Book Review: The Last Colony

I jammed through "The Last Colony" by John Scalzi.
I re-reviewed the first book in the trilogy a few days ago.

I reviewed the second book a few months back. (http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/01/book-review-ghost-brigades.html)
In it we bump into Jane Sagan, the genetically enhanced clone of the dead wife of the hero from the first book.

In the third book we catch up with John Perry (hero from book 1), Jane (his wife) Sagan, and Zoe Boutin (their adopted daughter). They're all human, retired from the Colonial Forces, working as local administrators at a colony, and operating a small farm. Their former commanding officer shows up and asks them to head up a new colony made up of people from ten different worlds. Just for 3 years and then they'd have the option of coming back or staying there.

The book is filled with twists and turns so it's hard to tell the spoilers from what's not. So I'm putting the first twist in gray text so it blends with the background. Go to Edit>Select All to read it.


But the colony ship doesn't go where they think. The Colonial Forces have sent them off to an unknown planet. They're to be a "lost" colony placed where a consortium of alien planets that have banned colonization by non-member planets can't find them. To keep hidden they're stripped of all technology later than mid-20th century. This is to make the consortium look weak.
On the planet they meet a primitive but intelligent species that I'm not gonna tell you about.
After a year on the new planet there are more twists as the planet becomes the center point in political wrangling in the Colonial Force's scheme to break up the consortium. Then our heroes become even more important as they become traitors to save all of humanity from genocide.


You don't need to have read the previous two books to enjoy this one, but it really helps.
This is the last book to involve John, Jane, and Zoe, but more tales of this universe are still to come and I'll be right there first thing to get them.