The B-Team

[sawyl]

Release day for The B-Team the first of John Scalzi's series of novellas and short stories making up The Human Divsion. Set in the same universe as Old Man's War and a few years after the events of The Last Colony and Zoe's War, it finds the Colonial Union adjusting from its previous stance from one of wading in & wiping out to one of diplomacy & negotiation.

When Ambassador Bair's ship is destroyed on her way to agree a vital treaty, the Colonial Union is forced to turn to the only other ship in range, the Clarke, and its B-team of diplomats. The Clarke team find themselves assigned a ticklish double mission. Not only must Ambassador Abumwe ensure that treaty negotiations go ahead, but before she can start Lt Harry Wilson, the Clarke's military liaison, is given two hours to track down the stealthed blackbox recorder from the destroyed ship.

The B-Team neatly balances work of establishing the universe for readers unfamiliar with Old Man's War — and establishes the revised rules of engagement for veterans of OMW — with a gripping story that pulls in the reader. Wilson's clever solution to the problem fits his background as a high-school physics teacher perfectly, as does his Socratic desire to explain it to his Hart Schmidt, his Watsonian side-kick. While necessarily less developed than Wilson, the other characters are nicly sketched out: the nervy Schmidt; Abumwe with her less wonderful people skills; Captain Coloma, who seems to be more than a little bit obsessive about her ship's shuttle; while the two Colonial Defence Force officers who carry the bulk of the exposition are every bit as Machiavellian and utilitarian as those in The Ghost Brigades.

A good solid start to what promises to be an enjoyable series.