John Perry, last seen in Old Man's War, is living happily on a colonised planet with his wife Jane and their adopted child, when they are approached to help settle a new world. Weary of the in-fighting between colonised planets, Roanoke will be founded by members from each of ten already colonised worlds - the Colonial Union needs administrators who are unaffiliated with any of the members planets, capable of handling disputes with diplomacy, and with military experience, and John and Jane fit the bill.
Things begin to go wrong almost from the beginning - the planet they arrive at is nowhere near where Roanoke is supposed to be, and it becomes clear early on that the planet already has intelligent beings (who disappointingly vanish from the novel as soon as the bigger plot lines take over). John and Jane discover that the colonisation of Roanoke was always intended to be more than an interplanetary cooperative effort - it's a gesture of defiance by the Colonial Union against the Conclave, an alien federation designed to wipe out unaffiliated colonisation that leaves them unable to use modern technology, all but defenceless against hostile forces, and deeply embroiled in political machinations foreshadowed in The Ghost Brigades.
More complicated and less action-laden than the previous novels, this final in Scalzi's trilogy is engaging and accessible, though a little heavy on deus ex machina. The central trio and supporting cast are rounded, the scale is vast, and the plot continually twists unexpectedly. This is unabashedly part of a larger whole, and without reading the first two books I suspect The Last Colony would be distressingly complex. I would have liked to see a little less of the global scale and a little more about the way the colonists and the native life interacted, but that aside this was very good. - Alex
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