The Last Colony is the final book of the Old Man’s War trilogy. The first two books are Old Mans’ War and The Ghost Brigades. Old Mans’ War was up for the Hugo Award and did win Scalzi the John Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author last year.
John Scalzi is hands-down the best science fiction writer in the last twenty years, bar none. His style is very reminiscent of Robert Heinlein, with an important addition. Scalzi’s characters live and breathe. Instead of the cardboard-figure characters of most SF, here are some fully exposed, human personalities.
Another area which Scalzi handles well is the internal functioning of a bureaucracy. One, very brief example:
“They’ve formed an Exploratory Committee to look into this?”
“Yeah, but I know about these things. They typically aren’t interested in finding out anything. Someone up high just needs to cover their ass.”
All three books are a joy to read.
Reviews:
Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
The Ghost Brigade, by John Scalzi
The Last Colony, by John Scalzi