Walk the Plank

The Human Division, Episode 2

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

Wildcat colonies are illegal, unauthorized, and secret - so when an injured stranger shows up at the wildcat colony New Seattle, the colony leaders are understandably suspicious of who he is and what he represents. His story of how he’s come to their colony is shocking, surprising, and might have bigger consequences than anyone could have expected.

Walk the Plank is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.

Listen to the complete edition of The Human Division, the fifth full-length book by John Scalzi in the Old Man's War universe.

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

Boring Hard-to-Follow Transcript

The narrator did a good job, considering what he had to work with. He had to read the name of every speaker!!! The book is 39 minutes of a boring story that sounds like this:

Brown: Hey, John. How did you like "Walk the Plank"?
Smith: It was pretty boring. I fell asleep listening to it.
Jackson: Oh, no. And you bought the whole series, didn't you?
Smith: Yeah, Steve, I did.
Andrews: Bummer. You bought it too, didn't you, Mary?
Perkins: Yep. I'm going crazy listening to the narrator read everybody's name!
Brown: Man, I bet that really sucks.
Smith: No kidding. Hope it gets better as the series progresses.

Prologue to the next episode

39 minutes ARE YOU SERIOUS?

If you exclude all names, there will be only 20 minutes left

this is just a prologue-side story to the next episode,
so don't waste time and buy episode 2 and 3 at once.

Bad style - at least for audio version

What would have made Walk the Plank better?

The writing style. The narrator having to say the characters name each and every line of dialog... ouch

How could the performance have been better?

I think the performance suffered with what he had to work with.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I couldn't finish listening to it. I suffered through the first series but I just didn't look forward to listening, so I stopped.

Any additional comments?

Just listen to the preview and ask yourself if you can tolerate that writing style for very long in audio format. The story seemed interesting but the dialog was choppy and the poor narrator had to constantly announce the person talking. Maybe this would be a better read vs. a listen because you could just gloss over the names. Thinking about it more, maybe as just text it would be better because there are those times where you read some dialog assuming it is one character, only to find out it was someone else talking at then end.

But in audio format like this, it just drove me crazy. Since the narrator does different voices, maybe they should have cut some of the name announcing out.

Short Interim Episode

This short, tense installment is written in the form of an audio transcript, and has a bit of a horror theme to it. It works all right, though you could skip it if needed since it doesn't involve the same characters as the first installment.

dont buy

It is just a snippet from a book I already have, not a new short story

poor rewriting style

best part is that it was short. Unfortunately that's the best part of the book. it's not a bad 39 minutes if you don't mind a book that reads like a play script, but it is definitely an opening chapter and not a complete story that is worthy of it's price.

See Review for "The B-Team"

See Review for "The B-Team" this is Episode 2 (minimum 15 words in a Review)

Good but not his best

The Human Division is another chapter in the saga of Old Man's War, which is a hit and miss series. This one is somewhere in the middle. Good humor, middling characters, overall engaging writing, and convoluted plot.

I'm giving it a rock-bottom overall score due to the fact that this is not the version you should get. Pick up the final full book, not these expensive piece meal episodes.

Ridiculously short

This review is longer than the book. Especially since Audible makes me add these 8 words.

really?

I usually love scalzi! buy the was two chapter excerpt... not what I thought it was.

Continues to be entertaining

Each episode is its own tale. However they are interconnected - even if it does not really seem so at first in some cases. It's one Universe and one big story - and these are lots of little ones within. Personally I've enjoyed the writing and the reading - I'm now on episode 9 and enjoying it as much as the first. If you like sci-fi you won't be disappointed.

Even Shorter But Just As Sweet

Having listened to "The B Team" By John Scalzi and Narrated by William Dufris i immediately Downloaded/Listened to this episode "Walk The Plank" The second Episode in the Human Division and Written/Narrated by Scalzi/Dufris.



If you have read my review of the previous episode you will know that i thought the narrator (Dufris) was brilliant which really helped the story along. He narrates very passionately (or so it seems). In this volume he does not disappoint.



This story is good, but much like the last one the charm is in the narration more then the actual story. having said i'm starting to feel that the "season long" storyline may be starting to show through. which may build upon the charm of the actual story. Don't get me wrong the each episode does have a good plot and they are well worth listening to.



Much like the title of this review suggest this episode is shorter then the last one but its just as good.



I don't feel i connected as much to the characters in this weeks episode(2) to that of last weeks (1) i did find myself thinking when will last weeks charters be back i hope Wilson is in the next episode....

What the?

That wasn’t a story. Just a transcript with annoying names at the start of every characters’ dialogue. Then a non-ending. Terrible. Two star rating is more than one just because it’s in the series, which I like.

Great short story

This is a great short story, in a collection of intertwined short stories.

I will look for more title by this author.

It keeps being interesting...

I continue to be sceptical about the story, but the change of story format keeps it interesting. It certainly has something.