I've been fascinated by the concept of John Scalzi's latest novel, The Human Division for awhile. It's coming out in usual book form shortly- but what he did that really got my attention was serialize it and release it once a week in 'episodes' for Kindle at .99 cents a pop. While many people remain unconvinced that the self-publishing e-book thing is going to catch on one thing the change of format does is it allows potential authors to break free from and play with the idea of what makes a novel a novel and this serial experimentation worked quite well here.
The Human Division consisted of the following episodes:
Episode #1: The B-TeamSome were longer than others-- and the finale, Earth Below, Sky Above was a double-length episode as Scalzi had a lot of action to pack into it. For the purposes of this review, I'm going to concentrate on the whole of the story rather than attempt to review each episode individually- but there are a few individual episodes that stood out above the rest (but I'll get to those in the a minute.)
Episode #2: Walk The Plank
Episode #3: We Only Need The Heads
Episode #4: A Voice In The Wilderness
Episode #5: Tales From The Clarke
Episode #6: The Back Channel
Episode #7: The Dog King
Episode #8: The Sound of Rebellion
Episode #9: The Observers
Episode #10: This Must Be The Place
Episode #11: A Problem of Proportion
Episode #12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads
Episode #13: Earth Below, Sky Above
With The Human Division, Scalzi returns to the universe he established in Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony where the Colonial Union is now in a tricky and perilous position. A new Alliance of alien races, The Conclave is at their door and Earth, their most reliable resource for supplying soldiers and colonists has cut off all ties to them. As ships disappear, mistrust between the Colonial Union and the Conclave only grow and a war that could threaten the very existence of humanity itself. Into that breach is sent a team of diplomats headed by Lieutenant Harry Wilson who spend the thirteen episodes trying to make the Colonial Union new friends amongst the alien races of the galaxy as well as trying to heal the breach in humanity and regain the shattered trust of Earth once more.
I'll admit right off the bat that I was a little disadvantaged going into this: I had read Old Man's War and I think The Ghost Brigades but certainly not Zoe's Tale or The Last Colony which is where the titular division of humanity began- this novel only deals with the fall out from that but despite that I slipped back into this universe very comfortably and Scalzi brings a writing style to the table that is peppered with the sort of wry, understated banter and humor than I enjoy while crafting an intergalatic space opera worthy of the best in the genre. As I mentioned before, several episodes are worth mentioning individually: The Back Channel introduces us to Hafte Sorvalh, a member of the alien Conclave opposed to the Colonial Union and one of the more fascinating charaters of The Human Division that Scalzi leaves the reader wanting to know more about. For science fiction with a humorous understone, The Dog King is a winner. (I think this probably my favorite out of the bunch) and I really enjoyed the dramatic change of pace of This Must Be The Place as well. (Which tells the story of Hart Schmidt returning home to visit his family- plus it's a great Talking Heads song.)
Overall: You could argue that there's not too much about this that's ground-breaking or new but you could also argue that it doesn't really matter. Scalzi seems to be hell bent on crafting a story that will entertaining his readers first and foremost and that's almost refreshing, in a way. The Human Division is one hell of a ride and entertaining space opera at its finest- I look forward to more. Scalzi also gets props for breaking the boundaries a little bit with his serialization of the novel- a format that I found to be creative and entertaining at the same time. My verdict: **** out of ****.
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