Old Man’s War ~John Scalzi
–published 2005 (this version, 2006)
–Tor Books
–313 pages
–Winner of John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer 2006
–5/5 stars
Books beget books beget books. Sometimes the best laid plans, like knowing exactly what we are going to read next, go awry because of the influence of the book we are currently reading. That is precisely what happened as I closed the book on Starship Troopers. I have often seen Old Man’s War compared favorably to Heinlein’s classic (heck, I even did that in my original review without having read Starship Troopers), but after finishing Troopers and reading the various controversial accusations against it on Wikipedia, I wanted nothing more than to return to the world of John Perry and Jane Sagan.
Thus Sunday found me perched in my rocking chair partaking of a cover-to-cover read that I finished just after the NFC Championship game. Reading the classic, and the destined-to-be classic, back-to-back was an enriching experience that left me with an even deeper appreciation for both novels.
Old Man’s War tells the story of John Perry, a widower who joins the Colonial Defense Forces for the same reason that everyone else does at the enlistment age of 75: an opportunity to be young again. Though he and the other recruits have no idea just how this will occur, they all agree that dying on one’s own terms, rather than merely fading away from old age, is worth the cost of signing up for interstellar warfare. John visits his wife’s grave one last time and bids a fond farewell to mother Earth…and then his second chance at life begins.
I have to admit that one of the driving forces in wanting to reread Old Man’s War immediately after reading Starship Troopers was to see just how closely the two stories resembled each other. John Scalzi has not been coy about the influence that Starship Troopers, and Robert A. Heinlein, had on Old Man’s War. On his website for the novel (three quarters of the way down the page, under Lessons from Heinlein) he states:
A number of readers have commented that Old Man’s War is strongly reminiscent of two classic science fiction novels: Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War and Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. In both cases, the comparison is deeply flattering, although in the case of Forever War, it’s an entirely coincidental thing, since I haven’t read the novel…
The Starship Troopers correlation, on the other hand, is emphatically not a coincidence, since Old Man’s War is modeled after that novel in several ways. The most obvious is of course the military setting and the introduction of a starry-eyed protagonist into that milieu, and the subsequent progression from recruit to grunt to seasoned veteran. More generally, however, Old Man’s War follows roughly the format of a number of Heinlein “juvenile” novels (of which Starship Troopers was one originally): It’s meant to have the “boy’s own adventure” feel that RAH jammed into those books. One could easily say it’s a classic “juvy,” just with a 75-year-old as its hero.
As I read Old Man’s War I was struck by the realization that if John Scalzi had taken Starship Troopers and (what I’ve read about) The Forever War and mixed them in a blender with all the criticisms on the Wikipedia page about Heinlein’s classic that he could not have come up with a more perfect story. While some might consider that a slight on Scalzi’s uniqueness as an author, I mean it as a sincere compliment to what he has accomplished. Old Man’s War has the same “be all you can be” spirit of adventure of Starship Troopers while also examining the idea that war, even against alien species bent on the destruction of humanity, is not always a black and white issue (reminiscent of what Orson Scott Card does with Ender’s Game). This expansion on the themes of Heinlein’s work is more apparent in the sequel, The Ghost Brigades. In addition, Scalzi introduces two primary characters, in John Perry and Jane Sagan, that capture the interest of the reader in such a way that leaves me of the opinion that even people who do not consider themselves enamored of the science fiction genre would like these books. As the trilogy (plus one) progresses, the character growth elicits the kind of emotional response in the reader that makes these books highly re-readable.
It is readily apparent that John Scalzi set out to have fun in crafting this novel. Characters are named after famous scientists, authors and artists. The right mix of humor, pathos, and action is present to give the story an engaging pace. And for those who are fans of books like Starship Troopers, there is the added pleasure of comparing parts of Old Man’s War to other classic science fiction stories. Having read several Heinlein books over the past few months, I couldn’t help wonder if the words “Old Man” in the title are not simply a clue to the role that age plays in this story but are also a nod to the master. The words “Old Man”, capitalized, appear frequently in Heinlein stories, either as a term of recognition for a superior officer, as in Starship Troopers, or as the name of a specific character, as in The Puppet Masters. It may be pure coincidence, but John Scalzi is clever and may have done this for a reason. I also noticed that early on in Old Man’s War, Scalzi gives a nod to Starship Troopers in the use of the term “franchise” in the role of voting/citizenship.
