The Shattering Peace

Old Man's War, Book 7

De: John Scalzi

Narrado por: Tavia Gilbert

After a decade, acclaimed science fiction master John Scalzi returns to the galaxy of the Old Man's War series with the long awaited seventh book, The Shattering Peace

THE PEACE IS SHATTERING

For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartite agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay, even when some would have preferred to return to the fighting and struggle of former times. For now, more sensible heads have prevailed – and have even championed unity.

But now, there is a new force that threatens the hard-maintained peace: The Consu, the most advanced intelligent species humans have ever met, are on the cusp of a species-defining civil war. This war is between Consu factions... but nothing the Consu ever do is just about them. The Colonial Union, the Earth and the Conclave have been unwillingly dragged into the conflict, in the most surprising of ways.

Gretchen Trujillo is a mid-level diplomat, working in an unimportant part of the Colonial Union bureaucracy. But when she is called to take part in a secret mission involving representatives from every powerful faction in space, what she finds there has the chance to redefine the destinies of humans and aliens alike... or destroy them forever.

©2025 John Scalzi (P)2025 Audible, Inc.

The Shattering Peace announces your murder, then pulls the trigger

A strong sequel to Zoe’s Tale. Same pulse. Cleaner arteries. Twists and closures show up like a multi-limbed "healing" hug from an Obin.

Meanwhile, Chekhov’s Consu sits on the mantel, not dusty, not decor. Scalzi oils the trigger. Hear the test click. Old feuds from Old Man's War shove the all knowing, all powerful Consu toward your face but their secret hides behind the rules. Then the rules bend.

Scalzi is still a master of sleight of mind. You glimpse the hand. Then it waves like it was never there. Motives from other universes stay a live wire. You may see the sparks but you won't know if the shock will come from an alien probe or awkward elevator sex reveal.

The Shattering Peace was blazed through in one sitting, too snarky to be contained by a controlled burn.

Anticlimactic storyline, interesting performance

In anticipation of this book, I have re-listened all previous books and I was taken entirely by Old Man War story.
This book is.. almost boring. Or perhaps I miss John Perry calm demeanour.
Alien voices and speech patterns are quite intriguing.

Readers voice.

This reader has one of the most annoying voices that I have ever heard, it is painful to listen to.

Almost gave up because of the bad performance

The performance was truly irritating. The worst thing was the random pitch and cadence variations when narrating from the perspective of the protagonist. It was like a sing-song vocal approach, but more random. And making 2-syllable words randomly have 4 syllables by changing pitch twice during the second syllable. It was weird, and I’m not sure where a person learns that. The second worst thing was what seemed like intentional incongruity between the words being spoken and the emotion they were meant to convey. And that was happening throughout most of the book. I think the narrator was trying to capture the protagonist’s blithe personality by being quirky, confident, and vulnerable all at the same time. But alternating those characteristics word-by-word is a mistake. Maybe Scalzi should have given stage direction in the text?

The third worst thing, which was a distant third, was that her only ability to do male (non-alien) voices comes from using different degrees of vocal fry. I get that it’s mostly a physiological limitation that lots of women have, and it’s honestly a better approach than just trying to lower her voice until all masculine characters sound indistinguishable. But I still didn’t like it. Probably because I was irritated by the first two things already.

I almost gave up about a third of the way in. My interest in the story just barely won out. Barely. I’ve only given up because of the narrator once before, and that was because the author had his girlfriend read it, and she was reading like a 2nd grade teacher reading to her class. This was better and worse, mostly because in this case, it made me have to consider if I was going to stick with it and endure the irritating diction.

I listened to the previous books, which apparently she narrated as well, and I don’t recall being irritated then. So if you read this Tavia, whatever affectation you put on for this character, please don’t do that again.

Great story but narration is trash

I barely was able to stand some parts of the book due to constant tongue clicking by the narrator. It’s a story requirement but it’s insanely annoying and turned me off of it a number of times.