Read it recently, somewhat influenced by a post about John Scalzi on the sub, just wanted to share my thoughts and ask what you guys thought.
Minor spoilers ahead.
My opinion about the book wavered as I read it. It went somewhat like this
- Covid setup, cringe
- Oh, secret society, Kaiju, cool
- Why do these guys constantly bitch with each other like they are kids from Stranger Things?
- Chill, everyone is a megachad and bad guys get fucked
- The culmination, meh, nothing original
And then I read the author’s notes about the book and realized that this was my favorite part.
I listened to the audio book. It was fun, silly and I enjoy listening to Wil Wheaton reading me stories.
Was it great? No. Does the plot hold up under close scrutiny? Not really. It was better than Starter Villain and not as good as Agent to the Stars.
I want to find my younger self and tell her that “one day you will enjoy listening to Wil Wheaton read you stories.” She will, of course, reply: “Unlikely.”
Is this a typical Scalzi book? Is it worth checking out any of his other works? It seems that he writes a lot and I am afraid that quantity takes priority over quality.
It is fairly typical. Scalzi is pulp scifi brain candy. He’s creative and comes up with unique ideas. He’s fun. He’s funny. I find him highly entertaining. But he’s no Alastair Reynolds, Iain M Banks or James SA Corey. The author I would compare him most to is Dennis E Taylor in terms of narrative style.
If you want to see if you like Scalzi, don’t start with this book. Read one of these:
Agent to the Stars - Aliens come to Earth wanting to make contact with humanity… BUT, too bad for them, they’re slimy blobs that communicate through foul scents, have parasitic abilities, can take over corpses and ride them around as zombies, reproduce by oozing all over each other… they’re very nice people, but they watch a bunch of movies and TV shows and realize humans will react badly to them because they look like (and have the biology of) B movie evil aliens. So… they hire a Hollywood talent agent as a PR / image consultant to help present them to the world.
Fuzzy Nation - A rewrite of the H Beam Piper classic Little Fuzzy. Why? Uh… it was there? Scalzi thought it could be updated for a modern audience? I think he did a fairly good job (assuming the job needed doing at all), but if you’ve read the H Beam Piper books, you’re gonna be like “This is literally the exact same story with more modern language, more cultural diversity and whittier dialog…” It was a GREAT audiobook to listen to with kids in the car on a long road trip. (If you don’t mind the kids hearing some F bombs)
Lock In - If you’re more in the mood for cyberpunk, this is a near future world where a pandemic has left a significant portion of the population (like 1.2% or something) totally paralysed and lacking all motor control or physical sensation, but FULLY concision and aware. A new robotics / neural interface / VR industry emerges to allow the “Locked In” to participate in society. A young Locked In man becomes a homicide detective in Washington DC and investigates a murder that may have been committed by another Locked In person. There are sequels.
I think these are his three best. They’re not his most widely read (those would be Old Man’s War and the Interdependency series). But if you want to see if he’s for you, start with one of these.
Thank you so much for the detailed reply!