Book 3 of the Old Man's War series unites the main characters from the first 2 books, John Perry and Jane Sagan, and jumps ahead to their retirement on the peaceful colony of Huckleberry. Of course their relaxed existence is disrupted as interstellar politics and conspiracies take over and they find themselves facing one impossible challenge after another. The Conclave plot line from earlier in the series finally picks up steam and the stakes get ever larger as the story goes on. All of this makes for an interesting enough premise but in the end author John Scalzi just didn't keep me immersed this time around.

A myriad of small plot devices add up as the book goes on and very few of the characters act as you would expect them to. John and Jane uncover clues that things are amiss but just go along for the ride putting themselves and their adopted daughter Zoe at great risk. The aliens speak using standard 21st century colloquialisms and General Gau, the Leader of the Conclave, which is composed of 420 different alien races, puts himself at risk by personally visit colony planets to speak with the leaders before destroying them. The list goes of these unbelievable actions on throughout the book and the final plot twist at the end was the least believable of the bunch.

To be fair I didn't dislike this book but it did leave me uninspired to immediately continue with the series. When I do resume it will likely be with book 5 and not book 4, Zoe's Tale, which is a re-telling of this same story from Zoe's perspective. Although the story was ultimately entertaining, once was enough for me. For audiobook fans know that William Dufris as the narrator isn't enough to change any of the above so reading might actually be the better choice.