The Human Division, Episode 8: The Sound of Rebellion is Now Live
Posted on March 5, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
What, Tuesday again? Then it’s time for a new episode of The Human Division, this one titled “The Sound of Rebellion.” Here’s the description:
The Colonial Defense Forces usually protect humanity from alien attack, but now the stability of the Colonial Union has been threatened, and Lieutenant Heather Lee and her squad are called to squash a rebellion on a colony world. It seems simple enough—but there’s a second act to the rebellion that finds Lee captive, alone, and armed with only her brains to survive.
Readers may remember Lt. Lee from Episode Three, “We Only Need the Heads.” I thought it’d be worthwhile to give her a spotlight, while also shining a spotlight on a CDF task that I’ve hinted at before but have to date only rarely shown in the Old Man’s War series: The CDF dealing with human rebellions on colony worlds. Because, hey, the Colonial Union is not actually a utopia, you know. This episode also feature a fair amount of action and quick thinking, which I always like, too.
As always, there will be a discussion of today’s episode over at Tor.com, which I will link to as soon as it goes up (update: Here you go!). And of course remember that reviews, at your favorite place to leave reviews, are always appreciated.
Next week, tune in for “The Observers,” which features… a murder mystery!
The Sound of Rebellion: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|iBookstore|Google Play|Kobo|Audible (audiobooks) (all links US)
In my head, Zhong Guo looks uncannily like Portmerion.
Can’t imagine why.
@Dave Crisp For some strange reason, I thought the same. Be seeing you…
The mysterious bad guys have to be on of the following: the Consu, a 3rd party alien race, the special forces or a faction inside the colonial union that’s trying to start a war.
2, 6, and an unseen #1. I found your random numbers amusing. I also enjoyed the story a lot. It was a good short read.
I will be telling people you named the Lt. after me.
I love the ah, foreshadowing as to where they are. Bwah.
Heather rocks.
The art on these covers is simply superb. I am waiting OH SO PATIENTLY for the compilation. Want all the art as well though.
Kobo is still listing ep7 as “coming soon”, even now that ep8 is for sale. Could you maybe get your people to call their people or however it works.
I bought episode 7 off Kobo last week. I tried searching for “john scalzi” on Kobo right now, and two copies show up — one that can be purchased at #2, and one that’s marked as “coming soon” further down on the page. Both has ratings, though, so I guess they have some stale entry in their database or something.
Since the episodes go up at midnight, which is 9 PM where I live, it means I get a bedtime story every Monday night. I went to sleep last night giggling at the cleverness of Lt. Lee.
Really enjoyed this ep!
That said, while Audible released the audiobook this morning, I’m still waiting on the iBook version to drop. It hasn’t yet.
I was thinking that it reminded me of Black Widow’s escape from being tied to a chair. Only, you know, awesomer. What with the working blind and the (spoiler) and all.
Enjoyable story. I feel like a kid who gets one bite of dessert a week! It’s short but very fun while it lasts. Interested to see when we get the “big reveal” of who is behind the opposition – assuming there is a single shadowy org behind it.
That remote-detonated SB trick is almost too useful not to be taught in basic training. That the CDF isn’t flat-out using soldiers as suicide bombers actually speaks fairly well of them, given how they’ve been portrayed as machiavellian bastards.
Hi John,
This reads weirdly, IMO and I can’t tell if it’s the writing or a hiccough in the proofing system. :) I’m reading the story from an iPhone in Canada if that helps the process.
“Two rebel vehicles outside the administration offices opened fire at the building and were turned into a glowing piles of slag by the Tubingen, which had targeted them from orbit.”
Anyone else having iBooks issues? Last week’s episode would not download all release day until the afternoon, and now this week’s release will not download at all. I preordered all the episodes, but when i go to download this one (which usually happens automatically) it says it’s still on preorder….
Merrin : I’ve found the pre-order functionality of iBooks pretty buggy, but not just in the instance if this serialization. Sometimes pre-ordering works, other times it doesn’t. I gave up on the process and just buy the installation when I remember its available. Which, now that I think of it, is something that I might have mentioned while I was pointing out a typo (which I swear is only because I’d hate to see it end up in the print-run. I’m not QUITE that much of a pedant.) But who wants to complain too much when you’re still enjoying yourself so much with the overall experience?
This is the worst yet, not the chapter, but paying a buck for ten pages or so. I feel like this book experiment is taking me for a ride.
David:
Then stop reading.
So it looks as if the “Human Division” TV series will need to be on HBO or Showtime, or one of the other premium cable channels. I can’t wait.
Since HD takes place after ” The Last Colony “, I have one question; Is Harry Wilson still “CU green” or is he “flesh” colored, like General Szilard and Jane Sagan?