Can Long Endure, Episode Three of The End of All Things, is Out Now!
Posted on June 23, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 32 Comments
It’s Tuesday, and that means another episode of The End of All Things. “Can Long Endure” is now out and available from your favorite eBook retailer. Here’s the official description:
“They signed up to defend humans from hostile aliens, but this group of Colonial Union soldiers finds themselves, instead, repeatedly sent to squelch rebellious human colonies that want to leave the CU. It’s not a sustainable situation. Something has to give.”
Yup, that’s about right. Here’s an excerpt of the story for you. And for the US, here’s a stack of eBook retailers to get it from:
Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Google Play|iBooks|Kobo. Other countries, please check your local retailers.
For those of you who like the military science fiction side of the Old Man’s War universe, this is your novella — it’s focused on a single squad and features lots of action, adventure and explosions in all their various forms. Plus, you know. Other stuff too.
It’s a good one. I hope you enjoy it!
Woohoo! Read it this morning, and can’t wait for the final part next week!
BTW, when was the dedication included? When the episodes were setup a few months ago, or more recently?
Regardless, it was a nice gesture, and (as per your old article on being a self-made man!), kudos for including it.
Snowcrash:
It was there long before any recent unpleasantness.
The first two installments were terrific, but this waiting a week in between them is a drag! It did give me time to re-read The Human Condition, though :-)
Wait, is that an Imperial Star Destroyer on the cover?
Really enjoyed getting back to the CDF. A nice followup to the early Old Man’s War section, even though I was hoping for more Special Forces after The Ghost Brigades. Szilard can’t be sitting the Equilibrium thing out!
So far, lots of explody fun!
Digging getting these via iBooks at 8pm Pacific time Monday. Really looking forward to the next OMW novel, as it seems unlikely (again) that the current difficulties will be resolved by the end of the final part.
I’m looking forward to reading these collected in print format. I just finished The Human Division last night and want to know the next part of the story!
I just finished re-reading The Human Division and I have a question. How is the Colonial Union governed? Is there a legislature voted on by the people? Are there representatives named by the member worlds? As far as I can see, it’s a vast bureaucracy with no leader. The CDF has generals, but who are their civilian counterparts? Ok, that’s more than one question, sorry.
Origuy:
Answers (some of them, anyway) coming in the next episode.
Thanks. I’m waiting until the whole book is out and saving it for a long trip (SFO-Halifax). So I won’t know until August.
aaaaaugh I can’t wait to get my copy of the book. And I wish I could have a lovely book with all of these OMW cover paintings, because they are gorgeous.
I always got the impression that the CDF is really in charge, and maybe the CU has some kind of puppet government but no real power. This episode makes it clear that the CU/CDF certainly isn’t above some…interference in the political/democratic process. Although if civilian leadership in the CU has master keys to all the brainpals or something, that probably limits the risk of a coup.
I’m very much looking forward to the next episode.
I really enjoy this format. Reminds me of tuning into a weekly radio show or something every Tuesday! Looking forward to the next episode and having some questions answered! CDF has to be pulling strings somehow….
*sigh* Poor Heather. Not long for this world at this point, is she?
I dunno, this one was kind of making me panic and think, “There’s only one more novella left to wrap up everything! It seems way too short!”
Dammit!! Now I have another week to see how it comes out!!
The fact that you made the Colonial Union a bad organization, one consisting of imperialist expansion, warmongering, torturing, slaving authoritarians always struck me as one of the strengths of this series. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 of OMW where this is fully revealed and allows the standard MilSF framing to be criticized the way you do is what makes it a stand out in the field and peer to Forever War and Starship Troopers as a cornerstone in the genre. The expansion of this and examination of moral quandaries faced by those unknowingly absorbed into the organization in GB was one of its strengths and showed you handling questions other authors have tried and failed to fully address. LC completed the cycle here by breaking from the idea of redemptive violence, that fighting another war wouldn’t solve the problem. That the CU would keep adhearing to its ways and slowly change made sense as the setup for HD. You could sympathize with the issues facing these characters as they were trying to break from the past ways of doing things.
The reversion to “oh yeah, we totally stomp down on any political discontent with the military and still torture” is making it a bit harder to sympathize with characters like Harry and Schmidt though, particularly given that both have expressed severe problems with being part of an organization that does this in previous novels. I look forward to the full release August 11th to see how it is handled.
When can we expect the audio?
It’s good. I enjoyed it – the limited viewpoint writing works very well. And at the same time I at present have a slight ‘is this it?’ feeling – the book doesn’t feel very substantial yet. I’m really hoping that part four is a lot longer and more wide-ranging. Also, I’ll then be able to read the whole book as a book and that may be better.
I ‘ll echo @Sooz and @jenfullmoon; I enjoyed it and certainly consistent with CU internal fire fighting and the effects on the CDF soldiers.
However have a sneaky suspicion that there isn’t enough space in one novella left to wrap up all the plot lines. There doesn’t appear time /space to resolve the equilibrium, internal CU divisions , the situation with Earth or the conclave response. Not to mention the absence of the ghost brigades.
Does this mean that some of these plots will be dealt with in another novel? (Please have at least the main plot finished ).
One of the reasons I like this format is that it allows the reader time to pause and think, the downside is the suspense.
Looking forward to last episode
“However have a sneaky suspicion that there isn’t enough space in one novella left to wrap up all the plot lines.”
Oh, ye of little faith.
“And then, just as Harry picked up his empee and set his sights on the leader of the Equilibrium, the Consu showed up out of nowhere and destroyed literally everything.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
This is immensely heartening to read, John.
I’m eagerly waiting for the audible version as well!
I have been reading The End of All Things as the pieces come out. I “read” the audible version of The Human Division. I’ve read all of the other OMW stories, some in paper, e-ink and others in audio. I’ve enjoyed them all, but I have to say episodic TEOAT hasn’t been nearly as much fun as THD was. When reading visually I tend to hunker down and read until I can’t keep the old eyes open or until the book is done. I listen to audio books more incrementally, on the morning commute, while doing the dishes, etc. Being forced to read bits at a time doesn’t suit my style at all. I really loved getting a new “episode” of THD, looked forward to Tuesday mornings. I’d do that again whenever the opportunity comes along. But if it’s a visual edition only? I think I’ll wait until I can read the whole thing at one time.
So… loving the story, hating the format.
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
Yeah, its amazing how man readers have never heard “rocks fall, everyone dies”
Does it have a happy ending? I’m not reading it if it doesn’t have a happy ending.
I’m with Origuy, waiting for the -book-. A big, beautiful, solid hunk of dead tree to enjoy in the late evening. ;-)
I enjoyed the hell out of this. I am almost hoping you DON’T wrap everything up because i would like to do this again. Unlike some of the others I prefer this structure to THD. Like some other of the others I now find myself wondering about the structure of CU/CDF and who is running things.
John
I’m unable to purchase The End of All Things episodes on Amazon from Australia – there was no such problem with The Human Division.
Can you help?
Chris Liles
There is what I think is a typo in chapter 3:
“The Kyiv police, no longer needed, filed into the administration building, […]”
Shouldn’t that be “fled” instead of “filed” ? Or maybe I just miss something, which is fine too.
Cheers,
I’ve been waiting to read the novel as the whole thing, so I haven’t read this yet (probably will in the next day or two) but “to file into” a building is for a group to enter the building in an orderly manner, in one or two lines of people. If they fled in, they’d be running frantically. So it’s situation dependent, but from the “no longer needed” bit it sounds to me more like the former than the latter.