Post by mdorman

I don't find John Scalzi's contemporary novels compelling.

I have been able to see this more clearly because there's been a run of them of late, and unlike Agent to the Stars and The Android's Dream—which were very early—this is, presumably, him working at the height of his powers, and yet I'm finding them to be miss-able.

And it's not that I begrudge him not wanting to write "Old Man's War" novels forever; I enjoyed the Interdependency novels. And interestingly, I also like the Locked In novels, which are contemporary in setting.

I think it's something about the construction of these particular novels—there's something screwy with the stakes. In When the Moon Hits Your Eye, the absurdity of the premise makes it hard to believe that he's actually going to follow through with destroying the Earth. And in Monsters of Ohio…the conflict kind of evaporates, while the implications of what's happening are more or less forgotten. It reminds me of an earliest-80s comedy in some way—confident that it can just coast by on vibes.

Anyways, sad to say, I can't really recommend it; I mean, I'm not Abi-on-KJB-HATING-the-Blues-Brothers levels of unhappy—soooooooooo much hate—but I don't feel like it was even a terribly fun use of my time, especially right after a Jason Pargin novel.