User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This is, for me, a pretty short review as the key novel element here is one that it is fun to discover in the book, and not spoiling that severely limits what I can discuss.
I really enjoyed Old Man's War and think you should read it. For me it was a 5* first half and a 3* second half (I liked the 2nd half but it wasn't 5* 'amazing'). Scalzi can write! He opens with excellent characterization, touching and real. This skill at bringing the POV character to life, at catching the vibe of a vital individual grown old and isolated, combines with a great plot hook. It's vivid modern almost literary writing unfolding a fascinating take on future earth.
The first half felt modern with a gentle touch on characterization, a fresh idea, diversity, a book of its time. The second half felt more like 60's/70's sci-fi - blasting bad guys in space. EE Doc Smith could have written it. That's by no means a bad thing. I enjoyed it. You may well too. But the transition from a very personal earth-bound story to a space romp didn't quite gell for me.
From the "hard" scifi point of view this also felt old fashioned in a Star Wars sense. Star Wars serves us WWI biplane aerial combat in the guise of space warfare. X-Wing pilots literally look out of their cockpit windows for the enemy. It's enjoyable nonsense. Old Man's War is similar, serving up a mix between WWI and Trojan war combat for infantry, ignoring much of the current and likely future developments in technology that would radically change this, probably make it redundant (and likely make it much more boring). Think Starship Troopers, where they fly across light years to die in droves machine gunning alien bugs.
These minor nits aside, this is a fun, interesting, exciting, funny book. Read it.
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Rating: really liked it
There wasn't anything horribly wrong with this book, but I found myself unattached to any of the characters. And even for a science fiction novel I thought a lot of the plot was just unbelievable; the main character seems to excel at and have the answer to everything while his fellow soldiers get killed left and right. The people he meets are little more than cannon fodder and you don't really get a chance to like them so it's not that big a deal when they bite it. Scalzi chooses to barely describe the various characters, and when they get their "upgrades," they all are young and beautiful and even harder to tell apart.
It also doesn't help that every single character has the same snarky voice; even the women.Almost a full half of the novel is spent on setup and getting the soldiers ready for battle. A lot of the technology was interesting and also easy to understand, but I felt like too much time was spent on leading up to the main story. And then, when the characters finally enter into battle and start fighting for humanity's right to colonize, each chapter reads like: "this girl died, then that guy died, then this girl got eaten, then that guy got vaporized, now let's go kill some aliens and act like complete dickwads because if we don't kill them first, humanity is DOOMED."
I was continuously bored because I didn’t even care if the humans won or if the main character lived to see another day.The first and last chapters did make me a little teary eyed, and this was mostly due to the relationship the main character had with his wife.
Scalzi's focus is never on characterization though, so these brief interludes add only a small amount of charm to an otherwise emotionally bereft story.I'm hoping that this was just a case of "first book syndrome" since this is the beginning of a series. I've heard it gets better, although I've read his newest book, Fuzzy Nation, and I really think I'll continue to have the same problem.
Namely, I feel like he enjoys creating a worst case scenario and devising the cleverest way for them to escape it, and it all ends up feeling too neat and methodical. It's just too bad that I don't really care about his characters, because then these books would be a lot more enjoyable.
Rating: really liked it
9/7/21 - I have this book and the second book in paperback but I’m unhauling them. I don’t feel like rereading and starting the second book or continuing the series right now. I flipped through and it may go down to a 4.5 and maybe not, but for now I’m getting rid of both and I’ll pick them up in a kindle sale or something ….
Do not mourn me, friends
I fall as a shooting star
Into the next life
Holy Mother Of Graham Crackers! This book was awesome 😄
When you're an old person, you can sign up to go out into the galaxy to fight in the alien war. WHAT?
John Perry decided to do this when he turned seventy-five. His wife had been dead for awhile so he had nothing to lose. Or did he?
He went through this process and had to leave the Earth forever. Dead to the Earth.
John found some good friends on the way to their destinations. It took a bit to get there so this group spent some time together. They were upgraded together and so on and so forth. They even gave themselves a name, The Old Farts. 😊
They were separated when they went to combat training. Only two of each went to the same place. But they kept in touch by their brain things. I was sad when some were killed 🙁
Overall I loved the book and the whole creepy concept!
