Oh man, it really is THE LIFE OF THE *MIND*

Excellent beginning, great humor, terrific story. Well, it's Scalzi - what else would you expect? Now I have to wait for the next installment, dang. ( )

John Scalzi's The Life of the Mind, is the first of four long sections making up his novel/series The End of All Things. Set in the Old Man's War universe, it follows from the intrigue and excitement of the stort stories composing The Human Division. Obviously this means that's not an ideal place to dive into the series, but for those with already familiar with what's going on it's a pretty exciting ride.

Rafe Daquin is a brain in a box. He didn't start out that way and The Life of the Mind - Rafe's mind - is his attempt to explain how it happened. For starters, it's worth knowing that although Rafe is currently working a pilot - r not working: because he has been blackballed after a disagreement with his previous captain - he was once a programmer. This will become important later on. But at the moment a pilot. A blackballed one. Which is why he signs on a lowly minion on a cargo hauler. But there must be more to the story than cargo and sure enough there is.

On Rafe's first flight, the Chandler is hauling a strange supercargo: Assistant Secretary of State Tyson Ocampo. Ocampo may be a pompous, narcissistic windbag, but he seems harmless enough right up until the ship skips to its destination system. At which point Rafe finds himself, in order, knocked out of his bunk, floating in zero G, singled out as the ship's pilot by Ocampo, and, finally, shot in the head. Find that he and his body have parted company for the foreseeable future, Rafe promptly sets about putting a serious spoke in his captors' wheel. And those programming skills? They turn out to be pretty damn key to what he manages to accomplish.

The Life of the Mind is classic Scalzi. Rafe Daquin is an engaging and likeable protagonist, which is just as well because you spend the entire book in his head. Or brain. Or brain box. Or whatever. Anyway, he's smart and snarky and knowing without quite tipping over into annoying. The scenario of being trapped as a brain in a box yet still coming up with a way to escape feels a like longer and more extreme version The Sound of Rebellion from The Human Division in which a blindfolded and confined soldier comes up with an off-beat way to escape captivity.

The story deals with some of the cliffhanger elements from Earth Below, Sky Above while making it clear that the overt three way tension between Earth, the Colonial Union, and the alien Conclave is a taut as ever and that those attempting to play the various forces off against each other are just as active as ever. Only Harry Wilson and Hart Schmidt make a significant appearance, and then only as characters in the frame around the central narrative, but I'm sure we'll see more of them in later episodes. ( )