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Book Nook: 'Fuzzy Nation' by John Scalzi

This book offers the reader a snarky sci-fi look at intelligent life and corporate ethics through the lens of a morally ambiguous rogue who's a bit of a jerk (just for fun).

Title: Fuzzy Nation

Author: John Scalzi

Genre: Science-fiction

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The gist: Fuzzy Nation is a modern ‘reboot’ and reimagining of ‘Little Fuzzy’ by H. Beam Piper from 1962. It offers the reader a snarky sci-fi look at intelligent life and corporate ethics through the lens of a morally ambiguous rogue who’s a bit of a jerk (just for fun) and makes a circus of legal courtroom procedures in the most amusing way. It also has velociraptors, because who doesn’t love the threat of a good velociraptor-maiming scene?

Cover art: The cover is fairly typical of sci-fi but it works and captures the scene where human meets otherworldly life. I really like how the spine has a headshot of both the main character and the Fuzzy, both of whom look much how I visualized them. Honestly though, any time you write ‘John Scalzi’ across a cover in big letters readers will flock to it because it’s John Scalzi. That being said, this is by far my favorite of his covers and was illustrated by Kekai Kotaki.

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Summary:

Jack Holloway works alone, for reasons he doesn’t care to talk about. One hundred seventy-eight light-years from ZaraCorp’s head office on Earth, hundreds of miles from their headquarters on-planet, Jack is content as an independent contractor, prospecting and surveying at his own pace.

Then, in the wake of an accidental cliff collapse, Jack discovers a seam of unimaginably valuable jewels, to which he manages to lay legal claim just as ZaraCorp cancels their contract with him. Briefly in the catbird seat, Jack pressures ZaraCorp into recognizing his claim, and cuts them in as partners to help extract the wealth.

But there’s another wrinkle to ZaraCorps' relationship with the planet Zarathustra. Their entire legal right to exploit the verdant Earth-like planet is based on being able to certify to the authorities on Earth that Zarathustra is home to no sentient species.

Then a small furry biped--trusting, appealing, and ridiculously cute--shows up at Jack’s outback home, followed by its family. As it dawns on Jack that, despite their stature, these are people, he begins to suspect that ZaraCorp’s claim to a planet’s worth of wealth is flimsy indeed…and that ZaraCorp may stop at nothing to eliminate the “fuzzys” before their existence becomes more widely known.

The best part: The witty dialogue and snarky, logical, critical banter are trademark Scalzi and make this book shine in a genre that often loses me in dry and lifeless details. Not so with Scalzi behind the word-wheel. He writes spot on dialogue that will leave readers giggling out loud in a possibly maniacal fashion.

The worst part: There isn’t a great deal of action and adventure, with much of the book focused on legal maneuvering and courtroom dramas. That being said, I didn’t really notice this until after I had devoured the book during hours I normally allot to such things as eating dinner and getting a good night’s sleep. Scalzi tells a great story whether it’s set in the wild tree-top jungles of Zarathustra or in the man-made jungles of a courtroom.

Characters: It's possible not everyone will like Holloway, although I highly doubt it. I pretty much instantly adored the rogue, sarcastic, and morally ambivalent main character. He is kind of a jerk but in the understandable and identifiable way. Like, if you are going to be a jerk you hope you pull it off as well as Holloway, because he’s usually aimed at exactly the sort of people you want to see completely and thoroughly schooled by someone who will also enjoy rubbing their faces in it a bit. Scalzi is one of the select few bloggers who have the distinction of nearly always being absolutely right about almost everything and when he isn’t he tends to admit it rather gracefully. This aspect and more than a bit of his tone are played up in Holloway in a way that leaves the reader with much the same feeling one gets from completely annihilating someone in a logical debate.

While much of the novel is focused on Holloway, the supporting characters are equally engaging and left me feeling like I was hearing Scalzi argue two sides of something with himself in a particularly amusing manner. What I really loved most about the secondary characters though was how there wasn’t a love triangle, even though Holloway had dated Isabel, who was now dating Sullivan. The dynamic between the three was as friends instead of the petty fighting and vying to “win” the girl that has been overdone to the point of exhaustion for me. Holloway genuinely likes his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend and gracefully accepts that he had his chance, now it’s over and that’s just fine. There is no reason they can’t all be friends. This is a dynamic I would really like to see more of in fiction, personally.