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
Making the green hero journey full of humor philosophy chimeras, satirized alien races, military drill, and pimped über soldiers while Heinlein´s screams about why people are making fun of his sophisticated point of view can be heard from wherever. He surely wouldn´t have approved dirty humor, just sick mentalities.
If you haven´t read a ton of Sci-Fi, you will maybe not get the whole picture and see it as one of many Sci-Fi novels, just with jokes, one storyline, and the one or other philosophical implication. But this innuendo spiced trip is much more than that, it presses nostalgic reader buttons and offers so much more than one can see at the first moment. I am not sure if Scalzi has read so much Sci-Fi that all the innuendos are aimed at certain authors or if some of it is coincidence, there is too much great genre literature out there to be sure about that.
In some way, it reminded me of the Martins´ Tuf Voyaging, because the journey and somewhat evolution of a protagonist, filled with humoristic, cynical undertones, and the sense of wonders overkill are pretty similar. I can´t mention it without screaming Why, oh why, Martin didn´t write more or continued, not sure about that, writing Sci-Fi and became a space opera author instead of writing this nice fantasy stuff, as if there wasn´t already enough High Fantasy and far too few sci-fi behemoths out there.
How it´s broken down to an understandable, still fascinating level, letting the characters give easy, cool examples of the more sciency stuff, is enough to satisfy Sci-Fi prone readers and newbies, mixing in so many tropes and archetypes that I got stuck trying to count them. Not just the genre, also the manly macho tropes and relativity of evil tropes are satirized, making it interesting for both character and plot focused readers.
Dealing with life, death, and identity accelerates the plot towards the end, preparing the ground for the coming parts of the series. A still to explore topic for social sci-fi with huge potential are the relationships, friendships, family,… when digital copies, clones, too many digital copies, bodies separated from the mind, collective hive minds, etc. are added to the mix. Some of the most amazing old and new Sci-Fi is using a handful of elements to built new, emotional settings for just one character or whole crews, opening the genre for exponentially more readers by focusing on the human element and not the worldbuilding, action, and sense of wonders many don´t find so appealing or miss the character development arcs if plot and wordbuilding are kings. Thousands of novels to be written, take just for instance love, death, and motherhood and mix it with alien races, ideology, any period of the future, and a neutral, funny, or tragic undertone.
Part of Scalzi´s patented recept is that he, just as Hamilton, is always connecting world and character, that the amalgamation makes it a never boring, always thrilling read, because no unnecessary breaks ad holes can appear when such a technique is perfected. Story is character, character is story, no infodumps, that one just in the case of Scalzi, everything has it´s use, it´s so perfect.
The only, small criticism: With a third person perspective and more protagonists and fractions, this could have had, even more, real Space Opera potential. Kind of like The Orville as a book series, does nobody see the chance of a hybrid of Scalzi Adams humor big space opera including all the ideas of Sci-Fi?
The alien factions make fun of different ideologies and attitudes, making the classical, serious military Sci-Fi fight, because of allegedly necessary for survival arguments, seemingly motivated by very stupid, illogical reasons, greed, and megalomania. Ahem.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
Rating: really liked it
A few weeks ago, I was at one of my children's friend's homes, watching the two of them do a dubious job on a joint project and nattering away about fiction with the friend's father. At the end of the day, he pressed Scalzi's Old Man's War into my hands. He didn't pitch it. He just said I'd like it.
I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew Scalzi — I follow him on Twitter, we've sat on panels together, I could pick him out in a line up with confidence — but none of these things necessarily translates into someone's fiction. Can you tell what my novels will be like after reading my Twitter feed, after shooting the breeze with me over a school project, after seeing me stride across a parking lot? Who knows.
But it turned out that that it did translate. Online, Scalzi is a warm, unflinching, sentimental, humorous shit-stirrer. And Old Man's War is a warm, unflinching, sentimental, humorous shit-stirring sci-fi. It has a good hook — in the future, old folks can sign up to be young again in exchange for fighting in a galactic war — but lots of novels have good hooks. What Old Man's War has is an enormous beating heart powering all the training montages and alien action sequences. The novel
is interested in training montages and alien action sequences, but it is also very interested in friendship and in being deeply, madly, truly in love with your wife. The combination is sparkling, whimsical, and infinitely readable.
