Book Review: Old Man's War by John Scalzi

"I did two things on my 75th birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the Army". This is the intriguing beginning to Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

Old Man's War is a medium future science fiction novel. That is, it is set neither in a time so unimaginably distant that everything has changed, nor near enough in the future that everything is recognizable. Humans have colonized space, but it's a crowded universe, and there is a lot of warfare with aliens. Meanwhile, Earth is even more overcrowded than it is today.

The defenders of humanity in the universe are known as the Colonial Defense Forces. They control all access to and from Earth, because they have the key piece of technology that allows people to get off Earth. In Old Man's War, there are two ways off Earth: You can immigrate, or you can join the CDF. But the CDF controls who can immigrate, so, the only way to get off Earth if you are not chosen is to join up. But you can only join up on your 75th birthday (hence the title Old Man's War, but women are equally welcome). When you join the CDF you give up all rights, and you have to join for 10 years, and you can never return to Earth. But in return you get to be young again.

John Scalzi requires a few suspensions of disbelief of his readers. First, that people would eagerly join the CDF, sight unseen, with no hope of return to Earth, and giving up all their rights. Second, that the technology to get off Earth would be so tightly controlled (that's never happened before, secrets get out) and third, that the universe would be populated with aliens who are mostly on about our technological level, and hence capable of fighting humans, but not of wiping them out easily.

But if you grant John Scalzi those suspensions of disbelief, Old Man's War has its rewards. John Scalzi is a pretty good writer - not that he is going to win prizes for his prose style, but his writing is grammatical and the pages fly by. The plot isn't much to speak of, but there are some great battle scenes, some fun sex scenes, and some interesting aliens. Old Man's War, like the other Scalzi books I've read, also has a far amount of humor.

Overall Old Man's War is a good read.