The Human Division #2: Walk the Plank

John Scalzi

Jan 2013 · Human Division Series Book 2 · Sold by Tor Books

About this ebook

The second episode of The Human Division, John Scalzi's new thirteen-episode novel in the world of his bestselling Old Man's War. Beginning on January 15, 2013, a new episode of The Human Division will appear in e-book form every Tuesday.

Wildcat colonies are illegal, unauthorized and secret—so when an injured stranger shows up at the wildcat colony New Seattle, the colony leaders are understandably suspicious of who he is and what he represents. His story of how he's come to their colony is shocking, surprising, and might have bigger consequences than anyone could have expected.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

The second part of The Human Division its quite a departure from part 1. Yes, it is shorter, but it also has a completely different format and cast. The story takes place as a recording, and thus the entire story is composed simply of dialog. It reminds me of a script for a radio play and thus conversation is the only thing which drives this terse and tense text. It moves quickly and I found myself curious how this portion relates to the previous. I am certain that we shall find out in subsequent releases

Walk the Plank is very different than The B-Team, the first episode, which I presume Scalzi did on purpose to set expectations. Walk the Plank is written as a transcript rather than in a traditional form. In addition, it’s much shorter, and the story doesn’t seem as satisfying. While the first episode was a great story by itself, Walk the Plank is self-contained but but only decent. If it didn’t exist as part of a larger series, it would be rather boring. On the other hand, it’s more than enough for a chapter in an average novel. As part of a larger whole, it seems to help set up things to come. There are some troubling problems that will likely reappear in later episodes. To be clear, I wouldn’t complain at all if it was simply a chapter in a novel, which is what it is in a way. However, if the The Human Division was compared to a TV series with The B-Team being the double-length pilot, Walk the Plank would would be one of the more out-of-place episodes with its weird format and subpar plot. It was entertaining and served the greater story but just didn’t stand alone as amazingly well as The B-Team. Scalzi's set too high of a bar for himself!

I was sorely disappointed in this chapter after the first one was so good. As others have mentioned this is much shorter than the first chapter and of a lower quality. It doesn't seem like much time was put into it and has no apparent relevance to the overarching story. I can definitely feel the greedy little fingers reaching into my pocketbook with this one.

About the author

JOHN SCALZI is the author of several SF novels including the bestselling Old Man's War sequence, comprising Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, and the New York Times bestselling The Last Colony. He is a winner of science fiction's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and he won the Hugo Award for Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, a collection of essays from his popular blog Whatever. His latest novel, Fuzzy Nation, hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week on sale. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.