I read this not too long after reading The Sparrow and quite a long time after reading Ender's Game, and I think they'd be a kind of charming threesome to read altogether — a month of training montages, ethically complex aliens, friends, friends who are actually people you'd like to have carnal knowledge of, linguistics, and light space ship action.
My first Scalzi but not my last.
Rating: really liked it
EDIT 07/22/17: It has been brought to my attention that I may not have the proper Science Fiction background to understand what this book's purpose is. It's been said that it's poking fun at the genre (specifically Heinlein's work) in a way I don't have the context for.
I'm often frustrated when I see others misunderstanding The Magicians trilogy in the same way I seem to have misunderstood Scalzi's work. I'm going to leave my original thoughts/rating posted because they are genuinely how I feel, but I wanted to post this disclaimer so that other readers may take my opinion with a grain of salt!I've been wanting to pick up something by John Scalzi for a very long time now. He's a pretty big name in Science Fiction & Old Man's War seems to be one of the most highly praised of his series, so I figured that would be a promising place to start.
Unfortunately
I just didn't like this book.There's nothing I found
glaringly wrong with it but I can't really tell you anything amazing about it either?
I am disappointed because I expected a premise that involves 75-year-old men and women raging an intergalactic war against a multitude of alien species to be
wonderful and hilarious.I imagined arming bitter, old grandparents, who curse loudly at the dinner table & rail on endlessly about the entitlement of the younger generations, with a renewed sense of purpose & enough high-tech firepower to blast E.T. into the next life.
That isn't what I got here.To say that my expectations were not met is a bit of an
understatement.This is
not a tale of Earth sending waves of savage senior citizens into the stars to defend their home planet. I should've realized what I was in for when I came across the following quote inside the book:
"The universe isn't going to be conquered by legions of geriatrics..."What I did get from this book was some decent humor.
And that's about it.There is a strange juxtaposition between humor and brutality here that didn't necessarily work for me.
I guess when I read a Science Fiction book, I don't expect the
most interesting parts to be the multiple, creative ways in which different alien species inflict death upon their enemies.
This, coupled with a rather
boring plot & characters I couldn't feel connected to
at all left me with little to praise.
Around the 90% mark I felt an
overwhelming apathy to see the book through. Painfully, I did finish it. I may give Scalzi another shot later, but I won't be continuing on with the next book in this series.
This review and other reviews of mine can be found on Book Nest!
Rating: really liked it
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi has been described as an exciting new take on the work of Robert A. Heinlein.
Scalzi himself acknowledges being inspired by the late grandmaster. Much of the tone and style of the book does seem to not only imitate RAH, but somehow channel his genius into a new voice for a younger generation. Most evident is that Scalzi has recreated Heinlein’s corny but endearing dialogue, espousing an approachable and likable optimism.
A Heinlein fan will compare this most readily to Starship Troopers and Scalzi has brought this classic into vogue with some innovative twists. I also think about Spider Robinson’s RAH co-authorship of Variable Star; but where Robinson’s trashy dialogue was a blasphemy of Heinlein’s conservative (though sexist) etiquette, Scalzi’s profane script appears fresh and edgy and absolutely contextually correct. Essentially he has taken the best of Heinlein and modernized it for readers of today.
I enjoyed the book, especially from the perspective of a Heinlein fan and as a veteran; the scene where the new Colonial Defense Forces meet their drill instructor, Master Sergeant Ruiz, is a classic that will make anyone who has ever been to basic training howl when reading. Scalzi, through Ruiz, makes a subtle but distinct twist on the stereotypical humorous drill instructor spiel.
Finally, Scalzi has done a fine job of world building, where even Poul Anderson or Frank Herbert would be proud; the Consu are particularly akin to something Herbert would come up with.
This is simply and enjoyably a very good read.
