The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi (2025)

This is the seventh book in Scalzi’s most well-known series that started with Old Man’s War.  You don’t have to have read from the beginning to read this book, but you will miss out on some of the context.  (Plus, the other six books are worth it.) Last I heard, there will be a Netflix series based on OMW coming out sometime…it may have been delayed.

If you’ve never read a John Scalzi book before, you will either like his style or not.  Almost everything he’s written in the last few years is in a very conversational style, and there is a high “snark” quotient in many of those conversations.  I find his work to be a very ‘easy’ read in that they can be read quickly.  This is not to say he skimps on character or world-building if it’s necessary.  I found myself very interested in the character named “Ran” who is of the Obin race in this book.

Scalzi took a lot of time off of writing in the OMW universe. I respect that he wanted a good story to tell before coming back to it, and I think he told it.  I hope we’re not done completely with the cast of characters he’s created.

 

Framed in Death by J.D. Robb (2025)

I put this on hold at just the right time, so I was one of the first few library readers to devour this book.  This is the umpty-zillionth in the “in Death” series written by Nora Roberts under her pen name J.D. Robb.  My standard advice is, if you are new to the series, don’t start here. Go back to Naked in Death and see if you like that one. If you do, you’ll be OK with the standard two sex scenes in every book, and the bracketing of every case with death/investigation/takedown/interrogation-confession, all centering around Eve Dallas, Lt. NYPSD and her life partner Roarke (dreamy billionaire/former thief).

What makes this series fun to read (and I’ve read all of them) are the now-large cast of supporting characters that experience growth, and fun details of the universe that Robb has fleshed out over time.  As one example, there is almost no Coca-Cola in this universe, but in this book it actually gets mentioned.  I noticed!

Robb releases this book series on a twice-a-year schedule. (Even with a formula, how does she do it? There are some decent deep facts that make it into each book.) I need to go put a reminder in to place the next hold in January for a February release.

Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells (2013)

In finding a cover image, I found out that this novel will be reissued in November 2025 as one of the “Essential Legends” series.  This is, of course, Disney’s way to cash in on their scuttling of the entire Expanded Universe ficton when they decided that only movies were canon at that time. Of course, they have sold plenty of books in the “new canon” since then!

That is obviously a sore spot with me! I had this book on my radar for a very long time but never hunted it down. I did so and finally read it this week. Having grown to love Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, I wanted to see if I liked any of her other prose.

This is a decent Star Wars novel.  It’s not one of the best in the EU, but it tells an interesting story.  There was some effort in the staging of the plot so that some characters are going through roughly parallel situations at the same time.  I thought Wells was most interesting in showing the growing attraction of Han & Leia.  I feel for writers in the SW or Trek universes as they can only take the characters so far, or choose to write them at a certain point so that they can only grow a certain amount.

This story was a part of a “duology” when first published (the second book is not by Wells) but I feel no need to seek that one out.