Denise's review
Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
Denise's review
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Denise's review
rating:
bookshelves:
sf
recommended for: Any SF reader
I picked this one up intending to read a few chapters before bed tonight, and now it's two in the morning and I've finished it, which should tell you something about it. I'm valiantly resisting starting the sequel, which I also bought tonight.
The cover quote on this one compares Scalzi to Heinlein, which is both accurate and inaccurate: this is the book Starship Troopers would have been if it had been written fifty years later, with the intervening fifty years' worth of political and social developments. It's an incredibly mature story for a first novel, and I'm damn impressed: thematically, there's a level of complexity and depth there that tells me I'm going to have to reread to tease some additional layers out of it.
He had me from the first paragraph (I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.) The art of the opening has been diminshed in sf these days; too many authors hit you with all the front-loaded ex...more
The cover quote on this one compares Scalzi to Heinlein, which is both accurate and inaccurate: this is the book Starship Troopers would have been if it had been written fifty years later, with the intervening fifty years' worth of political and social developments. It's an incredibly mature story for a first novel, and I'm damn impressed: thematically, there's a level of complexity and depth there that tells me I'm going to have to reread to tease some additional layers out of it.
He had me from the first paragraph (I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.) The art of the opening has been diminshed in sf these days; too many authors hit you with all the front-loaded ex...more