Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Book 66 of 2023
Avoid the blurb - it gives a slight spoiler.
The Old Man's War series is one that kept coming up in conversations about Science Fiction over the years. I put it on my list for secret Santa a few Christmases ago and it arrived. Then the obvious reader thing happened and I put it on my TBR shelf, looked at it every now and again thought to myself "Yes, I'll read you next" before putting it back and choosing something completely different.
What also happened was that I read some different books by the author. I thought The Dispatcher series (so far) was excellent, and my friend gifted me The Kaiju Preservation Society so I obviously had to read that first. I also tried Redshirts on audio but I couldn't take Will Wheaton saying "he said/she said" every time someone spoke so I will try it again another time. I digress.
Old Man's War is set in a future dystopian Earth where, you guessed it, we've screwed the planet even more than we already have. American citizens are given the opportunity on their 75th birthday to join the war effort, fighting for the human side in defense of the colonies we have formed on distant planets. You might be thinking at 75 people would essentially be fit for nothing more than a long rest, and you'd mostly be right, but the CDF (Colonial Defense Force) have ways of making you feel young again, but like that old joke about having to be a priest - you have to join the CDF to find out (or you could read the blurb, luckily I didn't).
John Perry is one such man, who, on their 65th birthdays signed up to join the CDF when they turned 75. Unfortunately, John's wife died before her birthday. So John joins the army alone.
Without giving too much away here John is transported to another galaxy, learns to fight, and starts fighting. He makes and loses friends along the way. This is a book about interplanetary war - and I thought it was brilliant. It has a bit of everything you would expect from the genre, but somehow it felt better than other books I have read, like every detail was dialed to 11.
If you are a Sci-Fi fan who hasn't read it, I highly recommend. I'll be jumping into book 2 soon.
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