Review: Old Man's War

Old Man's War by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

2012 April 1

Scalzi takes a cue from Heinlein Robert a., respectfully acknowledged, and speculates on colonization and the military. Giant bugs are fought, among other species. He's got an interesting premise: experience is of value, even if old bodies are not, so all the soldiers are 75 or older, with physical enhancements. It's a strong idea and well explored and John Perry has just enough smartass to him to keep the story from becoming too grim.

But that's not why I love it. I love it because it is written by a warm, caring humanist. Some characters are really annoying, others are dangerous, but most people have depth. The cast is diverse with no obvious segregation by gender or race or background, and no one is cookie-cutter evil, even the opposite sides in all these battles. Scalzi is rapidly becoming one of my very favorite authors; I'm sure I'll gobble up the rest of this series right quick.

Library copy.

[I know I've loved everything the past couple of weeks. I've got no objectivity. Maybe everything really is fabulous, or maybe I'm just in a good mood]

***

2014 August 30

Since I was going to see him read Friday night, I decide to re-read, until I got my copy of Lock In. Then I got totally sucked in and had to read the whole Old Man's War series in internal order, back-to-back, up through Zoe's Tale. I know, I loved it before, but it's even better all together.

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