This hasn’t been my favorite of Scalzi’s series (I still hold a very fond place in my heart for Old Man’s War), but it was overall a great read. It also takes his usual smart-ass style and amps it up to a thousand. The tongue-in-cheek tone makes for a nice contrast with the serious subject matter, and makes it so that when a character is doing something serious, you feel it more than maybe you would otherwise.
I’ve been making an effort lately to buy and read books from my favorite authors in a timely manner so as to support them financially, when my natural inclination is to wait for a series to finish before starting it. This is ideal for my brain, but not ideal for the creation and publication of art. All that to say, I think I will like this more on re-read, as I wasn’t able to re-read the first two books before reading this one, and there’s just something very satisfying about reading a series like this back to back, when everything is still fresh on your mind.
Before reading, I was having a hard time picturing how Scalzi could possibly wrap up this series (which has such a large scope) in only one normal sized book. But he manages it! And not without some major surprises along the way, one of which really got me good, and I had to put the book down for a while before I was okay with moving on. I thought all of the characters had fitting endings to their arcs, though I found some personally upsetting, and I was particularly pleased with how foul-mouthed Kiva Lagos fared.
Not sure when his next book is coming out, so I might start a full Scalzi re-read sometime soon.
Read Harder Challenge 2020: The last book in a series.