Fuzzy Nation

Toujours drôle et agréable à lire, mais loin du plaisir que j'ai pris dans the old man's war ou ses suites.

Well written as usual for this author as well as attributing original story to another author. Lots of surprises in the story line and interesting plot twists to keep you entertained.

I came at Fuzzy Nation as a writer interested in how a published writer would rework an old classic and reboot it for a modern audience. I have to say on finishing that I have a certain sympathy for both sides of the controversy this reboot has caused.So I started this book by reading the original, Little Fuzzy by H Beam Piper. I'm grateful to Scalzi for somewhat backhandedly recommending me a really great book, that I devoured in a day or two and really enjoyed. The sentience question is dealt with well, but overall the book seemed to miss out on a few of the better legal related things it could have done with the plot. Fantastic concept, of which the closest comparison I can think of is Avatar.I started Fuzzy Nation eager to see what Scalzi would do with this fantastic source material. But apart from Carl the dog's antics I didn't warm to it. I wondered why Scalzi had bothered. But then I started to appreciate the things he was doing better than Piper, the ex-lawyer was a better fit, the high range audio infused throughout the story, the smaller cast. Reading the books the way I did you couldn't help but compare. I spent more than two thirds of the novel slowly liking it more and more.And by the end it was clear that Scalzi had taken source material of a charming but slightly flawed novel, and made it into a fantastic novel. By this point I was full of appreciation for just how clever and intricate and downright satisfying this book is throughout. I love it, I unreservedly love it. I rarely give out the perfect score for a story. I think I've done it maybe 10-15 times in more than 500 books. I didn't get there with Old Man's War (although `The Last Colony' wasn't far off) but this is something else. Taken on its merits alone, I'm tempted to actually give it a 10.But then I come to my sympathy for the other side. As a writer, the fact that this book is not original is a big deal. Nothing is really original in science fiction, or at least very little. Everyone steals little things and big things from everywhere, and have done for the last 40 years. But to do it like this so obviously! An author, a good author, is not just a hack. They make up the plot, dialogue and characters and one other rather important thing - the concept. Scalzi didn't make up the thing that in my opinion is the hardest to get down as perfectly as Piper did - the concept. Fuzzies on an exploited colony planet, sf courtroom drama for their very sentience. It's perfect. But it's Piper's not Scalzi's. Maybe this doesn't matter to some, but I wonder about stories I've written and how I'd feel if someone had the audacity to redo it, whether they could do better or not.In the end I have to remain honest to my gut reaction, rather than my intellectual property rights brain. Fuzzy Nation outdoes Little Fuzzy in almost every respect and to an incredible and honed standard. It has something only the very best stories have - that self-contained world, tiny cast, pitch perfect prose and up-all-night plot. And Holloway. Scalzi's new Holloway is quite possibly the most interesting character I've read in months. Holloway is a wonderfully flawed lead, with more facets and motives to his character than most authors manage from their entire cast. Even when his morals and motives are exposed I still think there were reasons and motives underneath.I can't recommend it enough and it so off the beaten track with respect to the bulk of the current SF shelf.And yes, I really am going to give it a 10. As a writer I dream of concept as perfect as this and then pulling it off even better than the original author is an incredible achievement.

Fuzzy Nation is the new book by John Scalzi, but it's not original, rather a reboot of H. Beam Piper's original Little Fuzzy. I've not read the original (or any of its sequels) and the main reason I ordered Fuzzy Nation is because I hugely enjoy the way John Scalzi tells a story, his Old Man's War books are among my favourites. I started Fuzzy Nation with no expectations and only hoping to find a quick and enjoyable read. Not only did it deliver that, but it was a complete joy - funny, heartwarming and immensely entertaining!Fuzzy Nation is a fairly straight forward story that focuses on the character of Jack Holloway, an independent contractor that searches out various minerals and fossil fuels for ZaraCorp, and his find of a huge Sunstone deposit on Zarathustra worth trillions to the company and, by extension of his finders fee, billions to him. But then the fuzzies show up at his home, animals that are smarter than anything else native to the planet, but also appearing to be without sentience, at least at first. Fuzzy Nation follows this discovery and the implications it has on ZaraCorp, all told through the eys of Jack Holloway.Holloway is the main character here and the one that we follow throughout the story. He's not instantly unlikable despite coming across as a little arrogant and self-righteous. But he's got a sense of humour, and that takes his character into the grey area. His virtues are not always in the right place and he thinks of himself more often than not, but I enjoyed reading every sentence of Fuzzy Nation because of Holloway. A disbarred lawyer, Holloway stands his ground with added sarcasm pretty much throughout the story, but it's so entertaining I forgot to question his motives and see what sort of character he really is most of the time. It's when big things happen that you realise just how well Scalzi has portrayed Holloway, and how much you come to care and understand about the man. The other supporting characters add their own little flair to the story and take it from point to point (I can't stand Wheaton Aubrey VII, but wouldn't dare see the story without him!), but Fuzzy Nation is about Jack Holloway first and the fuzzies second.Some of the scenes in Fuzzy Nation are great, despite the complete lack of action in the novel. You've got the introduction of the fuzzies and all their related antics, Holloway and his dog Carl blowing up terrain (a particularly important aspect of relations between some characters!), and, of course, plenty of courtroom stuff which is the highlight of the novel, without a doubt. I would love to discuss the fuzzies and everything about them, but because they're so central to the plot and their scenes are so enjoyable I don't want to spoil anything. However, Scalzi manages to add emotion, humour and facts into the book in abundance, and it makes Fuzzy Nation an excellent and hugely enjoyable read.Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi is awesome. Go buy it, hire it, borrow it, whatever. This is a book you need to read.

I love John Scalzi's work. And he is a very funny guy. If funny is what you want in your reading, then you will be very happy with this book. The trouble for me is, I'm almost starting to wonder if he feels like his niche is only in 'funny' SF as compared to other (more serious??) types of SF. I like fun. But sometimes I want more meat.This book is well written, though what was going to happen was obvious to me by about 1/3 of the way into it. After that, it was just a matter of seeing how it played out. Because of that, it seemed to lag just a bit in the middle section. I found myself pausing and saying, "Okay, so when is something actually going to happen." However, the last 1/3 or so of the book more than made up for this. In a demonstration of brilliance that we all wish we could equal, the main character deftly and amazingly solves almost all the problems.Of course, there were a few little inconsistencies leading up to this, including the fact that the Ph.D level biologist, didn't really properly examine and evaluate all of what was going on. I am a biologist and I kept wanting to scream, "You idiot! Look at what is really happening and consider that ********!" (I won't say exactly what, because I don't want to put in a major spoiler, but, frankly, I felt like the author was creating a real 'Withhold' since I think most competent biologists would have approached this task much differently.) And then there was a paradigm shifting piece of information at the very end that was not quite a 'withhold' because the main characters didn't know it in advance, yet they could have suspected something similar, and I felt like the characters should AT LEAST have 'tested' out a few more details, rather than being content to just 'observe.' In other words, I don't think they 'probed' enough. Once again, especially the biologist. On the other hand, to make up for it, the main character is really quite complex and interesting by himself. One of the potentially deeper characters I have run across in some time.So, maybe this review won't make sense to you if you haven't read the book. I encourage you to go ahead and read the book. It was fun. It was great to see brilliance revealed at the end, though I felt like I was perhaps reading a John Grisham courtroom drama, rather than SF about an alien world. But all in all, it was still quite satisfying. I recommend this book.