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Zoe's Tale: An Old Man's War Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history? I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old. Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes. It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.
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"This is a retelling of The Last Colony from a different character's point of view. In TLC, the story is told from John Perry's viewpoint. He is, well at least in terms of his physical body, a middle-aged veteran of the Colonial Defense Forces. Zoe is his 17 year old adopted daughter. Scalzi does a great job of retelling the same story from a different point of view without losing the tension of the plot. Even more admirable is how well he captures Zoe. It feels like a different story told from her vantage point instead of Perry's, and not just because some of the events don't overlap. Her way of seeing the world is different and so we see the world differently as well. In many ways, I actually liked it better than TLC."
— Shawn (5 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“A companion to last year’s The Last Colony, this fast-paced volume tells the story of the colony planet Roanoke from the perspective of Zoe Boutin Perry, a perceptive and intelligent seventeen-year-old. Zoe’s voice is original and believable, and her take on the events is both entertaining and enlightening.”
— RT Book Reviews (4½ stars, Top Pick!) -
“The Last Colony will kick your butt across the galaxy and make you care.
— Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column, on The Last Colony -
Scalzi's captivating blend of off-world adventure and political intrigue remains consistently engaging.
— Booklist on The Last Colony -
In Heinleinesque fashion, the book is loaded with scenes of comradeship, isolation, ruthlessness and the protocols, which govern the lives of active-duty soldiers. But this is where Scalzi, famous for his blog ‘The Whatever,' surpasses Heinlein. Scalzi weaves in subtle discussions of humanity's growing fear of aging and our simultaneous attraction and repulsion to the Frankenstein-like creatures we are able to create.
— San Antonio Express-News on The Ghost Brigades
Awards
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An Indie Next Notable Title, September 2008
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Finalist for the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novel
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Finalist for the 2009 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel
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Nominated for Hugo Award - Nominee, 2009
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Nominated for Locus Awards - Nominee, 2009
Zoe's Tale Listener Reviews
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" I loved the first half of this book and only liked the second half. I was impressed at how well Scalzi pulled off the teenage girl voice and my disappointment with the second half was mostly due to the fact that I found the plot less believable. Overall a fun read. "
— Karen, 1/9/2014 -
" Made me laugh, made me cry. John Scalzi did it again. Zoe is not your typical teen, when she "wings" it, she scores. "
— Tomi, 1/7/2014 -
" I loved the story from zoe point of view. "
— Thomas, 1/5/2014 -
" Over all I like the book. Scalzi can do smart-ass really well. Toward the end, it would have been better told via a third person narrative instead of having it told with dialog. "
— Kay, 1/1/2014 -
" This one gets 4 stars because it is the Old Man's War universe, which is a great place for stories told, but had the series started with this, I'm not sure I would have read any more. Would probably be a 3 if not full of the characters I love. "
— Chris, 11/12/2013 -
" Not for me. Finished it, but..... coulda/shoulda been combined with the last colony. "
— Jones, 9/7/2013 -
" Ender's Shadow with an angsty teenage girl playing Bean. "
— Dan, 4/11/2013 -
" too much overlap with 'the last colony' for my taste; felt like he was milking the series a bit much "
— Em, 11/22/2012 -
" A rehash of Scalzi's other books. Entertaining but left me wishing he'd written something new. "
— Nicholas, 8/30/2012 -
" When I bought this book, I wasn't expecting to be rereading "The Last Colony". Unfortunately, that's what this book is with about a 15% difference due to it being told via Zoe's viewpoint. Why charge me for a full book when this is what I got. Shame on the author. "
— Ncgrimbo, 2/20/2012 -
" Good book, I enjoyed reading Zoe's POV of the Lost Colony. I did not find this a YA book at all. Got to read more Scalzi! "
— Karl, 2/15/2012 -
" couldn't finish it. Didn't realize it was the same story from a different perspective before i started, didn't really care for it. "
— Travis, 11/2/2011 -
" My first Scalzi. It was wonderful. Funny and sharp, Scalzi knows how to craft a good story and his science is completely believable. I'm going back now to read his others. He does read like a Robert Heinlein for the younger crowd. Highly recommend. "
— Jen, 8/19/2011 -
" It's the same book as Lost Colony, but retold from Zoe's view. There's a few new parts, and the details of what Zoe was up to were interesting, but it's still a little disappointing because realistically, you know exactly what's going to happen in the end. "
— Clint, 5/16/2011 -
" Intergalactic warfare as narrated by a teenage girl with black belt in smartassery "
— apple, 5/12/2011 -
" The secret story behind the events told in The Last Colony. This story is told from the viewpoint of Zoe, the 15 yr old adopted daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan. <br/><br/>I actually liked this one better than The Last Colony. The teenagers interacting with each other was quite amusing. "
— Bryan457, 4/24/2011 -
" Not up to the bar set by earlier books in the series but still loaded with Scalzi wit. "
— Greg, 4/20/2011 -
" Different but interesting from a childs point of view. It was good. Another top ten of the last decade. "
— Flyguy55, 4/12/2011 -
" sorry, it is targeted towards teenagers...just not my type of book. "
— Sean, 3/31/2011 -
" Probably because Scalzi was stretching to write in the persona of a teenage girl, the <em>writing</em> in this story was a bit more interesting. On the other hand, having very little in the way of new plot could have made it much less interesting, but didn't. "
— Chris, 3/28/2011 -
" I loved his previous books in this series, but this one was pretty boring. I don't even remember if I finished reading it. "
— Henning, 3/24/2011
About John Scalzi
John Scalzi is an acclaimed science-fiction author whose debut Old Man’s War won him science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include Fuzzy Nation, Lock In, and Redshirts, which also won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He also writes nonfiction on subjects ranging from personal finance to astronomy to film. He served as the creative consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series.
About Tavia Gilbert
Tavia Gilbert is an acclaimed narrator of more than four hundred full-cast and multivoice audiobooks for virtually every publisher in the industry. Named the 2018 Voice of Choice by Booklist magazine, she is also winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. She has earned numerous Earphones Awards, a Voice Arts Award, and a Listen-Up Award. Audible.com has named her a Genre-Defining Narrator: Master of Memoir. In addition to voice acting, she is an accomplished producer, singer, and theater actor. She is also a producer, singer, photographer, and a writer, as well as the cofounder of a feminist publishing company, Animal Mineral.