mikerickson reviewed The Human Division by John Scalzi
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4 stars
Always feels good when you luck out and read multiple good books back-to-back. The fifth book of a six-book series I was seriously debating bailing on was not what I was expecting to continue the streak, but a welcome surprise nonetheless!
This is a strange format because it's really a collection of self-contained standalone vignettes that when read in the printed order presents a more cohesive through-line. My understanding is that the author just kept knocking out these shorter snapshots until he had enough of them to slap them together and call it a book. There are recurring characters, but sometimes they're given reintroductions at the beginning of a chapter and previous events are recapped as if you're reading the current chapter in a vacuum. Can't recall ever reading another book in this style.
This franchise has had some serious highs and lows for me. The worldbuilding is a good …
Always feels good when you luck out and read multiple good books back-to-back. The fifth book of a six-book series I was seriously debating bailing on was not what I was expecting to continue the streak, but a welcome surprise nonetheless!
This is a strange format because it's really a collection of self-contained standalone vignettes that when read in the printed order presents a more cohesive through-line. My understanding is that the author just kept knocking out these shorter snapshots until he had enough of them to slap them together and call it a book. There are recurring characters, but sometimes they're given reintroductions at the beginning of a chapter and previous events are recapped as if you're reading the current chapter in a vacuum. Can't recall ever reading another book in this style.
This franchise has had some serious highs and lows for me. The worldbuilding is a good balance of serious and whimsical and there's some really creative scenes that play out with high-tech inventions. The biggest thing that detracted from my enjoyment of the previous entries was the protagonist, who thankfully has finally (in-fiction) retired and does not appear at all in this book. Instead, it was basically all of the good parts I liked (the setting, the aliens, the politicking, combat scenes) without all of the bad parts I didn't (bad attempts at humor, Boomer-coded main character, undeserved ending).
There's no real resolution to the central conflict here and this absolutely is a filler piece of media, but I find that I don't mind because the individual mini-arcs were so entertaining on their own. And having come this far, I definitely think I'll give the final book a shot thanks to the refreshing momentum this one gave.