Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1) in Fantasy-Faction.com

Mar 01, 2019 David Zampa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: space-opera, good-fun, first-person-pov, action-romp

This was pretty good. The premise is simple: when humans on earth hit the age of 75 they have a choice to join a space military campaign in which humanity battles other intelligent life for the galaxy’s limited resources. They get a new, younger, super-soldier body in the process.
I liked it more than I expected. I thought I’d hate it for purely subjective reasons because I don’t like military science fiction as a general rule. That’s why I put off reading it for so long. And indeed, all the few This was pretty good. The premise is simple: when humans on earth hit the age of 75 they have a choice to join a space military campaign in which humanity battles other intelligent life for the galaxy’s limited resources. They get a new, younger, super-soldier body in the process.
I liked it more than I expected. I thought I’d hate it for purely subjective reasons because I don’t like military science fiction as a general rule. That’s why I put off reading it for so long. And indeed, all the few complaints I did have were to do with the military aspect, so I won't mention them or let them effect the score, knowing full well it's to do with my own bias. That said, this book’s premise redeems the common military themes a great deal for me by virtue of the main character’s delightful point of view. They say that war is a young man’s game, and as we’ve always known it, it is. Therefore, it’s by definition a very different experience through the perspective of an old man. There are common parallels in military sci fi when characters are all young men and women with young peoples’ priorities. They all have certain universal outlooks, drawing on their vision for the future. The main character in Old Man’s War, John Perry, tells his story through a lens of his 75 year past, and Scalzi does it better than I believe most authors could.

This book is an enjoyable, straightforward story that takes place over a couple years as the main character acclimates to his new military life. He meets squadmates who become his new family, for all practical purposes, and experiences loss in the usual course of military action. In the end, however, certain relationships mature in unexpected ways, and the reader is left with a sense of depth that goes beyond the predictable plug-and-chug of characters who are introduced only to be killed off in ways that we might be all too familiar with from experience with the rest of the genre.
Scalzi’s world is smartly conceived. More than I needed at times, honestly, but I suppose that’s a necessary evil to appease the science purists who cry so loudly when they don’t get their way. Technical explanations aside, I loved the scope of imagination that went into Scalzi’s exploration of extra-terrestrial life and technologies (it's neither dystopian nor Utopian, thankfully). That and the character development will make the series worth continuing, I think, once I’ve had a palette-cleanser or two.

Overall, I can see why this book is the start of a good thing in the series. It achieves a good balance of all the things genre readers require mixed with new twists to prevent it from feeling stale. Read and enjoy. It’s a fine book. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 12, 2014 Paul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, own-paperback, own-audio

Website Review: http://commontouchoffantasy.com/book-...

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi is one of the first few books in sci-fi I’ve read and I am glad that I picked a book that is so fun with an amazing sense of humor.

5/5 – Listened to on audiobook. Adult language in book.

“I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.”

Pros:

– The narrator and main character John Perry is highly likable

– Inter ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 27, 2013 Joel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: hard-copy

Wow, an author that I'd been delaying getting "into" who actually lives up to the hype. What a book - it had everything I could ask for. It was one of the most approachable sci-fi books I've read, more in the vein of Ender's Game or Wool, where the people and the conflicts are the focal point, less than the technology and hard science. Call me a non-nerd, but "hard" sci-fi just doesn't do it for me. Old Man's War, on the other hand, DOES it for me.

This book is well-written, engaging, endearing, ...more

3 likes · Like · see review