The End of All Things

Old Man's War, Book 6

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, John Scalzi

Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi returns to his best-selling Old Man's War universe with The End of All Things, the direct sequel to 2013's The Human Division.

Humans expanded into space...only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement...for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.

Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time - a couple of decades at most before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness to drive humanity to ruin. And there's another problem: a group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other - and against their own kind - for their own unknown reasons.

In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and to keep humanity's union intact...or else risk oblivion and extinction - and the end of all things.

©2015 John Scalzi (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Tavia Gilbert and William Dufris are disarmingly genial as they trade off narrating chapters. Gilbert, in particular, manages to convey a bird-like alien perfectly in her section, and Dufris is fully believable even as a disembodied brain in control of a spaceship." ( AudioFile)

Good but a Bit Fragmented

I like the story though I found it a bit anti-climactic after going through 5 books. I liked the 1st part best about the brain in the box. I struggled with multiple narrators doing the same characters but I assume it was released in parts.

Great continuation

Any additional comments?

John Scalzi is one of the best authors out there. His work is creative and new, and his Old Man War Universe is very well done. Performance was very well done, and the use of a male and female voice for the first person narratives worked well in my opinion.

Mostly awesome

Dufris does an amazing job as always. But someone was asleep in the editing room for Gilbert. She makes all of the soldiers sound like they have a stick up their butt. Even the usually laid back Harry Wilson. It's very jarring. At one point she even says condemnation instead of commendation.

Another great story by Scalzi

I have read or listen to almost all of John Scalzi's stories. The start of this current story goes back to the Old Man's War. This story takes place years later. As usual, Scalzi's characters are wonderfully created and the resolution of the story at the end was terrific. I hope Scalzi continues to create stories in this universe.
The performance is really well done. I will definitely look for more books narrated by these readers.
For those that are not familiar with Scalzi, I recommend reading Old Man's War first only because there are a few comments or descriptions that would not make sense unless you understood the events in the first book in the series.

Anticlimactic end to a good series

What did you love best about The End of All Things?

The first thing I will say, which you will read in 90% of the reviews of this book. Never let Tavia Gilbert near a microphone ever again. William Dufris narrated the book from the beginning of the series and did an excellent job at narrating the characters, even the female ones very well. One thing that was horribly obvious from Tavia's performance was that A) she hadnt read the book before narrating it B) She didnt listen to William's narration at all. She managed to turn Harry Wilson, one of my favorite characters into a tin soldier, which he clearly isnt if you've read at least 2 lines of dialogue by him... I had to pause the audio after every line of Harry Wilson and repeat it in my head in Dufris' voice.

That aside, I loved the concept of this book series, but I feel like Scalzi gave up on this book. I kind of feel like I did at the end of Hunger Games and Divergent, like they simply gave up on the final book and rushed the story. Bring back John Perry! He's supposed to be the main character! And Jane left us with a huge cliff hanger, but never follow up with it!

Scalzi set the stage for a great cloak and dagger intersteller political thriller, but left me with a boring solution and a cliche ending.

Did the narrators do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

William Dufris, yes as always. Tavia, not one bit. Nope.

Any additional comments?

Seriously, if you see Tavia Gilbert as the narrator for any other books you were thinking of reading, buy the print version.

Additional depth to the universe

I recently listened to The End of All Things written by John Scalzi and narrated by Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, & John Scalzi.

This is the sixth book in the Old Man’s War Series. While I attempt to avoid spoilers, it’s not wholly possible to do so in this review. If spoilers are an issue for you I suggest you stop reading now.

This book is a series of novelettes that highlights not only the continuing division between the Colonial Union and Earth, but also highlights certain issues in the larger Colonial Union itself. In addition to this the Conclave continues to view all human activity with some suspicion, particularly because a mysterious third party is dead set on driving wedges between all of the factions in order to profit from their destruction. In addition to that, John Scalzi offers an alternative perspective to one of the stories here with a different, if non-canon, ending.

Narration: The narration on this book was divided into three parts, with William Dufris narrating the first section, Tavia Gilbert narrating the second section with an afterward and discussion by John Scalzi. The narration was generally well done.

Conclusion: This book continues to explore the universe in the Old Man’s War universe. It actually adds quite a bit of story depth to this universe, thus anyone who has been enjoying this series will enjoy the additional context.

mehhhhhh

go back to old narators this one was painful. bring back previous narators. struggle to listen to

Differing voice actors

Jarring differences from one chapter to the next with the two different voice actors. Range of female VA was ~3 distinct personas as opposed to the original VA’s much larger range. Otherwise story was obviously written in stilted fashion, as presented in serialization with chapterly recaps. Weaker ending to stellar series.

Great story narration of Harry Wilson is a miss

Great story narration of Harry Wilson is a miss
No disrespect to the narrator Gilbert but you butchered the voice of Harry Wilson the rest of your narration was fine, I blame the editors. Someone should have identified the great difference of Wilson’s voice, intervene and help Gilbert make a modification. The story is great a must listen Harry Wilson is a major role in this series there should have been more effort to maintain his persona.

Epic conclusion to Scalzi’s OLD MANS WAR series… and Scalzi added a bonus “Stinger Chapter”

The first of Scalzi’s books that I read was REDSHIRTS. I liked that enough to give several of his other books a go.

Finishing this novel [or collection of short stories within the OLD MANS WAR-verse, if you are picky], I have reached the conclusion of his currently published material.

I could not be happier to have saved this book for “last” [or, at least until the next story is published], despite this series being the first he published. This was my favorite of all his works to date:
• The characters were well developed,
• The stories wove together clearly, and coherently
• The themes were both universal and, in many ways, quite specific,
• AND the “science” and the “logic” of this fiction did not disappoint.

Moreover, the narrator gave wonderfully rich performance, using varied character voices while remaining true to his character la