This seems to be Scalzi's first try with fantasy. Dark fantasy. But it still has plenty of space action. It reminded me of the Old Man's War trilogy with the contrast turned way down and added religion. But it's a hella awesome combination - space opera with "mythological religion" - two great tastes that taste great together.

But I gotta air one beef. And I didn't realize this until I was doing my fun thing where I look up trivia/info about the story. I saw this review that called attention to one component -- the established harem on the ship designed to give the crew "release". That's all fine and dandy -- not uncommon practice for this level of cultishness -- until Scalzi points out he never assigned any pronouns to the prostitutes. No physical gender characteristics or anything that could define as this, that, or the other.

This is creepy. It's clever, but it's creepy. And I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it's a neat writer trick, one that I didn't see coming. I guess it's a technique to let the reader fill in the blanks with what he/she wants to. Which is the sign of a good writer. On the other hand, now that I know that the prostitute could have been a girl or a guy, I feel icky. All I can do is imagine him as a guy. Maybe it's my instinctive homophobia. Maybe in my mind, if the character has no gender, it's potentially both -- a hermaphrodite or someone like Pat.

I also feel betrayed by the author, that he fooled me. Maybe it's that I know how the trick is done. Maybe it's that I feel, as a writer, omitting information for the sole purpose of messing with the reader is not cool.