John Perry has at last found peace in a violent universe, living quietly with his family in one of humanity’s many colonies. It’s a good life, yet there’s something . . . missing. When John and his wife Jane are asked to lead a new colony world, he jumps at the chance to explore the universe once more.

But they soon find out that nothing is what it seems, for his new colony are merely pawns in an interstellar game of war and diplomacy between humanity’s Colonial Union and a new, seemingly unstoppable alien alliance that is dedicated to ending all human colonization.

As this contest rages above, Perry struggles to keep his terrified colonists alive in the face of threats both alien and familiar, on a planet yet to reveal its own fatal secrets.

From Publishers Weekly

Full of whodunit twists and explosive action, Scalzi's third SF novel lacks the galactic intensity of its two related predecessors, but makes up for it with entertaining storytelling on a very human scale. Several years after the events of The Ghost Brigades (2006), John Perry, the hero of Old Man's War (2005), and Jane Sagan are leading a normal life as administrator and constable on the colonial planet Huckleberry with their adopted daughter, Zoë, when they get conscripted to run a new colony, ominously named Roanoke. When the colonists are dropped onto a different planet than the one they expected, they find themselves caught in a confrontation between the human Colonial Union and the alien confederation called the Conclave. Hugo-finalist Scalzi avoids political allegory, promoting individual compassion and honesty and downplaying patriotic loyalty—except in the case of the inscrutable Obin, hive-mind aliens whose devotion to Zoë will remind fans of the benevolent role Captain Nemo plays in Verne's Mysterious Island. Some readers may find the deus ex machina element a tad heavy-handed, but it helps keep up the momentum. (May)
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From Booklist

Scalzi's Hugo finalist,Old Man's War (2005) first spawned the equally entertaining Ghost Brigades (2006). And now, a third volume reprises the story of John Perry, former planet-hopping soldier who has now traded his genetically enhanced second body for a commonplace one and a peaceful retirement. Free from the stresses of battle, he's enjoying domestic bliss with his wife and adopted daughter on a remote Colonial Union world. Then a former commanding general drops by with a tempting proposal. Perry and his wife are apparently the perfect candidates to lead a promising new colony populated by citizens from 10 worlds. They accept, but then the CU deceitfully strands them and their charges on an unknown world. Perry discovers they are pawns in a deadly game calculated to destroy an alien coalition whose purposes include blocking further human colonization. A less-action-laden story line ratchets the excitement down from that of the previous books, but Scalzi's captivating blend of off-world adventure and political intrigue remains consistently engaging. Carl Hays
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