Old Man's War: Volume 1

John Scalzi

Apr 2007 · Old Man's War Book 1 · Sold by Macmillan

About this ebook

Perfect for an entry-level sci-fi reader and the ideal addition to a veteran fan’s collection, John Scalzi's Old Man’s War will take audiences on a heart-stopping adventure into the far corners of the universe.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place.

So: we fight. To defend Earth (a target for our new enemies, should we let them get close enough) and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has gone on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force, which shields the home planet from too much knowledge of the situation. What's known to everybody is that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve your time at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine-and what he will become is far stranger.

Old Man's War Series
#1 Old Man’s War
#2 The Ghost Brigades
#3 The Last Colony
#4 Zoe’s Tale
#5 The Human Division
#6 The End of All Things
Short fiction: “After the Coup”

Other Tor Books
The Android’s Dream
Agent to the Stars
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded
Fuzzy Nation
Redshirts
Lock In
The Collapsing Empire

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

Old Man's War was an interesting and at times exciting perspective on outward human expansion. Scalzi shows off an impressive Heinleinean ability for creating a deep and detailed world without becoming tied up in description and explanation. Although some of his alien encounters are ridiculously silly, some are thought provoking and interesting. However, this book feels a bit dated due to the style, and furthermore when writing in a style so close to Heinlein, there's a thin line between mature sci-fi and juvenile sci-fi, and this book skirts it. The character development is almost backwards, with the main player, John Perry, feeling more like a developed and fleshed out person at the beginning of the book than he does mid-way through. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any correlation to the things he cared about in the beginning for the majority of the book. Before Perry begins boot camp, the story has a different tone than after. Prior to the fighting and training, Scalzi builds a person with feelings and failings and pangs of guilt, there's a scene depicting the death of Perry's wife that was written so well it was relatable enough to make me quite sad at the thought of loosing my own loved ones. But afterword, Perry becomes a detached character you read about, not someone you see the story through. The emotional depth disappears, Perry's own convictions go away (the one-time anti-war protestor doesn't seem to have a problem wantonly slaughtering every alien he meets; at one point actually stomping on a city of one-inch humanoids Godzilla style), and the believability of events gets more and more absurd. Not only does Perry impress the drill sergeant no one's ever impressed before, but he becomes a war hero who single-handedly saves the day in his first battle, He is the sole survivor of a major fleet action that leaves thousands dead, he joins a Special Forces group no one who hasn't been bred for it has ever joined, and then saves THEM single-handedly. Oh, and did I mention Perry does all this while still more or less a rookie? Three stars, because while I didn't struggle to finish this book, I wasn't motivated to pick up the next one in the series.

The book that gave birth to the epic series, Old Man's War tells the story of some of the most relatable and tangible characters in modern sci-fi, most significantly John Perry who after turning 75 turns to the skies to seek new beginnings as a soldier in the Colonial Defense Forces. What unfurls is a story of self discovery, even at old age, unimaginable adventure with its share of danger, and mystery that offers the reader exceptional value from such a short novel. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It started out a bit slow, but quickly found a good groove. By the end it's hard to stop turning pages. The world he's created is compelling and self consistent. There's nothing worse for me than a world that seems blatantly unlikely, except possibly when I can't stand the main character. And it's easy to like his characters.

About the author

JOHN SCALZI is one of the most popular SF authors of his generation. His debut Old Man's War won him the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation,and Redshirts (which won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel), and 2020's The Last Emperox. Material from his blog, Whatever, has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. Scalzi also serves as critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.