Coyote Blog

Several weeks ago, when he was going away to camp, I tried to come up with a gift to send along with my 14-year-old son.  Because he is a big John Scalzi fan, I bought him a semi-bootleg pre-production copy of Scalzi's upcoming novel Zoe's Tale off eBay.  I feel kind of bad about abusing Mr. Scalzi in this way, but feel a little better when I consider what our household somehow seems to own at least two copies of every book he has published.

Anyway, I just snagged the book back from my son and he said it was great.  As all you parents know, 14-year-old boys can be oh-so nuanced and deep in their communications with their parents, so I did not get a lot of detail  (oddly enough, having read a few chapters, the communication and decision-making abilities of teenage boys seems to be a minor theme in the book).  The best metric of his fondness for the book was that he told me to make sure to read the acknowledgments at the end.  It must be some kind of sign of engagement when a teenage boy reads the acknowledgments.

I am several chapters in and really like what I have seen so far.  Always nice to see a strong teenage girl protagonist, and Scalzi is as funny as ever.  Apparently it is available in mid-August.

By the way, later this year I believe an early novel of Scalzi's called Agent to the Stars is coming back into publication.  I loved this book, and you can check it out early as Scalzi has it available free online.  (update:  Here it is on Amazon, with an Oct 28 release date).