Book Review: The Human Division

Following the events of The Last Colony, John Scalzi tells the story of the fight to maintain the unity of the human race.

The people of Earth now know that the human Colonial Union has kept them ignorant of the dangerous universe around them. For generations the CU had defended humanity against hostile aliens, deliberately keeping Earth an ignorant backwater and a source of military recruits. Now the CU's secrets are known to all. Other alien races have come on the scene and formed a new alliance—an alliance against the Colonial Union. And they've invited the people of Earth to join them. For a shaken and betrayed Earth, the choice isn't obvious or easy.

Against such possibilities, managing the survival of the Colonial Union won't be easy, either. It will take diplomatic finesse, political cunning...and a brilliant "B Team," centered on the resourceful Lieutenant Harry Wilson, that can be deployed to deal with the unpredictable and unexpected things the universe throws at you when you're struggling to preserve the unity of the human race.

This book is actually a collection of serial episodes that were initially released online. I didn't read them when they were released as I was taking a break from Scalzi. I'm glad that I waited for them to be bundled together as that works better for me. While each story is self-contained, strung together they apply to a larger storyline: Who is behind the effort to destroy the Colonial Union's efforts to reunite with Earth and get along with its neighbors? [Highlight to read SPOILER] Unfortunately, the answer to that question isn't in this book. [END SPOILER]

The stories are primarily about the work of the "B Team", a diplomat, her retinue, the ship's captain and crew, and their CDF technical liaison, Lt. Harry Wilson. If you read Old Man's War, he was one of John Perry's buddies. During their adventures, they discover evidence of the larger storyline, but as they try to piece together the clues or climb out of the trap about to spring on them, they always seem to be a step or two behind their adversary.

A few other stories served as background for the reader, but were always relevant to the main storyline. These tended to be darker, a juxtaposition to the B Team's typical "we've stepped in it now" attitude in the face of adversity.

I have to say that I've missed the effortless way that Scalzi can carry a story and develop characters with dialogue. Humor is a big part of that. Good-natured snarky pokes at their jobs or the situations that they're in makes them relatable and thus endearing to this reader. But there's a lot of heart as well. The main characters are good people forced to work in difficult situations with lives at stake, theirs or others. If you're in it up to your neck, there's no time for whining. You just have to do your job and hope that it all works out in the end. When the shit hit the fan in the climactic episode, I couldn't help but care about who made it out alive. And that's an important lesson for all writers, if you want people to come back and read your stories, you'd better give them some characters to root for.

4.25 stars

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