Rating: really liked it
sometimes a first novel gets everything right. writing that is clean, clear, and fluid. characterization that is simple, straightforward, and real. a narrative that hurtles forward but does not feel rushed or incomplete. ideas that feel new and that are conveyed with enthusiasm and a brisk, unpretentious freshness. such is Old Man's War.
this is a military science fiction novel and the first of a series. that probably brings up a whole host of automatic preconceptions about what will be happening and how the protagonist - a recruit in the interstellar wars of the future - will be quickly introduced to his new life... initial bonding with his fellow soldiers... training with a tough drill master... the first battle... the first kill... the death of comrades... cynicism... more battles, and the promise of more to come... and somewhere in there, perhaps, a bit of unlikely romance. the template has been around for a while, Starship Troopers et al, and Old Man's War doesn't stray from the tried-and-true.
but as anyone even slightly familiar with the novel's premise knows, this traditional narrative gets a shot of adrenalin by having the hero be a 75-year old man who finds not just a new life, but a new body by joining up with humanity's defenders. actually, "adrenalin" is the exact opposite of the word that should be used. because of new soldier John Perry's past life, the novel has actually been injected with a massive dose of wry introspection and not a little melancholy. and so many of those traditional stops on the military scifi journey are likewise transformed into something different. even the inevitable 'unlikely romance' has become a rather original new thing.
oh how i enjoyed the opening chapter! rather than a youngster fit to jump into conflict and other forms of excitement, we get the calm and thoughtful musings of an old man looking back with fondness and sadness on his rich but quite regular life, and getting ready to start that life anew. a contemplation colored with all of the amused and slightly cantankerous distance that a gentle grandfatherly type would have. and much later in the novel, as John Perry spends time with the unusually intriguing romantic interest, we get another warm and often unsentimental portrait of this past life. all quite moving. i did not expect to be so moved by Old Man's War.
despite everything i've mentioned so far, this is still a tough-minded book that is rooted in classic military tropes. there are a lot of fascinatingly exotic and often horrible aliens. there are battles on the ground and up in space. there is blood and guts and a huge body count. and yet the word that comes to mind after reading the novel is...
lovely.
Rating: really liked it
$2.99 Kindle sale. Old Man's War is about military life in the future, fighting aliens over planets to colonize. The mysterious Colonial Defense Force recruits 75 year old men and women to fight its wars, and many sign up because some sort of second shot at youth is involved, and at this point in their lives they figure there's nothing to lose. But exactly what are they getting themselves into? And how is the CDF going to turn all these old farts into fighting machines?
I was really proud of my deductive reasoning in figuring out that this book was an homage to Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, but then I realized I'm like the umpteenth millionth person to figure that out, and anyway there it is, right in Scalzi's acknowledgements at the end of the book. In any case, it's a lot less didactic and preachy, and much easier to read, than Heinlein's book (for me, anyway), if not as realistic about military life.
There were some philosophical questions about war that I was expecting this book to grapple with in a more meaningful way, but the book kind of breezes past all of them, with just a nod to the question of "Why are we fighting all these aliens anyway?" Seriously, with all these alien races out there, are there no better ways to settle interstellar differences? I wish this had been addressed more deeply, and I'm not certain whether Scalzi just decided this isn't that kind of book, or whether he saved these issues for the sequels. Maybe I'll find out one of these times. Whatever the reason may be, if you hate war, this won't be your kind of book.
So just understand that this is an action-packed, imaginative book with lots of violence, and have fun and roll with it. I started it yesterday, intending to read only a chapter or two, and ended up reading the whole thing, even though I have a shelf full of other books I meant to read first, which says something.
It's kind of a great action movie. Except a book. But all books can't be
War and Peace, and I think there will always be a place in my heart for the ones that are sheer fun and adrenaline. Kind of like how
The Avengers is one of my favorite movies, even though it's not terribly profound. "Puny god!"
Look!!! He's even green!
Content advisory: Scattered F-bombs (it's the military...), lots of fighting and maiming, and one mildly explicit sex scene.
Rating: really liked it
Definitely an enjoyable read. A nice mix of philosophical and humorous observations, especially in the beginning, manage to capture the tone of an older person looking back on a long life.
