Zoe's Tale -- John Scalzi

While I do keep an eye on his blog, this was my first John Scalzi novel. From what I understand, Zoe's Tale is a retelling of The Last Colony, the third book in his Old Man's War trilogy*. The narrator is Zoe Boutin-Perry, the adopted daughter of John Perry, the hero of the OMW trilogy. Her parents, John and Jane Perry, have been offered—and have accepted—the positions of colony leaders of a new colony. Though Zoe loves her home well enough, she's eager to pack up the rest of the family (her dog Babar and her two alien bodyguards) and GO.

While she seemed a whole lot younger than seventeen (especially considering her past), and while her narration does suffer from Someone-Else-Is-Totally-Writing-My-Dialogue Syndrome (a la Juno), I loved Zoe and I loved her voice. Her experiences include space travel, colonization, culture clash, interstellar battles and politics, aliens and war, but her narration makes it feel close, real, and believable.  

A lot of the SF I've read has felt like it held me at arm's length. Distance like that prevents me from ever fully connecting with a story or the characters in it. This one felt so real and so close that it was almost like Zoe was in the room with me. She made me cry. Like, three times. She also made me laugh out loud while I was crying**. With the right narrator, this book will made one hell of an audio.

Zoe's Tale is being published as an adult novel, but it should very definitely be cross-shelved in the YA section—her story and her voice have the potential not just to bring a slew of new teen readers into the sci-fi fold, but to bring a whole slew of female teen readers into the sci-fi fold. 

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*It should be noted that when Josh looked at this one, he was curious enough that he went and dug through our books until he found a copy of Old Man's War. He's about halfway through now and he's really liking it.

**While I suppose it could be possible that hormones had something to do with my reaction, it still got me, and got me good.