The Last Colonyand Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi are sequels to his first two books (Old Man’s Warand The Ghost Brigades). They are the same story from different points of view. The Last Colony is from John Perry and his wife’s POV and Zoe’s Tale is from their daughter Zoe’s POV. The setting and basic plot are the same, except for the sequence when Zoe goes off-planet. The other main difference is that Zoe’s Tale is a YA book.

Heroes from the first two books, John Perry and Jane Sagan, are happily living the rural farm life on a distant planet as retirees from the armed forces. They have adopted Zoe, who was Charles Boutin’s daughter from The Ghost Brigades. Then they are asked to lead an expedition to a new planet. There are political issues with other species and there is a good chance that this new planet will be attacked. Information is kept to a minimum as John and Jane prepare to lead the new planet. Then, out of the blue, they are deposited on a different planet then what was originally promised them. This was done to hide them from the other species.

Now that they are on the hidden planet, they are forbidden to use interstellar communications to make sure that no one knows where they are. There are political and cultural issues on the planet that dominate most of the book. Then when the location of their planet is found, the real problems start. Jane and John have to figure out if their real enemies are the other species or the armed forces that sent them to the mysterious planet.

The books are the same story, but done in a different manner and featuring different main characters. They are both decent books, but not quite as good as the first couple of books. Mildly recommended.

This post is part of the thread: Old Man’s War – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.