Zoe’s Tale

By John Scalzi.
Begun 16 May 2009; finished 21 May.

Zoe’s Tale complements The Last Colony (complete Scalzi review), as a retelling of the same events of the earlier novel from the point of view of Zoë Boutin-Perry, the adopted daughter of John and Jane Perry. Whilst it is essentially the same story of the human colony colonizing the new planet of Roanoke amidst astro-political upheaval and warring between the human Colonial Union and the alien Conclave, it is narrated in Zoë’s distinct voice, provides a new perspective on the same events, and fills in some gaps that weren’t dealt with in The Last Colony.

I was pleased with what John Scalzi achieved in Zoe’s Tale. The Last Colony had shortcomings: as stated in my review, it wasn’t as masterful as Scalzi’s previous novels, and it had a number of narrative gaps and plot holes that weren’t addressed to (my) satisfaction. Zoe’s Tale managed to deal with two major gaps, being what Zoë did when she left Roanoke to seek help beyond her colony, and how the issue of the indigenous “werewolves” (that were terrorizing the colony) was resolved — namely, by Zoë and her friends. I’m glad that the author elaborated on those points, for they were the ones I was most critical of in The Last Colony.

Whilst Zoe’s Tale was partly written to address those gaps (Scalzi said so in the novel’s acknowledgements section, and elsewhere), it its main goal is to give us an intimate look into Zoë’s life. We saw her in The Ghost Brigades as a little child without a voice, and in The Last Colony as a secondary character in the shadow of her parents, and described by her foster-father John Perry. This time Zoë is the main character, in the story as she tells it. At times her voice was a little too reminiscent of John’s — both characters happen to be droll, understated and sarcastic, and Zoë occasionally felt a bit too detached for her age — but those occasions were infrequent, and I’d say that Scalzi successfully pulled off the female teenager’s first-person perspective. What’s more, Zoë provided a different and interesting perspective to colony development that could not be told by John and Jane.

And not only that, Scalzi well described Zoë’s unique role as figurehead and almost-deity to an entire race of aliens, which she finds both a huge honour and huge burden. This is where Zoe’s Tale came into its own, depicting Zoë’s conflicted feelings, inner and outer struggles, the many different interactions with humans and alien Obin, and how all her actions — indeed her entire life — is influenced by her position. Indeed, Zoë’s life in the Roanoke colony is inevitably overshadowed by her position amongst the Obin aliens, and the entire novel successfully conveyed that atmosphere to me.

Even though Zoe’s Tale dealt with Zoë’s myriad challenges, it did so straightforwardly and — dare I say — a little simplistically. Now, I like how Scalzi tells a linear, uncomplicated story without murky subplots or convolutions; nevertheless I find that, like The Last Colony, Zoe’s Tale doesn’t have the same nuance and complex foundation that made Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades so much more thought-provoking. Perhaps it’s the nature of the Roanoke-colonizing tale that Zoe’s Tale shares the same shortcomings as The Last Colony, and Zoë’s own struggles are depicted linearly, without the nuance that John Perry and Jared Dirac experienced in the first two novels respectively.

Whilst Zoe’s Tale and The Last Colony do not rise to the level achieved by Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades, both are indeed solid, engaging novels about interesting characters, if somewhat pedestrian. If you’ve read The Last Colony, I suggest that you round out the story with Zoe’s Tale.