John Scalzi: Old Man's War (2007, Tor)
Paperback, 318 pages
Published Jan. 5, 2007 by Tor.
John Scalzi channels Robert Heinlein (including a wry sense of humor) in a novel about a future Earth engaged in an interstellar war against more advanced species. Citizens volunteer for the Colonial Defense Forces after retirement, in exchange for which they have their consciousness transferred into a young body, cloned from their DNA but enhanced. If, against the odds, they survive two years of combat (or 10 years if things aren't going well, which they're not), they get another body and enjoy a fresh start on a colony. This is Scalzi's first novel, and it creates a future he will revisit in subsequent stories.
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races …
John Scalzi channels Robert Heinlein (including a wry sense of humor) in a novel about a future Earth engaged in an interstellar war against more advanced species. Citizens volunteer for the Colonial Defense Forces after retirement, in exchange for which they have their consciousness transferred into a young body, cloned from their DNA but enhanced. If, against the odds, they survive two years of combat (or 10 years if things aren't going well, which they're not), they get another body and enjoy a fresh start on a colony. This is Scalzi's first novel, and it creates a future he will revisit in subsequent stories.
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity’s resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You’ll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you’ll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger.
Found as EN "boxed set" and read the trilogy (with The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony) in less than a week (nights mainly). Many interesting ideas.
I plan to keep reading the series, as it's very engaging and the pages go by fast. On top of that, the world feels massive with so much left to explore. With that said, the main character falls a bit flat. We don't see much of his life pre-war and as a result the affect it has on him isn't a very strong dichotomy.
Kindle app said I'd not read it, so I started late on an evening when I was too tired for anything too hard. Enjoyable adventure
This book is wonderful! It's one of the few modern books that has managed to make me really excited about current SF. Some have complained that this author[return]sounds a little bit too much like Heinlein (Starship Troopers, especially), but I don't at all see how that's a complaint; the world needs more Heinlein's.[return]Anyway, Old Man's War is better written and pased than Starship Troopers ever comes close to being. Yes, it starts slow, but come on. It starts out with[return]a bunch of 75 year olds; how fast do you expect things to move? Anyhow, it needs the slow start to build up important ideas that relate to the rest of[return]the plot. The characters are all interesting, the plot has some original twists, and the writing is as good as Heinlein's. What more do you want? I look[return]forward to seeing much more from this author in the near future.