Aside from those minor similarities and some foundational structure, John Scalzi creates his own story. There are no worries that if you have read one that you have read the other. If you are looking for something that is more character driven, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series offers that in spades. I frequently mention the role of romance in the stories that stay with me, and there is a legitimacy to the idea that what Scalzi has done is written a romance in space that cannot be denied. The last book in the series (save one), The Last Colony, actually won the Romantic Times’ Reader’s Choice Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2007. Despite the strong character emphasis, Old Man’s War is also a novel about ideas. There really is something here to appeal to everyone.
Though I have been an avowed fan of science fiction since the first time the words “A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away…” scrolled up the screen (if not because of “to boldly go where no man has gone before” reruns), I have to admit that for a number of years most of my science fiction reading was relegated to re-reading favorites and the occasional Star Trek novel. That began to change in 2006 as I started branching out to read works by favorite authors, like Larry Niven and Harry Harrison, that I hadn’t read before. But it wasn’t until October of 2006 that I had the kind of Ah-ha! moment that rekindled those ‘first love’ feelings for the genre. The book that did that was Old Man’s War. Everything about it took me back to the stories that I loved as a young man and since then I have grown to embrace classic works that for much of my life I was intimidated by AND have branched out to try contemporary science fiction authors.
While I cannot guarantee that Old Man’s War will be the lightning rod experience that it was for me, I do believe that those who like a good space opera, a story full of adventure, companionship, and romance with all the fun trappings of science fiction, will find Old Man’s War and its sequels to be a memorable reading experience.
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I highly encourage everyone to check out this link to John Scalzi’s Lessons from Heinlein. It not only talks in more detail about Heinlein’s influence on Old Man’s War, it also highlights some of the reasons why Robert A. Heinlein continues to be an influential author in the 21st century. Readers and writers will find this worth while.
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This book is a selection for:
Mind Voyages (for the Mars Voyage)
The 2010 42 Challenge
The 2010 Reading Challenge (for the Win! Win! category).
Another great review. This book keeps moving up through my to be read stack. I am really anxious to read it now.
Now you make me want to go and reread Old Man’s War. I have reread The Forever War recently. I don’t think Scalzi or Haldeman really copies much of Heinlein. I think what happens is Heinlein produced the archetype for military SF, and anyone who writes a story about a man or woman going off to interstellar war will in some way remind readers of Starship Troopers.
Jim Harris: I’m sure a lot of comparison is that way, but Scalzi does admit using Starship Troopers as his model for this book, so in that sense the comparison is probably much more apt than comparisons made by a publisher in the hope of selling books or by people who like to make book comparisons (myself being one of them). By the way, as a Heinlein fan, did you follow the link and read Scalzi’s Lessons from Heinlein? Would be interesting to know your thoughts on that.
Jim Black: You definitely need to read this one, and soon!!! 🙂
okay, i fold… so many people whos opinions i generally trust have given glowing accolades to Old Man’s War, i guess i’m gonna have to go and read it now.
Hopefully my local library or my brother already have it and i can borrow theirs. I really, really, REALLY need to watch my budget do something other than go out the door at the moment ^_^.
SGist: I sincerely hope your trust in us pays off, and if I was a betting man I would lay odds that you’ll enjoy Old Man’s War. I first heard about it from a blog review from someone who doesn’t read a lot of science fiction, so their enjoyment of it impressed me even more. I’m so glad because I enjoyed this one so much the first time and am doubly pleased that there was no drop off in pleasure with this reread.
