Hardcover, 431 pages
English language
Published May 14, 2013
The Human Division is a science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi, the fifth book set in the Old Man's War universe.
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, …
The Human Division is a science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi, the fifth book set in the Old Man's War universe.
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.
Being published online from January to April 2013 as a three-month digital serial, The Human Division will appear as a full-length novel of the Old Man's War universe, plus—for the first time in print—the first tale of Lieutenant Harry Wilson, and a coda that wasn't part of the digital serialization.
This book really breathes a lot of life into the setting and continues building on the events of books 3/4 in a way that makes sense, even without the previous POV characters. I liked the change to multiple POVs we get in this one, and the political drama is extremely fun.
2021 reread, after buying the signed limited edition. Holds up, but it's funny to read about future device design written in a world before the iPhone.
A pleasant enough romp, but, for me, shies away from digging deep enough to satisfy.
I enjoyed the world set up / premise. I got spoilers from the next books a bit, so I also kind of enjoyed foreshadowing for that.
I guess I enjoyed the characters and the body-group thing they had.
I've also just finished the second book in the series when writing this, so they blur together a bit. I've honestly forgotten what the final conflict / resolution was, kind of. I guess it's telling of how much more interesting the world seems than the particulars of the events.
