Idgie Says:What a treat it was to receive this book for review. I was very excited to dive into the continuing stories of the Human Divisions characters that I had come to know and care about since the previous books. Scalzi often gets compared to McDevitt and I will say that he is similar in the way he has the skill to create characters that are extremely real and often quite likable.
As usual, the characters are full of flippant, sarcastic and fast talking dialogue. The stories are gripping, surrounding several warring governmental factions running loose in the universe, each hoping to own it all.
The book is broken out into four "episodes", all separate stories that run together along a common theme. In this way they are able to be sold as serial ebooks in advance of the hardcover. More details about that below. One story deals completely with political government intrigue. Another has a bit of a dashing Han Solo sharp character... confined to a box (you'll see!). The other two are a fine mix of politics and beings learning to like, care and work with each other.
I was quite pleased with this book and definitely recommend it to Space Sci-Fi enthusiasts. Not a general reader of Sci-Fi? Well, this is a fine time to give it a try!
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The End of All Things will be published in four ebook-only episodes throughout the month of June:
- Episode 1: The Life of the Mind publishes June 9th
- Episode 2: This Hollow Union publishes June 16th
- Episode 3: Can Long Endure publishes June 23rd
- Episode 4: To Stand or Fall publishes June 30th
The Hardcover will be released by Tor on August 11, 2015.
Book Description:
Humans expanded into space…only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement…for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.
Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time—a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there’s another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other — and against their own kind — for their own unknown reasons.
In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity’s union intact… or else risk oblivion, and extinction — and the end of all things.