I too hope your library has it. I can certainly understand the budget issues and we are in debt reduction mode right now and my book buying has went waaaaaayyyyyy down.
I can’t agree with Carl enough on Old Man’s War. It’s a 5 out of 5 in my opinion as well. I will echo Carl’s encouragement to click on the link that leads you to read ” Lessons from Heinlein “. It’s a very honest and informative piece from Mr Scalzi. The lesson I think he nails the most in my opinion is:
3. Make Your Characters Talk Like People Talk.
I think so many Scifi authors get caught up in world building, technobabble, science, and ideas that they forget to get their readers to connect with their characters. I think Scalzi is extremely adept at writing characters you connect with through their dialogue and actions. In that way he, IMHO, “gets” what Heinlein did in his novels, especially in his juveniles, and is why Heinlein is still so readable today where many of his peers novels are not.
I will add that Old Man’s War along with many conversations with my good friend Jerry lead me back to SciFi reading in my late 30’s after so many years just reading fantasy novels. Plus, my rediscovery of Heinlein has also lead many to read works from numerous other authors I had never tried before.
Damn you Carl. I really want to reread Old Man’s War now. 🙂
Good thing I read all the previous comments before I launched into my own remarks to the post, a lot of what I’d have put here has already been covered by Carl and Jeff. There’s a thing called “voice” in writing, and as much as anything that’s what Heinlein had and some other authors manage to achieve in a similar fashion. Plot isn’t the point, military SF wasn’t even a sub-genre when Bob Heinlein was writing. Lots of SF had a military aspect. After all, it was us humans heading out into unknown space, and if we found anything of interest it was likely to be very different and possibly unfriendly to outsiders.
I read this trilogy (I consider Zoe’s Tale a supplemental novel) one after the other, as seemed right. Later when I read Zoe’s Tale, I had to go back and reread Last Colony, and enjoyed that book more for having read Zoe’s Tale.
I still wish there were going to be more novels set in this universe, but Scalzi has said more thn once he’s moving on. **sigh**
I’m with you on that budget thing, guys (note the term used in a non-gender sense). Times are tough and the book budget here has, um, receded a good deal. Melted. Become a mere shadow of it’s former self. All that stuff. But glory be there is good news. There are all these old books on the shelves and in boxes. Time to reread the good old stuff. After all, that’s why I saved it (I think), right?
SGist: any even mid-sized library will probably have copies of the Scalzi. Also, are you familiar with PaperBackSwap? It’s here: http://www.paperbackswap.com/ and it’s worthwhile if you have some books you’re done with and others you want. In brief, you post books to the site, pay the postage to send them to another member (membership is free), earning yourself a book credit. With that you can oder a book and that person pays the postage to send it to you. So you get the used book for the price of postage. Not bad. Sure there’s a lot of junk, but there’s also a lot of SF and Fantasy. Hey, it’s worth a look.
Plenty of copies of the Scalzi there.
Richard: Nice call on paperback swap. I know many of my fellow book bloggers talk about using it. I’ve never tried it myself. One thing that has been nice for me in my desire to read the classics is that with it I’ve rediscovered my love of the paperback novel. Now I am still a big time Hard Cover fanatic, and in most cases, particularly with new authors, I much prefer the extra expense for a hardcover if it is something I think I’m going to keep in my library. That being established, my first experiences with sci fi were all paperback reads and I love the cover art on many of these older volumes. I am off work today and spent a good part of my morning adding items to my ‘watch’ list on ebay of old Heinlein and others. If I can find a really cheap old paperback that isn’t completely falling apart then I am pleased as punch. Plus there is something fun about reading these stories from books that others have read.
On to the other topics.
There are certainly novels, science fiction and otherwise, that are less about the characters and more about ideas that I really enjoy. “We” is one that comes immediately to mind. But more often than not I prefer a well written character, even if that character turns out to be little more than one-dimensional, if it is written with the right voice then I can find myself engaged in the story.