Plot: The crux of the story is really summed up by this quote: “Better to be a monkey and not be able to understand what’s been taken from you, than to be a man and be able to understand all too well--and be helpless to stop it.”

The plot is mostly driven by the characters' greed and desire to strip the planet of its resources, but what makes this story unique is how the other characters continually misattribute Holloway’s motivations. He is not a clear-cut character and often operates in a grey zone where he could be motivated by any number of factors, none of which he generally makes clear. Scalzi nails this thing that seems to elude much of the general populace, which is that when a person is acting out of uncommon motives it is extremely easy to mess with other people because they have no freaking clue what the person is actually trying to accomplish.

The story plot points are also expertly embedded in the narrative so the reader will hear mention of them a chapter or two before they’re needed to make sense of things, and the more they’re mentioned the more relevant they are likely to become.

Setting: The story is set on the planet Zarathustra, which is essentially a jungle infested with velociraptor type creatures referred to as Zara-raptors. The world-building is surprisingly of little focus, and while there are some neat quirks such as the native inhabitants being uni-sexual, for the most part the focus is on the characters and the ethical choices being made. The book has a futuristic feel, but not so far in the future as to be difficult to imagine. The technology featured is just advanced enough to seem like our world only a bit better. Instead of cars there are flying ‘skimmers’ which travel much faster and the ‘infopanels’ sound almost exactly like an iPad. The tech is amped up enough to be realistic and yet believably futuristic at the same time.

Writing style: The storytelling is surprisingly quick and covers a lot of ground. While the reader is constantly engrossed, one of the downsides of the third person past tense telling is that the reader doesn't always know what Holloway is thinking or where his mind has leapt to, which means he's always a step or two ahead of the reader regarding the politics and maneuvering and in relation to his own values and morals. In fact, the only time that the reader is likely to be ahead is in the main plot "twist" regarding the fuzzys, but that knowledge isn't annoying, so much as it lets the reader anticipate the characters catching up.

In which I babble: As an avid reader of Scalzi's blog I have to wonder if that influenced my adoration of this story. Scalzi's love of critters and snarky banter were present in ample amounts throughout the book and while his fans will already understand and likely enjoy such things, I wonder if they will be as captivating to newcomers. I suspect the answer is yes, and it will drive even more traffic to his blog, but I am far from impartial on this.

It’s worth mentioning that I have never read the original Little Fuzzy by Piper that this book is loosely based around, and that did not diminish my absolute enjoyment of the story.

Quotes:

“Your evil mystic cuteness has no effect on me.”

“‘Is that a huge bag of bindi, or are you just happy to see me?’ ‘Quite obviously, it’s a huge bag of bindi. You said to bring a lot.’”

“‘I don’t talk about it because it was a case of me being stupid.’ ‘When you sell it like that, I definitely want to hear about it.’”

Reminds me of: Some other reviewers’ thoughts on Fuzzy Nation:

"This is a novel about one-upmanship not action-adventure or space opera."

"Piper's Jack Holloway was a crusty old 70-ish prospector who immediately adopted a paternal, protective love for the Fuzzies who moved into his cabin, stopping at nothing to protect them as a man would his own children from the nefarious designs of the Zarathustra Corporation. Beyond that, we really knew nothing of him. Scalzi's Holloway is younger, cockier, much less idealistic, motivated by his own self-interest, prone to jump headlong into trouble now and give a s%@# later."

You might also like: I loved this book so much that upon finishing it I immediately had to listen to the audiobook version (available from Audible.com) which is narrated by Wil Wheaton. Wheaton is the absolute most perfect narrator to Scalzi’s vision that anyone could ever ask for, ever.

Additional books by author: A complete listing of Scalzi’s many other works can be found here.

Publisher: Tor Books, an imprint of Macmillan. Fantasy and science-fiction fans should also check out Tor.com which offers unbiased news on the genre from all publishers, rather than just its own releases.

Release date: May 2011

Purchase Fuzzy Nation here and read the original Little Fuzzy for free in the public domain here.

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