Review of Old Man's War
At the recommendation of Alpha (kej), I bought a copy of John Scalzi's Old Man's War. It's a military science fiction novel in the style of Robert A. Heinlein.
The story is set at least hundreds of years in the future. Mankind is colonizing the galaxy, although Earth has been left in something resembling the present day. The Colonial Defense Forces need a steady supply of soldiers to defend and expand human territory, and who better for the job than geriatric Americans? Seventy-five-year-olds are given the opportunity to enlist with the promise of a body upgrade of sorts that makes them fit enough for war.
The premise is imaginative and engaging, and once the protagonist, John Perry, completes his training, he goes off to fight against a wide variety of strange alien races who are competing with humans for habitable space in the galaxy. It's clever and enjoyable, although Scalzi doesn't really come up with an intriguing plot until the latter half of the book. But he ends it well--resolution and no annoying cliffhanger designed to induce you to buy the next book.
Overall, I would give the book a 4 out of 5 rating. It exhibits a good deal of creativity, and it kept me interested with some plot twists. The greatest shortcoming was Scalzi's writing style, which I found to be too colloquial and unnecessarily vulgar at times.
Alpha asked me to comment on the following quotation of Scalzi:
What I've found *very* interesting is the wide range of reader responses to OMW [Old Man's War]. Your take on it is that it's right wing and militaristic, but I've also seen well-reasoned commentary to suggest that it is a *repudiation* of the right-wing militaristic point of view as well. I've had other commentators suggest that the book could only have been written after 9/11 -- when in fact it was 95% written before then, and the chapter written afterward (the last one) serves basically to cap off everything that happened before. I've had other people say something to the effect of "that's a fun book," without any further consideration of it politically. And then I've had people say "you know, it reads like military science fiction, but it's really a love story," which makes me happiest of all.
I read Old Man's War mostly as a "fun book." I think parts can be taken as exhibition of the sad reality of war, but not as a repudiation of its necessity. To say that the book "could only have been written after 9/11" seems foolish to me; violent conflict between different nations with different cultures is a prehistoric concept. And I did detect and enjoy the subtler love story aspect of the novel.
The story is set at least hundreds of years in the future. Mankind is colonizing the galaxy, although Earth has been left in something resembling the present day. The Colonial Defense Forces need a steady supply of soldiers to defend and expand human territory, and who better for the job than geriatric Americans? Seventy-five-year-olds are given the opportunity to enlist with the promise of a body upgrade of sorts that makes them fit enough for war.
The premise is imaginative and engaging, and once the protagonist, John Perry, completes his training, he goes off to fight against a wide variety of strange alien races who are competing with humans for habitable space in the galaxy. It's clever and enjoyable, although Scalzi doesn't really come up with an intriguing plot until the latter half of the book. But he ends it well--resolution and no annoying cliffhanger designed to induce you to buy the next book.
Overall, I would give the book a 4 out of 5 rating. It exhibits a good deal of creativity, and it kept me interested with some plot twists. The greatest shortcoming was Scalzi's writing style, which I found to be too colloquial and unnecessarily vulgar at times.
Alpha asked me to comment on the following quotation of Scalzi:
What I've found *very* interesting is the wide range of reader responses to OMW [Old Man's War]. Your take on it is that it's right wing and militaristic, but I've also seen well-reasoned commentary to suggest that it is a *repudiation* of the right-wing militaristic point of view as well. I've had other commentators suggest that the book could only have been written after 9/11 -- when in fact it was 95% written before then, and the chapter written afterward (the last one) serves basically to cap off everything that happened before. I've had other people say something to the effect of "that's a fun book," without any further consideration of it politically. And then I've had people say "you know, it reads like military science fiction, but it's really a love story," which makes me happiest of all.
I read Old Man's War mostly as a "fun book." I think parts can be taken as exhibition of the sad reality of war, but not as a repudiation of its necessity. To say that the book "could only have been written after 9/11" seems foolish to me; violent conflict between different nations with different cultures is a prehistoric concept. And I did detect and enjoy the subtler love story aspect of the novel.