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Old Man's War
01/06/2006 . Source: Shaun Green 
Scalzi sets himself an impressive objective with this, his first novel. 'Old Man's War', you see, is Young Adult space adventure slash military SF written for the people who grew up reading Heinlein's classic juvenile SF, the most famous example of this being 'Starship Troopers'. Buy Old Man's War in the USA - or Buy Old Man's War in the UK  check out website: www.tor.com and www.scalzi.com
Scalzi sets himself an impressive objective with this, his first novel. 'Old Man's War', you see, is Young Adult space adventure slash military SF written for the people who grew up reading Heinlein's classic juvenile SF, the most famous example of this being 'Starship Troopers'. Does he succeed in this? So I'm told. Does the book still work for the younger reader of SF, the reader who has yet to grow old with the genre? Well, it worked for me.
Our protagonist, John Perry, has just reached the grand old age of 75. On his birthday, he enlists in the Colonial Defense Force, shortly after burying his wife. Joining the military might seem like an odd thing for an old man to do but the CDF promises its elderly recruits a new lease on life. With the death of John's wife, there is no longer anything tying him to life on Earth. Like many men and women in his situation, he chooses a new life of adventure amongst the stars. He knows next to nothing about what he's getting himself into, as the CDF prevents anyone from leaving Earth except recruits and no one has ever been known to come back. Even Earth's world leaders are ignorant of what's happening off-planet.
As he departs Earth aboard the CDF's orbital elevator, the easy-going and confident John quickly makes a few new friends. Alongside these ageing men and women he is introduced to his new life and it's wildly different both to what had come before and what he had expected. I'll skip the spoilers at this point as it's a fun part of the novel, suffice to say that before too long John and his new comrades are fighting battles on a dozen desperate fronts to defend Earth's foothold among the stars.
The real delight of 'Old Man's War' is its characters. They're a charming bunch and it didn't take long before I genuinely cared what happened to them. The dialogue and banter is smart and witty. The interaction between these reinvented soldiers is a fascinating mix of reawakened innocence and world-weary cynicism.
Unfortunately, this strength of characterisation also morphs into something of a weakness. It stretches credibility a little thin that the only unpleasant individual to join the CDF happens to die of a heart attack just before being given the life-extension treatment. On the whole, the people in 'Old Man's War' are just too damn nice, especially for septuagenarian and octogenarian soldiers whose new lives are typically short and brutish with a messy end.
There's a lot else that could be criticised. Scalzi wantonly ignores the Fermi Paradox and offers no explanation as to why his galaxy is so densely populated with myriad alien species. His aliens are under-explored, although it does make sense that for the most part, we only see them as targets that guns are pointed at. The world-building is overlooked almost entirely and there's no real sense for the infrastructure supporting the CDF and Earth's colonies. But so what? This novel isn't about explaining every last little detail, it's about the people who fight for the CDF, plain and simple. So if you can overlook those criticisms and, believe me, it's easy to do, you're left with a fast-paced and unpredictably compassionate slice of military SF that's unlikely to disappoint.
Shaun Green
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