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Trin's review

Trin's review
rating:
bookshelves: sci-fi

The first 100 pages or so of this book are absolutely fantastic. The Colonial Defense Forces recruit citizens of Earth on their 75th birthdays to fight with them against the various alien species threatening the series of colonies Earth needs because of population overflow, war, all the usual ways we’ve fucked up the planet. Senior citizens sign up because the CDF promises to make them young again—if they sign a contract to serve for ten years. And most of them will probably get gruesomely killed in that time. But at least they won’t die old, right?

All of this stuff is fascinating. I loved the set up, the procedure and world-building involved in John Perry, 75-year-old widower and retired ad writer, joining the army and making friends with his fellow recruits and going through pre-procedure tests and through the actual procedure (which I won’t spoil) and the boot camp stuff that comes after. Scalzi describes the actual battles which follow with no less intensity, but once J...more The first 100 pages or so of this book are absolutely fantastic. The Colonial Defense Forces recruit citizens of Earth on their 75th birthdays to fight with them against the various alien species threatening the series of colonies Earth needs because of population overflow, war, all the usual ways we’ve fucked up the planet. Senior citizens sign up because the CDF promises to make them young again—if they sign a contract to serve for ten years. And most of them will probably get gruesomely killed in that time. But at least they won’t die old, right?

All of this stuff is fascinating. I loved the set up, the procedure and world-building involved in John Perry, 75-year-old widower and retired ad writer, joining the army and making friends with his fellow recruits and going through pre-procedure tests and through the actual procedure (which I won’t spoil) and the boot camp stuff that comes after. Scalzi describes the actual battles which follow with no less intensity, but once John starts fighting, the sense of who he is really gets lost. (I was actually waiting for that to be revealed to be part of the point, but it wasn’t.) John just becomes A Soldier, almost instantly. Besides his sense of loyalty and his lingering feelings about his dead wife, there’s very little left to connect him to who he used to be. It’s mentioned several times that John and his wife protested the big war on Earth, but John seems almost entirely unconcerned with the unquestioning massacre of various alien species. I must admit, it started to make me a liiiiiitle uncomfortable. Scalzi has said that his inspiration for this book was Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, and this book, I think, faces a lot of the same problems I’ve heard are inherent in that one. (I haven’t actually read it, so if I’m way off base, please tell me.) Both, I believe, walk the line between criticizing war and glorifying it, and so whatever message results is kind of muddled. I got the most enjoyment out of Old Man’s War when I, well, just tried not to think about it too much. Not an attitude I usually endorse, but there you go. Still, the underlying sci-fi concepts in this book—the stuff about identity—are really interesting; I am anxious to get my hands on the sequel, even if it means I’ll have to turn off my brain for a while. Or at least the hard-working liberal guilt section....less

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message 1: by Ofir

10/29/2007 01:42PM

There is a point in the way the protagonist becomes an "instant soldier" - Scalzi is walking a fine line between the soldier glorification of Heinlein, and the Haldeman's "The Forever War"'s bloody pacifism (a must read). Scalzi's protagonist gives the impression of somebody who adapts well to being a solder because he has seen a lot, not because of naivety.
I thought it fit well with the overall spirit of the book.