I’ve been a reader of John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever, since long before I had read any of his work. The first thing of his I encountered was his installment in the five-author collection Metatropolis, where I found Scalzi’s humorous, breezy blogging style carried over to his narrative fiction. Old Man’s War is similar, despite mostly focusing on a more serious subjects such as war and colonialist expansion.
I don’t think I’ve seen a single mention of this book that didn’t refer to Robert Heinlein’s work, most often Starship Troopers, and after reading this, it’s not hard to see why. It really is fairly straightforward in its influence, but that similarity never makes Old Man’s War seem derivative in any negative sense. The setup is simple: on Earth a couple of centuries from now, 65 year olds have the option of signing a contract to join the Colonial Defense Force, so that when they turn 75 they undergo some kind of mysterious physical transformation process to become fighting machines, and leave Earth forever to bounce around the galaxy, fighting various weird aliens for control of habitable planets.
The CDF initiates discover the nature of the process that allows them to go from elderly to fighting form, and as in Starship Troopers, we follow the new recruits from training to initial skirmishes, and watch them lose friends to the inevitable effects of war. We also learn more about various interesting elements of the CDF, including the “Ghost Brigades” (title and subject of the first sequel to Old Man’s War).
Scalzi is a stronger storyteller than a stylist, but the characters and dialogue are entertaining and likable. I find myself ready to follow along in this series and learn more about the CDF and their various interesting technologies (a “Skip Drive” for example, which is more a quantum reality-shift device than a true drive), especially the “ghost brigades.” Scalzi has created a great premise, and even if I hadn’t come to this book so late that multiple sequels had already appeared, it would have been plain enough to me that subsequent development could definitely be done in this story’s world.
Overall, an enjoyable, well-executed work, and one that makes me want to read more by Scalzi, both in and out of this series.
GriffinWords 