The beginning starts with John, the main character, entering a recruiter's office to review and sign his enlistment contract. It is a marvelous device, allowing John's internal commentary and reactions to provide needed background to the current political and technological setting. Scalzi's straightforward writing structure dovetails nicely with the factual tone the narrator originally takes in describing the journey on the recruit ship and the interactions with his shipmates. After undergoing his transformation, John loses a little of his emotional distance, gaining excitement with his new abilities. Scalzi's pseudo-informational promotional material regarding the BrainPal captures the humor of corporate-speak, but it's his scenes with the Master Sergeant that had me laughing out loud. His final words of praise: "Don't let it go to your head, Private. You are still a dipshit. Just not a very big one."
I found the introduction to new races to contain most of what I enjoy in space-roving books. I enjoyed the training segments and initial skirmishes and only wished they could be more fully described. It's always a challenge depicting a character's transformational process; while training can be repetitive, it's hard to believe the transformation into elite status unless details are shown. I felt the one awkwardness in the book was the section with the invasion of the Whaidians and Bender's efforts at diplomacy. Scalzi raises interesting philosophical issues that are somewhat at odds with the rest of the book, and are never really able to be resolved. Why isn't diplomacy pursued to a greater extent?
Nonetheless, the rest of the story is well constructed, and Scalzi surprised me with integrating an emotional thread into the armed services experience. It was a satisfying read, and enough to lead me to his next book.
"They are four words that so inadequately and so perfectly sum up a life."
Cross posted at: http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0...
Rating: really liked it
This was a really fun read! Yes it is science fiction but there is a whole lot more to it than that, so even if you are not a sci fi fan you could still enjoy this book.
Old Man's War tells the story of aging people on Earth who volunteer for an off planet life in the army in return for a 'makeover'. There is a lot of humour and a lot about life, love and relationships. Of course there are also futuristic gadgets and space travel but none of it is too deep or over explained.
I really enjoyed the main character who turned out to have a lot more going for him than anyone was aware of. This is the first book in a series so I hope we come across him again in future books. Altogether it was an entertaining book with an intriguing premise. Definitely worth reading.
Rating: really liked it
I'm about to say something I wasn't sure I'd ever say about a science fiction novel about interstellar war - this book is warmly humanist in its approach. From the first time I sat down to read it, I felt invited and welcomed into the world Scalzi was creating. I enjoyed meeting and spending time with the characters he creates, who are mostly interesting and intelligent people that you'd want to know. I loved the digressions about the morality of following orders, and war as the easy way to deal with conflict.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Rating: really liked it
This is one of my favorite scifi books of late. It's more of a men's adventure novel set in a space opera. The premise is a wonderful idea, (especially for me with my age and my past career, I'd dearly love a try at another bite of the apple)The writing and character is what carried this book for me. I also loved the second book in the series as well, Ghost Brigade. My only real criticism is that it was far too short.
Rating: really liked it
John Perry enlists in the Colonial Defense Force on his 75th birthday and gets whisked off to war in a new and improved body, defending Earth's colonies against alien races. Will John be one of the few that survives his first year?
John Scalzi's blog is one of the few I've followed in 2010 and I'm pleased to say that if Old Man's War is any judge, his novels are just as entertaining as his blog.
I've been pretty omnivorous in my reading tastes the last couple of years and I think that's why I liked Old Man's War so much. While it's a sf book inspired by Heinlein's Starship Troopers, it's also really funny, somewhere between Christopher Moore and Donald Westlake's Dortmunder series. It's narrated in the first person and John Perry is a pretty funny guy.
The Scalz has a lot of great sf concepts packed into Old Man's War; you've got the new bodies the senior citizens are given upon enlisting, the beanstalk, the skip drives, alien species that aren't humanoid, the list goes on and on. While the concept of 75 year old military recruits sounds like comedy fodder, it's actually pretty well explained. Getting a new body, even though it will be repeatedly shot at, would be very tempting at 75.
There were so many things I loved about this book that I can't possibly mention them all without giving away large parts of the plot. Let's just say that this one is definitely in the top 10 of 2010.
Rating: really liked it
[ when I read the rather sad and serene first chapter, I almost forgot the title of the book has word "War". Then I reached second chapter, and WHAM! for the rest of Part I, I was overwhelm
