Man's War: Jared ends up in Lt Jane Sagan's squad, and we see how Special Forces soldiers are trained (more Starship Troopers, but where the protagonist is essentially a child in a superhero's body). The plot trundles along in the expected way until Boutin's memories start to surface, then things become complicated, as it becomes apparent that the Colonial Union aren't being exactly open with everyone about what's going on in the universe.

There's very much a middle of trilogy feel to this. We've been introduced to the universe in the first book; now the plot is thickening sufficiently for the grand denouement. And we get to see some interesting aliens, and some interesting "humans". But I'm not totally convinced about what the Obin are lacking (or, if they really are, how they can have the reaction they do to that fact).

John Perry and Jane Sagan, mustered out of the military, back in ordinary human bodies, have become colonists. They are happy being ombudsman and constable in their local town, when their old boss contacts them to persuade them to lead a new colony. John realises he's got itchy feet, so off they go. But things seem a little odd: the composition of the colonists, the ship's manifest; small things. When the colony ship arrives at the "wrong" planet, it becomes clear everyone has been conned: this is all a setup by the Colonial Union in their war against the aliens. And it soon becomes clear that everyone has their own plans for the success or failure of this colony.

This is a great finale to the trilogy (there is a fourth book to come in the same universe, but there is certainly closure at the end of this one). The gradual unfolding of plot within plot makes you wonder how things could possibly get worse, and then they do! Many small battles, cunning politics, and desperate stratagems are needed as John and Jane fight for their colony and their lives, and maybe even the lives of all humanity. Good stuff.

John Perry and Jane Sagan adopted Zoe Boutin, daughter of traitor Charles Boutin, and object of reverence of the entire Obin species. Here, the events of The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony are retold from Zoe's PoV. As such, it helps fills in a few plot holes (such as what happened to Zoe when she went off to inform the alien leader about the assassination attempt). But the best thing is that it's not just a simple retelling: some things look very different from Zoe's PoV, and we get to explore her relationship with the Obin in much more depth. A worthwhile addition to the series.

Earth is a lowly member of the interstellar Confederation, negotiating banana quotas with the Nidu, when diplomat Moeller ignites an interstellar incident, by farting. From such small beginnings events spiral out of control, as the Nidu demand compensation in the form of a rare breed of genetically engineered electric blue sheep, and other factions, both from Earth and from Nidu, are determined to make this fail, for a variety of reasons.

Very clever, mostly very funny, with the occasional lapse into grossness or seriousness, this is a great romp. The prose is a bit clunky in a few places (several consecutive sentences beginning with the same person's name, for example), but on the whole this just rips along. It's not just a bunch of unconnected gags: I love the way that many of the seemingly minor "decorative" events, there apparently just to add a bit of background detail, all suddenly become deeply significant and key, often in the most bizarre ways. The resolution is bizarre, clever, and unexpected.