The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi is a novella set in the Old Man’s War universe. It has an interesting history, which Scalzi documents in the introduction. Orderwise, this book sits between The Ghost Brigadesand The Last Colony. It is significantly different than any of Scalzi’s other book in style and tone. Is it worth tracking down?

The book doesn’t have a plot to speak of. There is a framing sequence about reading memories of soldiers as they leave the service to gain a better understanding, but it doesn’t affect the book. The framing sequence is simply there to outline a structure for the reader, so they don’t get too confused. Each chapter is a set of memories from Jane Sagan taken as the set out to leave the service and settle down for a nice normal life on a colony. There are remembrances of people’s she’s killed, but the majority of the book is a rumination on the love she has for John Perry. Since the book is filled with her memories, it’s not a linear storyline, but more of an outpouring of feelings and ideas.

The book isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read at least the first three books in the Old Man’s War trilogy. You can’t just jump into this novella and expect to know what’s going on without the background of the universe and characters. Overall it’s a decent set of vignettes/memories, but is a bit hard to read and can be confusing at times. It’s a stylistic experiment of sorts for Scalzi and should be seen as that. Mildly recommended.

This post is part of the thread: Old Man’s War – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.