I read Old Man’s War and Ghost Brigades pretty much back-to-back. Last Colony was not out yet when I discovered John Scalzi. I too consider Zoe’s Tale and add on and I imagine I would appreciate Last Colony more, despite really liking it, now that I’ve read Zoe’s Tale. I also appreciate the character of Jane Sagan more after reading The Sagan Diaries (which are still free online, I believe).
Jeff: I agree, it is so important to not have character dialogue throw you out of the story. Some day I’m going to have to go back to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but at the time the language of the main character was so difficult to wrap my head around. Richard, Jim…any thoughts on that?
I’m having the same experience with Heinlein as you Jeff in that it is making me want to try other authors of the time period. And thankfully there is still a lot of Heinlein for me to read!!!
And I’m sorry. 😉 At least Old Man’s War is a good book to reread, right?!?!
Right!
Been too long since I read Moon is A Harsh Mistress to recall the voice, dialogue or writing style, other then it’s Heinlein, so I have an idea what it would be like.
My SF Experience count at this time is 4. That’s out of 11 books, the rest being 1 fantasy, 3 mystery, 1 general fiction and 1 art book (on David Saunders).
Oh and a graphic novel. Oops.
You’ve just reminded me that I have some book tokens and want to buy the sequels to this! Thanks Carl 🙂
Oh, and one more thing. I feel a Mars pahse coming on. I have Ben Bova’s Mars, Grand Tour, etc. sitting here, and I’ve never gotten to Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series. Six books clamoring to be read.
Richard: I’ve been wanting to try out Ben Bova for some time, in large part because I love the John Harris covers on the more recent books. (If you haven’t learned it by now, cover art is a BIG factor in what prompts me to pick up books). I actually have Tales from the Grand Tour checked out from the library and have started reading a Sam Gunn story. We should all do a March is Mars reading month!!! I have several John Carter books I have yet to read as well.
Fence: Great! You have got to read the rest of these!!! And if you can get them with tokens, doubly good!!!
Richard again: The working man character in Moon is a Harsh Mistress spoke with some sort of broken English-like language that for some reason made me think of someone with a Russian accent who hadn’t quite learned the language yet. At least that is my recollection of it.
Thanks for the heads up on the paperbackswap site. Hadn’t heard of that before, i’ll check into it. Our library is pretty good for a small Arkansas town, but, the last head librarian went on a massive purge before she left and some areas are thin and few, like the sci-fi section. @_@
thankfully, if you’re a regular, they are very good about purchasing books if you ask and they think others will be interested.
Richard: Thanks for the link to Paperbackswap as I had never heard of it either. I popped over their real quick and they have tons of Heinlein. Now I need to see what I can list to get some credits. 🙂
I think you get 10 credits free to start with, Jeff. That’s the way it worked when I joined up a couple of years back anyway.
Jeff: I need to check it out more and find out how it works. Might be a good way to get rid of stuff we can’t sell for anything worth the hassle of packaging up while getting stuff that we want to read!
SGist: Hate it when libraries purge as inevitably the book you just decided you wanted to read is gone!!! Great that they are good about fulfilling patron requests though.
Oh, and I think if you tell them I referred you there I may get a credit. This name, an username is Jazzrat.
I’ll put you down as a referral, under Jazzrat, when I do sign up Richard. Thanks.
I’ll do the same, Richard.
By the way, Jeff and I think we saw you in issue 7 of Mystic. Behind the bar polishing wine glasses, I believe. Does that sound right?
I’m so with you on this one! I absolutely love this book and I have you to thank for giving it to me a few years back!! I really need to read Starship Troopers too. I’ve been meaning to jump into The Ghost Brigades soon…It’s been sitting patiently on my shelf forEVER!
Chris: As you know, you’re in good company, we all have books that are sitting patiently, and some impatiently on our shelves. You can’t go wrong with Ghost Brigades if the voice gets to insistent, it is great!
Thanks, guys!! You got it, yes. My web handle in those days was Jazzrat, and Ron Marz, who wrote Mystic, wrote me into the storyline as the owner of Jazzrat’s Bar, where a lot of the characters hang out. That issue & was the first appearance, but I popped up a few more times.
