Old Man’s War by John Scalzi - Book Review
07/09/2006
Old Man’s War is a science fiction book with undertones of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman’s Forever War. It’s set in the future, on an Earth with people living lives much as they do today. Earth, however, is a backwater, with a sort of futuristic East India Trading Company called the Colonial Defense Force calling the shots off-planet. Having the only direct contact with aliens, the CDF also has obtained a monopoly on the most advanced technologies which it has been able to reverse engineer. Earth itself lives in blissful ignorance of a bitter ongoing struggle with a variety of nearby races to colonize the few habitable planets in the area.
The book tells the story of the soldiers in that conflict: a group of geriatric warriors who sign up at age 75 to have their bodies renewed. They risk death, but no more than they would from the alternative of the ravages of old age. The CDF gains the benefit of a combat force honed with the experience of years of living, but fighting from genetically engineered bodies that surpass anything available in the soldier’s actual youth.
I enjoyed this book a lot - it was a quick read, but well written. It focuses primarily on the nuts and bolts of galactic warfare from the soldier’s perspective. My only disappointment was that it raises a number of interesting themes without following through on them. For example, the idea that human experience would allow the elderly to make better soldiers than a 20 year old is interesting - as the old saying goes, youth is wasted on the young.
A technology that could extend people’s functional life span to allow them to work in any job, let alone the military, for longer periods would have dramatic effects on society, and the foremost of these would be the preservation of “wisdom.” I notice this frequently in my job as a judicial clerk - the chief difference between a judge and a law clerk is the years of memories of individual cases that clues the judge into legal problems that a clerk does not notice. This produces a huge performance differential even if the judge and the clerk possess the exact same intellectual abilities.
Unfortunately, the book doesn’t explore this much. There isn’t any real instance in the book of a soldier applying experience to the novel situations they encounter - how it benefits them is ignored. It also glosses over the reasons why humans are unable to come to some negotiated settlement with the nearby races, and while it raises some interesting ideas such as the point that a cute, cuddly alien might be more dangerous than a slobbering monstrosity, it touches on these only briefly.
Despite this, I still thought it was a great book. It’s a short read, and the ideas are enjoyable to think about even if the book only prompts you without providing much analysis of its own.
You can order Old Man’s War here online.
Some other reviews:
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2006/01/john_scalzis_ol.html
“I was absolutely blown away; it literally was one of those “you can’t put it down” books.”
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2006/03/congrats_to_joh.html
“Old Man’s War was one of those instant classics, a book that 25 years from now could easily be included in a best of science fiction series.”
http://kenneth.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/old_mans_war.html
“A big thumbs down on the simplistic treatment of what to expect from aliens and the reliance on preemptive violence”
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/006385.html
“While it’s entertaining, I was irritated early on by technical errors in it.”
Apparently, it will also be sold as an e-book as well: