Does this book need to be read as part of the series?

While it functions as a narrative continuation of the first two books, it was written with a sense of closure for the protagonists, John Perry and Jane Sagan. Readers can follow the plot without prior knowledge, though familiarity with the established political landscape of the Colonial Union enhances the experience.

How does this book relate to Zoe's Tale?

Zoe's Tale covers the same timeframe and events as this book but is told from the perspective of a different character. Many readers find it helpful to view that volume as a companion piece that provides additional context rather than a direct sequel.

The Last Colony

Military Sci-Fi Science Fiction

Pages: 320
Published: 2007
Language: English

Synopsis

John Perry has left the Colonial Defense Forces and settled into a quiet life on Huckleberry, a farming colony where he works as village ombudsman and settles his neighbours' disputes. His wife, Jane Sagan, is a former Special Forces soldier, and the two are raising their adopted daughter, Zoë. The peace is ordinary and a little dull, and he seems content with it.

Then the Colonial Union makes an offer. Perry and Sagan are asked to lead Roanoke, a new colony and the first to be settled from ten existing colony worlds instead of from Earth. They say yes.

The colony is a trap. Its arrival is sabotaged, and the settlers are stranded on an unknown world. Perry slowly works out that Roanoke was never supposed to thrive.

It is bait in a plan to break the Conclave, an alliance of four hundred alien species that General Tarsem Gau built to stop this kind of unilateral colonisation. Gau offers the colonists a chance to give up the planet peacefully, and he means it. Perry's answer will decide far more than the fate of a few thousand settlers.

Perry narrates in the first person. The book is the third in the Old Man's War sequence, after Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades. Its action leaves the front line for the negotiating table, with colonial administration, interstellar politics and betrayal in place of combat training. The 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novel counted it among its finalists. Zoe's Tale retells the same events from Zoë's point of view.