Although this book pretty much covers the same events as the book, _The Last Colony_, it tells the tale of the Roanoak Colony from the point of view of Zoe, John Perry's adopted daughter and her fellow teenagers. Again, this could have been a disaster - whatever else he may be, John Scalzi isn't a teenaged girl.
However, it was a surprisingly moving version of the tale, especially in the way that Zoe's feelings were described, first in the discovery of her true love and then her feelings of loss after his death (on the other hand I'm even less a female teen than Mr Scalzi...) and it does add a few additional events that expand on the original story.
Highly recommended ( )

Since Zoe's Tale is essentially a re-telling of events from some of the other books, primarily The Last Colony, isn't it kind of repetitive, and more to the point, why would I give it one more star than The Last Colony?

Repetitive? Maybe a little. But Scalzi tells a very different story this time. It is the tale of Zoe and secondarily of Hickory and Dickory. And in the afterword Scalzi notes that one of the things he wanted to do was fix some of the problems people noted in The Last Colony, particularly the Deus Ex Machina salvation of the colony and the appearance and disappearance of the Roanoke natives. When I looked back at my review of The Last Colony I discovered I was one of the folks complaining about just that.

I think the story telling on Zoe is more consistent, better paced, and has fewer holes than The Last Colony did. If I'd read this one first I might not think that though. There is no question it is meant to be read in conjunction with The Last Colony. Should they be read in publication order? Probably. You could start with Zoe's Tale, but I think it assumes a lot of familiarity with the events of The Last Colony. I can't say that it suffers from a predictable ending since the ending is a foregone conclusion. ( )

For those of us who have already read The Last Colony, this is great companion piece. The overall plot is the same, so there are no twists and turns, but instead there is depth. For example, I knew when a major character was going to die and was still moved, almost to tears, over that character's death. Still, in some ways, I wish I could have read this on its own and I think someone who has not read the rest of the series may actually get more out of it than I did. I think that teens would enjoy this book.

http://archthinking.blogspot.com/2009... ( )

http://tyranist.blogspot.com/2009/05/... ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1213582...

Zoë's Tale actually takes place in parallel with last year's Hugo nominee, The Lost Colony, being the story of the teenage daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan, the leaders of the human colony of Roanoke, living through and playing a key role in the key points of humanity's conflict with the alien Conclave federation. I had forgotten most of last year's book, but Zoë's Tale does clear up one (but not all) of the more handwavey plot elements.

Zoë herself is rather delightful, with a line in sarcasm that readers of her creator's blog will recognise. The other characters seem fairly three-dimensional as well. The political background, and behaviour of the most senior political leaders, once again doesn't make a lot of sense (a standard complaint of mine, and of course a YA novel like this more or less has to involve the protagonist getting one up on the adults) but it's a decent enough story apart from that. ( )