Many years ago I was writing book reviews pretty regularly and I became aware of author I had not heard of. He’d written some military sci-fi ( I’m interested ) that was said to be in the vein of Starship Troopers. ( I’m VERY interested )
I read it, I liked it. I started reading Whatever. I read Agent to the Stars ( It’s free - but so good! ) and here were are, he’s my favorite. So why am I talking about this old book now?
Well, the 7th book in the series is coming out soon. Mr. Scalzi will be here in Arizona later this month. I’ll be going. Mostly because I was a bit of a hot mess when I met him at the book signing for Starter Villain. I want to go and be a normal human. Plus, he’s just really good at these appearances and they are immensely entertaining.
All right so back to the topic on hand. I’m re-reading the Old Man’s War books to get ready for The Shattered Peace. I figured I’ll post about each as I read them. These aren’t proper reviews. I haven’t written one of those in ages. And to be fair, I’ve read pretty much all the fiction that John has published over these many years and I pretty much love every bit of it. At this point I’m not as objective as I was once. ( I will say Red Shirts was not my favorite. Though it’s not because it’s a bad book. It’s executed so well - I just don’t prefer that kind of story. )
I jumped into Old Man’s war and the beginning I remember pretty well but once we started to get into it I found myself laughing out loud and just enjoying the story so much. I had forgotten just how quickly John’s creates relatable, believable characters. I’m just getting going and I’m laughing and thinking, “That is so Thomas!”. I love shows that do this but it usually takes a while to get to that point. In a couple chapters Old Man’s War has me invested quickly.
This may sound odd, or make me seem dense, but I also realized on this read just how much Old Man’s War does mirror Starship Troopers. I think I was enjoying all that made the story fresh to me before, that I just didn’t process this meta-information on the side. It really is laid out in a similar way. But in many ways OMW is better. I don’t this distracts from ST- it’s just that I don’t miss all the preachy sections of ST. It’s similar to how Fuzzy Nation is so refreshing with it’s lack of sexism.
There are some great nods to Starship Troopers and Scalzi never, ever takes any swipes at it, to my mind. ( Again like Fuzzy Nation ) He just shows that a story can be just as good without the baggage.
The action is amazing. The portrayal of alien races is awesome. The ideas of a far different future are fun and interesting to consider. And the end is such a big gut punch. I love it.
Next up: The Ghost Brigades