The Last Human: A Novel

The story begins on a space station full of different alien species. Species from all over the galaxy live together and trade peacefully. Sadly, in this mixed species society, everyone has their name, species, and species intelligence level (tier) show up as a hologram for everyone else to see. Others make judgements about that information. The main character is a human girl hiding what she is, so she is tagged as a member of a species from a lower intelligence tier. Other alien kids look down on her and talk down to her. This drives her crazy! To make matters worse, everyone else has implanted communication devices capable of deciphering not just spoken language, but also non-verbal language. Sarya - the Daughter can't get the implant or her true species would be discovered. So she is forced to carry a heavy, external device with limited capability. This makes her very much the alien among aliens. She has been adopted by a huge spider-like alien and taught her mother's culture and value system. Sarya's mother Shenya -the Mother is dangerous, deadly even. She is totally devoted to Sarya-the Daughter by the time we meet them though. I loved the relationship between the alien mother and her adopted child! I also liked the other aliens. Overall, I really enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the book. The last third was fine, but I would have preferred it go in a different direction. It got rather esoteric. (One primary message seemed to be that beings of higher intelligence will always manipulate and use beings of lower intelligence.) (There is a comic series online under the book's title with cool art of Shenya- the Mother and Sarya - the Daughter.)

Interesting, but different from what I expected. I wanted to hear a story about the last of the humans growing up with a cold-blooded, alien killer for a mother, only to get a really dramatic take on intelligence, higher powers, and morals. While it can be great to hear about those every so often, personally, it wasn't anything new. Story was definitely good overall, though.

The Last Human was a really fun, unique twist on the scifi space opera genre. Main character is raised by a mother, who is a member of a fearless species, under the guise of a not so smart alien that is definitely not a human, as humans are thought to have been wiped out. That of course is to dissuade anyone from thinking she is actually a Human, the species that rejected the "Network." The story really takes off and things spin out of their controlled orbits when she is offered the opportunity to leave and actually meet another human. From here, it would be all spoilers, so I’ll talk about how this book made my head spin with it’s almost manic story progression and character development. Zack Jordan does a fantastic job creating “big moments” filled with action, presenting big science concepts that are pretty easy to understand. There are universe sized intelligence’s, there is destruction on a massive scale, heart warming friendship, sacrifice and loss, and redemption. Buy it!