The Human Division

Old Man's War, Book 5

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Following the events of The Last Colony, John Scalzi tells the story of the fight to maintain the unity of the human race.

The people of Earth now know that the human Colonial Union has kept them ignorant of the dangerous universe around them. For generations the CU had defended humanity against hostile aliens, deliberately keeping Earth an ignorant backwater and a source of military recruits. Now the CU’s secrets are known to all. Other alien races have come on the scene and formed a new alliance - an alliance against the Colonial Union. And they’ve invited the people of Earth to join them. For a shaken and betrayed Earth, the choice isn't obvious or easy.

Against such possibilities, managing the survival of the Colonial Union won’t be easy, either. It will take diplomatic finesse, political cunning…and a brilliant "B Team", centered on the resourceful Lieutenant Harry Wilson, that can be deployed to deal with the unpredictable and unexpected things the universe throws at you when you’re struggling to preserve the unity of the human race.

©2012 John Scalzi (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Great book; great narration

I loved listening to this book. The story was compelling, and, as always, I loved William Dufris' brilliant narration.

Great addition to the 'Old Man' s War ' series

The continued adventures of the humans and other species of this universe, with a mixture of suspence and humor.
The serialized format is especially suitable for the audio book medium and for my commute.
The narration was a little hard to follow, but enjoyable.

series of short stories

What can I say? I prefer the novels, which all get five stars in my estimation. With the short stories, characters and places change, and in the end, the listening experience doesn't flow as well as the novels. Would I listen again? Yes. I just want to differentiate my own listening preferences, and I prefer the novels for their succinct flow.

He said, she said, he said, she said.

The story was good but "he said" "she said" was way overused. After awhile, it got tough to listen to bc I already knew who said what!

The CU and The Earth Have Issues

After the arrival of John Perry and the 400 ship trade fleet nothing will ever be the same on Earth or within the CU. This books follows a Diplomatic team thru many very dangerous adventures.

TY Back To The Series

After the last book about a teenager reliving book 3 its good to be back to the series. It was good. The only new negative was the writer started doing some of that: Jack said, Ted said, Bill said, Jack said.

A different way of telling a story

This book is a made of of many different short stories that all lend themselves to the main theme. Many of the same familiar characters are here along with new ones. Overall I found it a good addition to this series.

Harry Wilson and his group of B-Teamer's

This is a great addition to the Old Man's War universe. It follows a ragtag group in the diplomatic corps. John Scalzi plays to his political strengths with this one.

Still Good

Have enjoyed the whole series. In cold honesty, series started great, dipped, and then returned to good. This book, in my opinion, is good. Worth the read / listen; and still interested in any future continuations of the story.

A Middling Position

First and formost, if you haven't read the Old Man's War series and are considering picking up this book - what are you doing?

Stop.

Right now.

Even if you've stumbled onto this page by accident and your curiosity is naught but a faint glimmer in the distance, that's good enough. Go to the search bar and find his earlier works before coming to this one.

It's not that the Human Division (located in the same universe as OMW) won't make any sense (it won't) or even that there are spoilers in the Human Division for the previous series (there are) - the truth is that Scalzi's first foray into this world was better. As a matter of fact, it was fantastic.

His characters had more shades, the aliens were more interesting, the science was explored more deeply, and the plot line was more intricate.

Scalzi is true to his style in this newest novel - easy and interesting, funny without pandering to the audience, and the story zips along - but it's clear that the Human Division is propped up by the strength of the last series.

Don't get me wrong - Scalzi stands heads above the rest of herd, and is still one of the most engaging sci-fi writers around. I'll continue reading the series with the same relish as I read most of Scalzi's work, but given how high he set the bar with the first series, it's hard not to feel a little let down.


Also, as an aside: the dialogue tags. My god, the dialogue tags. In the written form it's easy enough to gloss over the word "said", but listening to it repeated over and over and over was occasionally, frustratingly, hugely distracting.

Every so often, I found myself thinking of synonyms that Scalzi could have used in place of the word "said" and noting the rare occasions he chose to use them.

If that's liable to bother you, you might want to consider getting the book.