I’m going to have to do post about comics one of these days.
By the way, here’s the list of Heinlein in my SF list. I’ve read others, but these are in hand, if you can call in a box somewhere, in hand. Looking at the list, I think it’s about time to find these (they may actually be on the shelf!) and do some rereading…
Assignment in Eternity
Beyond This Horizon
Day After Tomorrow, The
Door Into Summer, The
Farmer in the Sky
Farnham’s Freehold
Green Hills of Earth, The
Have Space Suit – Will Travel
Menace From Earth, The
Methuselah’s Children
Orphans of the Sky
Past Through Tomorrow, The
Podkayne of Mars
Puppet Masters, The
Revolt in 2100
Rolling Stones, The
Space Cadet
Starship Troopers
Time Enough For Love
Tunnel in the Sky
I really need to read on in this series. I have only read the first book so far and I enjoyed it.
kailana – if you’re referring to these Heinlein novels and short story collections, it’s not a series, just a set (in alphabetical order) of things I have by him.
Richard: I assume Kailana is referring to the OMW series because I have a vague memory of her posting about it when she read it. Of course I could just be delusional.
And your list! In alphabetical order even! Too cool. A little birdie told me that I’ll be getting copies of Farmer in the Sky, The Rolling Stones, and Rocket Ship Galileo for Valentine’s Day!
How wonderful that my first time back in a long time I see you’re talking about John Scalzi, someone that I am passionate about. I’ve never read Heinlein, but Starship Troopers is going to be ordered today – from the library, I’m still being good. If I am going to get hooked on another author I was happy to see he is prolific.
How wonderful! It went through!
Pat: So great to see that your computer is working again. Will be interesting to see what you think of Starship Troopers. I think you’d probably like Podkayne of Mars as well.
I added it to my list for the library.
Great! And get to bed, you’ve got to get up soon for work. Come to think of it, so do I! 😉
I definitely have to read this one soon. Tor was giving away free ebooks of this back when Tor introduced their new website – so I have a copy waiting to be read. And I would love to read more Heinlein. I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress last year and it took me at least 100 pages before I could get passed the odd dialog but then I enjoyed it. Not my favorite Heinlein but good.
Moo: I suspect that is exactly what I need to do with Moon. I will eventually get to a point where I’ve read all of his juveniles and will want to read this anyway. Glad you have a chance to read OMW for free. That’s great! I do suspect that once you get started you’ll see why it is such a popular book.
I’ll be sure to put you down as a referral when i sign up Richard, thanks again. I
‘m lucky in that if i decide to read Heinlein all I have to do is hit my brother up for it. I’m sure he’s got at least most ,if not all of Heinlein’s works. He was a hard sci-fi nut as a teenager which is when the Heinlein, Niven, etc… were first being published. Comes in handy if he’s in the mood to share ^_^.
SGist: It is nice to have a ready source to turn to when you get an itch for a certain author. I’ll cross my fingers that when the mood strikes your brother will be in the mood to share. 🙂
I really enjoyed your review, Carl. I read this book last year and very much enjoyed it. I have Zoe’s Tale on my possible list for your reading experience this time around. I agree with everything you say about Old Man’s War – it is character driven. I’d add, even if you haven’t read Heinlein or anyone else in the science fiction field (and avoided Star Trek and Star Wars all your life) it’s still an enjoyable book! I like the plot twist (you know which one I mean) that I think adds an extra level of characterization to John and Jane.
Susan: I couldn’t agree more, one doesn’t need to have any kind of sf history to enjoy what Scalzi has done with this series. The original trilogy tells an exciting story of adventure, love and family and the follow up YA book, Zoe’s Tale, revisits the adventure with a freshness that makes it deserving of all the accolades it received.
hot dang, carl! i simply have to read this book…!
thank you for sharing your thoughts
Yes you do, JP. It is GREAT!!!