Constituent Service by John Scalzi

 

This  story was a delight!

I’m a big fan of Mr. Scalzi’s work since I found Redshirts on the new books shelf at my local library years ago, and I’ve been reading his website regularly for a long time. After Redshirts, I went through his back catalog.  I remember enjoying Old Man’s War but bouncing off the sequel, the Ghost Brigades, the first time I tried to read it. I went back to it and enjoyed it eventually, but found the series to be a bit uneven. I didn’t particularly care for the Zoe character and didn’t love The Last Colony or Zoe’s Tale, but I enjoyed The Human Division and The End of All Things a great deal more. I realized that what I enjoyed most about this series was the world building much more than I enjoyed the Perry family. This was a space opera set in a world where humans were often the villains and where human civilization was not a monolithic political entity, both ideas that I find interesting and that I thought were executed well. 

Mr. Scalzi’s novels in the past few years have been more misses than hits for me. Many of them were weaker than some of his earlier work, and I personally think it was due to his habit of rushing through writing them to make his deadlines (as he has eloquently described on his blog). However, I loved his last novel, The Shattering Peace, and, along with When the Moon Hits Your Eye(which I loved up until the ending); he seemed to have gotten his mojo back. 

So I was quite pleased when I got this new John Scalzi book from NetGalley and Subterranean in exchange for an honest review. This book was originally published as an Audible original and subterranean press is putting out a limited edition physical copy. 

This is what I come to Scalzi books for - fun SF worldbuilding and characters trying to solve problems together, with a healthy dash of the absurd. It is reminiscent of Android’s Dream and Agent to the Stars in its sense of fun. It’s a not too distant future and tons of other alien species have encountered Earth and everyone has to learn to live together. Our protagonist gets a job working at a district office for a local legislator and has to work to solve problems for all of the different types of people (many of whom are nonhuman) in the district. It is lighthearted and fun and I would love to see Mr. Scalzi write more in this world.