Booklog 28/2021: John Scalzi: Zoe's Tale– Old Man's War #4

This retells the story told in The Last Colony (Old Man's War) from Zoe's first person viewpoint. It revisits the story from the point at which John Perry and Jane Sagan are asked to take on the leadership of Roanoke colony. Zoe, their adopted daughter, a teenager is considered a special person by the Obin who were given the gift of (artificial) consciousness by her birth father Charles Boutin. As a result she has two Obin minders who (as part of a peace treaty) relay her every activity back to their planet for all to see. This charts Zoe's relationships with her minders, a girl who quickly becomes her best friend, and her first boyfriend. There are things that Zoe experiences that her adoptive parents don't know about, and one section where Zoe's actions affect the outcome when Roanoke is threatened.

 Mr Scalzi gets the teen voice right and it's fun following Zoe filling in the gaps like Rozencrantz and Guildenstern filled in the gaps in Hamlet.

Booklog 29/2021: Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Hercule Poirot #4

Marmite. Love it or hate it. No, sorry. I know people love this but I hate stories with unreliable narrators. I feel cheated. The author deliberately leaves out the information that would give the reader a fair chance of reaching a conclusion alongside Hercule Poirot. I don't find this clever, I find it annoying.

There's not much I can say without spoilers.

A widow dies from an overdose of barbiturates and  the following day Roger Ackroyd, the man she was going to marry, is murdered by a knife to the neck. There's an obvious suspect but his fiancee is convinced he didn't do it and asks Hercule Poirot, recently 'retired' to the village, to investigate. Nothing is quite what it seems.