Zoe's Tale

Old Man's War, Book 4

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 10 hrs

Publisher's summary

How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history?

I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.

Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did—how I did what I had to do—not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.

It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.

©2008 John Scalzi (P)2008 Macmillan Audio

Tough listen....

if you're listening to this right after the first 3, it's rough. It's basically the same story with only a few, short expansions away from the previous book. The reader didn't bother to check how the prior reader pronounced different unique words (alien names....) and it really pulls you out. She also reads it like she's a teenager. She may have been instructed to do so, but it's not fun to followl when you're in your 40s.

Wonderful story, great shift of perspective!

Great to hear another viewpoint. Beautiful character development. Highly recommend. Ignore the haters. The narrator was also perfect!

Same book, different view

Who is this guy who thinks he can just sell us the same book a second time but in teenage girl format? A genius, that’s who! I started this book going “ugh” and rolling my eyes just knowing I was going to hate it, but afraid I might be lost if I skipped it. I didn’t hate it. It was excellent. It really fleshed out the previous book and the character of Zoey.

Another fantastic tale

The only I didn’t like was that two main characters names were pronounced differently from the previous books. The person reading could have done the homework to make sure she was saying them correctly. Otherwise fantastic and a fun telling of the story we already “knew the ending” to

Best of the series

I didn’t think I’d like book but it is my favorite of the series! It’s well written and adds to the last book.

Read the previous books first.

Do not read this book unless you've read the previous books in this series. The Last Colony is particular is required listening before listening to this book. I can't imagine anyone will like this book very much if they haven't listened to The Last Colony first, as this book covers the event of that book from a different perspective.

Let me start by saying, it's very rare for me to enjoy listening to a female narrator. I don't think there are very many talented female narrators, and much prefer to listen to men in most cases. That said, Tavia Gilbert gave a pretty amazing performance. The sarcasm came across really well, and in many scenes you could just feel the emotion in her words. She's definitely one of my favorite narrators now, and I will be looking specifically at books narrated by her in the future. Those of you that listen to books fairly often know how important it is to have a good narrator.

I think that the perspective shift of this book adds a lot to the story that was already there. Zoe is a strong character that's hard not to like. It goes into far more detail concerning Zoe's relationship with the Obin, especially Hickery and Dickery. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading about Zoe's relationship with her boyfriend Enzo. I'm not usually big into love stories, but it was very well done in this book. Frankly, I was surprised at how much I ended up enjoying this book altogether.

You shouldn't go into this book expecting Old Man's War. There aren't a lot of great battle scenes with lots of action. This is the events of The Last Colony from the perspective of a strong teenage girl thrust into adulthood before she should be. My only regret in finishing this book is that there are no longer any more books set in this universe to read. I loved them all, and Zoe's tale in particular has a special place in my heart. I urge everyone to give it a try.

My Favorite Book in the Series so Far

Zoe’s Tale is my favorite book of the series so far. Usually I’m not a fan of the “same story different perspective” books but I really enjoyed this one. I actually preferred seeing the events of The Last Colony through Zoe’s eyes more than John’s. It really gave a different perspective to the story and in my opinion made it a lot more personal than just getting from point A to point B.

This book has quite a different tone than the other books in the series so far and I’ve even seen it described as being a young adult novel. That’s ok as I think Scalzi has done a pretty good job of changing the tone of the series for each book to show different views and perspectives of what’s going on. Certain deaths and events that happened in the Last Colony were almost an afterthought to the adults. They came off as “business as usual”, lets get on to the big events, and at some points I even found myself thinking “do these people even care about each other.” In Zoe’s Tale we got to see how impactful these events actually were to the individuals and even though I knew which characters were going to die seeing it through her eyes made me actually care.

Another aspect that was presented in this book was that we got to see more of the universe. Although The Lost Colony was a good book it was about the humans the setting up the colony but with Zoe’s Tale we get to see interaction with other alien races. I enjoyed Zoe’s interaction with Hickory and Dickory and the rest of the Obin race. We also got to see more of the “werewolf” like creatures and I’d like to see their interaction with the colony explored in a future book. General Gau was also present in this book and I’m really enjoying his character. He seems to be honorable but also a “my way or the highway” type of guy. Lastly Zoe had some interaction with the mysterious Consu we keep hearing about and we got some more insight into what they are all about.

Overall this was a great addition to the series. In fact maybe The Last Colony and Zoe’s Tale would have been even better if they had been one book but I’m sure Scalzi knows better than me. I look forward to the next two books in the series.

Changing the narrator to Tavie Gilbert for Zoe’s Tale was an excellent choice. She really brought out the fact that we were seeing events from a teenage girl’s perspective.

Great insight from Zoe’s Perspective

I enjoyed listening to this perspective. Right at first I didn’t think I would stay interested because hadn’t I just listened to The Last Colony about the same story. Then I realized how enriching it was listening to this perspective and all the new tales and twists. Loving the intertwined storyline. A much more in-depth reasoning of the Obins characters and history. Worth the listen directly after The Last Colony.

Incongruity city

Great performance and interesting take. It’s basically a retelling of the previous book but from the perspective of the main characters teenage daughter. Normally it’d be garbage because who wants to hear a 15 yo girls internal dialogue, like whatever! But this is a good listen because obviously this isn’t your normal 15 yo and her internal monologue is compelling. The problem is when Zoe communicates in The Last Colony she gives very little hint she’s anything but a typical all be it intelligent, smart ass 15 yo woman. Her internal monologue in this book paints a picture of a much older much more experienced person. Which is great but resembles the character from the previous book like a grub resembles a beetle. Also how in the world do you decide to change the pronunciation of a main characters name? Like it’s the main characters last name and they decided to have it pronounced completely different than the previous books. WHY??

Straight Average

it doesn't help that the story is the same as the last two books just told in the voice of a teenager complete with awful cliches and a lack of vocabulary. Not terrible if you like the series but completely unnecessary to advance the story.