The Human Division by John Scalzi

The Human Division by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When reading a book I often was wondering what happened to the secondary characters. What they did when not helping the hero? What kind of life they lived? Now I had the possibility to get to know more about some of them.

In The Human Division I met Harry Wilson of the Old Farts. If you haven't read the Old Man's War, you may not know who the hell I'm talking about. I can tell to you: you missed a great story, so you better go and read it. If you did, probably you remember the group of old people who signed up for the Colonial Defence Force, got a new enhanced body and became green in the process. Yes, they were the good Old Farts. They went in different ways in the CDF, Wilson became a Lieutenant in the technical service. Lately he got assigned to assist diplomats, who - well, to put it mildly - were the B Team. But don't get it wrong, in this dangerous universe even the B Team saves the ass of the Colonial Union once or twice. You may think that the most dangerous in diplomacy could be that you die of boredom during endless speeches in meetings. But rest assured: even diplomats get shot at or sucked out into vacuum from the space lock of the ship. And the assisting personnel may be beaten up by half size aliens and they may have to perform skydiving while the space station they just left is blown up. Yo know, the usual space stuff.

The book consists of 13 seemingly separate stories, but by the end a grandiose conspiracy plot takes shape against the Colonial Union. Or the Conclave. Or both. It's not really clear who is behind the scenes, and what is their purpose exactly. This is why I can hardly wait for the next book of the Old Man's War universe.

I really enjoyed Scalzi's sarcastic humour, it is one of the reasons he became one of my favourite authors.

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