‘The Last Colony’ – John Scalzi (Tor Books)

Where does the time go? I’ve been looking back at my review of ‘The Ghost Brigades’ where I said I’d be reading ‘The Last Colony’ sooner rather than later, that was back in the middle of August...
I don’t know what caused the delay (well, I do, it’s just not interesting enough to go on about here) but I made sure to pick up ‘The Last Colony’, a couple of days ago, and get reading. It turned out to be my least favourite of the series, so far, but still an excellent read that’s got me expecting good things from ‘Zoe’s Tale’...

John Perry and his wife Jane have retired from the Colonial Defence Force and are helping to run one of humanity’s many colonies. It’s a good life but one lacking in the excitement they previously enjoyed so when they are offered the chance to lead a new colony world they jump at the chance to explore the universe once more.
It’s not that simple though, the new colony of Roanoke is nothing more than a gambit being played out against an alien alliance (the Conclave) that forbids any attempt at colonisation by non-member races. The Conclave backs this edict up with the use of deadly force and Perry has his work cut out protecting the colony from this threat as well as all the other threats that make up daily life on Roanoke.
There’s even more going on though as Perry cuts through a web of deception to uncover the true purpose of the Roanoke colony, a purpose that will force Perry to question where his true loyalties lie...

It was a really nice feeling to come back to the universe originally uncovered in ‘Old Man’s War’. John Perry was a great character to get to know and it’s good to be back inside his head with his view of the universe around him. As with ‘Old Man’s War’, ‘The Last Colony’ is told entirely from Perry’s perspective but it’s an insightful viewpoint that enables the reader to get to know the supporting cast and come away with a good working knowledge of what they’re all about as well.
The use of first person perspective in ‘The Last Colony’ leads the story to suffer slightly when background information needs to be given i.e. other colonies being attacked while Perry has to deal with events on Roanoke or Phoenix. It feels like there’s a constant shift between a tale being told ‘as it happens’ and a tale being told after events have taken place. Although I think that’s fair enough and a valid mix of approaches, it interrupted the flow of things for me having to switch between ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what happened...’

The story itself is as fun as it’s predecessors with plenty going on and layers of intrigue laid upon each other making for an enthralling read. Scalzi had me holding my breath just a little bit too long waiting for the initial twist but I never saw it coming and it blew the story wide open, offering up completely new opportunities and dragging me along for the ride. Scalzi maintains the momentum with a heady mixture of explosive spectacle, intrigue and double cross. Everyone has their own agenda and I was really impressed at how all these machinations came together in a finale that gives Scalzi a chance to keep things fresh should he ever decide to write more books in this universe.

There’s certainly a lot happening but sometimes I was left wondering if there was a little bit too much going on for a book of this size. A potentially very interesting plot involving the native species of Roanoke was overtaken by events elsewhere and never really resolved. I mean, just because everything else got sorted it didn’t mean that there ‘werewolves’ weren’t still a danger... I was also left a little confused about some of the command decisions taken by a Colonial Union that really should have known better given its centuries of experience with alien life. There was so much else going on that it didn’t seem like there was time to sort smaller issues out and I felt that these could have done with a little more clarification...

In my opinion, ‘The Last Colony’ is the weakest book in the series (so far) but a weaker effort by John Scalzi is still a top-notch slice of sci-fi that any fan will enjoy. I’m definitely still on for the ride and I’ve got high hopes for ‘Zoe’s Tale’...

Eight and a Half out of Ten