The Human Division is listed as the fifth book in the Old Man’s War series, but you can enjoy it even without having read the other books in the series. John Scalzi does a good job filling you in on the background and who’s who while telling the story. I’m speaking from personal experience here as I read only one of the other books and that was several years ago. I didn’t recall the story except that it was good, and of course Scalzi is the same guy who wrote the wonderful Agent to the Stars. Those were good enough to make this book a must-read.
Scalzi is so talented a writer he was able to take 13 semi-related vignettes that seemed written for a television series, and turn them into a novel that flowed well. That is not easy. Each episode was loosely connected with most of the characters repeating and there was a loose time sequence. (The introduction mentions the publisher released these as individual episodes electronically.
I enjoyed this book. Each vignette was interesting and had characters with a few quirks and habits that added a bite of humor. The plot was deadly serious. The Colonial Union got found out for its bad habit of keeping Earth in the dark and using the home planet as a source of people for colonists and army. At the same time several hundred other races banded together in a Conclave that detests the Colonial Union. (Since I didn’t read the prior books I’m not sure what the CU did to these other races to warrant this ill will. It’s clear the CU had a penchant for aggressive, in-your-face behavior and managed to come out on top in prior conflicts.)
The book focuses on the B diplomat team led by Abumwe and helped greatly by Harry Wilson, Colonial Defense Force (the CU military) liason and his good friend Hart Schmidt. The CU leaders view Abumwe as a second tier diplomat but after her team performs heroically and brilliantly to save the Utche agreement the leadership decides to upgrade her – but doesn’t tell Ubumwe or anyone else. Instead they will use her team for those miserable situations that need initiative and off-the-cuff solutions.
In the first episode one of the A teams is destroyed by an unknown force when it arrives early to meet with the Utche. Ubumwe’s team is tossed in as back ups with virtually no notice. Wilson discovers five missiles primed to attack the Utche upon their arrival. Wilson manages to decoy four of them to attack his shuttle and the ship captain gets the last one to attack the ship. This of course makes the Utche feel pretty good and the diplomacy succeeds.
Each episode was like the first. Present a problem, let the characters deal with it the way they would, and pull victory from defeat. By the end of the book it is still far from certain that the CU will survive and even more uncertain whether Earth and the CU will become buddies again. But there is hope.
Scalzi left the stage wide open for future books, whether conventional novels or this type of episodic story. No one is able to identify who the mystery attackers are that destroyed the first Utche mission team and that mystery enemy pops up in several later episodes.
If Scalzi decides to write more in this series I’d like to see the stories done in this vignette style. It was a very successful way to show the situations and characters and most enjoyable.
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