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Old Man's War Mass Market Paperback – January 15, 2007

by John Scalzi (Author)

2,402 customer reviews

Book 1 of 6 in the Old Man's War Series

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John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce―and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine―and what he will become is far stranger.

Old Man's War Series
#1 Old Man’s War
#2 The Ghost Brigades
#3 The Last Colony
#4 Zoe’s Tale
#5 The Human Division
#6 The End of All Things
Short fiction: “After the Coup”

Other Tor Books
The Android’s Dream
Agent to the Stars
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded
Fuzzy Nation
Redshirts
Lock In
The Collapsing Empire (forthcoming)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Though a lot of SF writers are more or less efficiently continuing the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein, Scalzi's astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master...This virtuoso debut pays tribute to SF's past while showing that well-worn tropes still can have real zip when they're approached with ingenuity.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Solid…[Scalzi] sidesteps most of the cliches of military science fiction, delivers fast-paced scenes of combat and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise.” ―San Francisco Chronicle

“Thought-provoking!” ―Entertainment Weekly

“Smartly conceived and thoroughly entertaining, Old Man's War is a splendid novel.” ―Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Gripping and surpassingly original. It's Starship Troopers without the lectures. It's The Forever War with better sex. It's funny, it's sad, and it's true.” ―Cory Doctorow

“John Scalzi is a fresh and appealing new voice, and Old Man's War is classic SF seen from a modern perspective--a fast-paced tour of a daunting, hostile universe.” ―Robert Charles Wilson

“I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already.” ―Ken MacLeod

About the Author

John Scalzi won the 2006 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and Old Man's War, his debut novel, was a finalist for science fiction's Hugo Award. His other books include The Ghost Brigades, The Android's Dream and The Last Colony. He has won the Hugo Award, the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for science-fiction, the Seiun, The Kurd Lasswitz and the Geffen awards. His weblog, Whatever, is one of the most widely-read web sites in modern SF. Born and raised in California, Scalzi studied at the University of Chicago. He lives in southern Ohio with his wife and daughter.

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Product details

Series: Old Man's War (Book 1)
Mass Market Paperback: 318 pages
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction; 1st Printing edition (January 15, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0765348276
ISBN-13: 978-0765348272
Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1 x 6.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 2,402 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #407 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Colonization
- #529 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military > Space Marine
- #1008 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera

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THE BEST IN THIS SERIES

May 13, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

SCALZI, John. Old Man’s War series: Old Man’s War (2005). The Ghost Brigades (2006). The Last Colony (2007). Zoe’s Tale (2008). The Human Division (2013). The End of All Things (2015). Stand-alone novels: Fuzzy Nation (2011). Redshirts (2012). The Collapsing Empire (2017).

John Scalzi is a highly respected writer of ‘hard’ science fiction novels, by which I basically mean space operas with science. I’d never read him before but I got ahold of the first novel in his Old Man’s War series (aptly titled Old Man’s War, 2005) and liked it so I decided to read the whole series. The premise of the series is that interstellar wars are fought by repurposed old people from Earth: reach the age of seventy-five and you can enlist as a soldier in the CDF (Colonial Defense Forces); you receive a new, drastically upgrade body with nanobot-filled artificial blood, genetically enhanced skeleton, musculature, organs and (green) skin, and you’re telepathically connected to your fellow soldiers through a BrainPal inserted in your brain. Serve ten years and you’re placed in a new, normal-human cloned body and allowed to become a colonist in one of Earth’s numerous new colonies. The series follows the footsteps of two respected novels about war in the interstellar future, Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Warriors (1959) and Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (1974).

The first novel (Old Man’s War) is good: it’s filled with action and gives you a lot to think about. The second (The Ghost Brigades, 2006) is ridiculously convoluted with weak science as the hero thwarts a revenge plot to wipe out mankind. The third, The Last Colony (2007) brings back the heroes of the first: the plot creaks. Zoe’s Tale (2008) retells parts of the story from the previous two books but from the viewpoint of a fifteen-year-old girl. Aside from a fair amount of recycled content, the novel suffers from tone: Zoe’s voice is much too cutesy at times and doesn’t sound at all like a smart fifteen-year-old girl sounds. BY the time I got to the last two novels in the series, The Human Division and The End of All Things (2013 and 2015), my interest in following the series had waned significantly.

Along the way, I had also picked up three stand-alone novels by Scalzi. The first, Fuzzy Nation (2011), is a reconceiving of H. Beam Piper’s 1962 Little Fuzzy: what do you do when you discover the cute little animals on the planet your employer is looting aren’t just animals, they’re sentient beings with wills of their own? Too cute. 2012’s Redshirts was the best of the lot, a funny reworking of the clichés of televised space opera, along the lines of a bad Star Trek (or good Captain Video) show. It was clever, tricky, fun, and in this context, the late teen-aged mindset of the antagonists and the sophomoric joshing back and forth that characterizes all Scalzi’s books was appropriate. The Collapsing Empire (2017) is a followup much later in history of the world, politics and devices of the earlier Old Man’s War novels. It reads like Scalzi is growing tired of that world.

Over all, if I were to rate these books, I’d give 4 stars (out of five) to Old Man’s War and Redshirts, 3 to Zoe’s War, and 2 to the rest.

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DaveF

Fun space opera, the series should be good.

May 25, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Although space opera "Old Man's War" is not ground-breaking science fiction, I never-the-less thoroughly enjoyed the story. Author John Scalzi moves the story along at a nice clip, the main characters are interesting, and there's enough action to keep things from bogging down. Its a fairly quick read, and I will probably read the sequels at some point. The negatives are small: its a somewhat familiar theme (with some unique Scalzi twists); and the dialog is a little hokey at times.
Without providing spoilers, the story takes place far in the future. Humans have advanced into interstellar space with far-flung colonies, but must compete for territory with numerous alien species, necessitating almost constant warfare. Soldiers are constantly recruited from among earthbound senior citizens, who then undergo some transformations to turn them into fighting specimens. The story follows one such recruit, 75-year-old widower John Perry. Perry's in for a number of surprises, but proves more than worthy as the story evolves. This is fairly straightforward space opera from a very good writer who keeps his story moving and does not over-do it. I recommend John Scalzi's (first in a series) "Old Man's War".

9 people found this helpful

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Icarus

Terrific, as billed

December 5, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Unlike most space opera, the emphasis is on character development, as in most really compelling books. If I don't feel I am able to either identify with or associate characters with people I've met, I find that plot or dazzling high tech isn't enough to make me want to do more than either finish quickly or read something more interesting. I was sorry when I finished. I wanted more, much more. Why? I cared what happened to the major characters and because of them how the plot would progress.
The book is a classic.

5 people found this helpful

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Old Man War

March 12, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I really liked this. It reminded me of The Forever War and Starship Troopers; the former more than the latter. The only negative were the colloquialisms. This is supposed to be hundreds of years into the future and yet John talks about watching the Super Bowl and his wife getting an oven from Sears. Sears? They aren't going to be in business two years from now let along two centuries.

6 people found this helpful

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Y. Yu

fun read, though has its minor flaws

August 30, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The book opened with a delightfully interesting premise, that these 75-year-olds are being drafted into the space army. The novelty wears off as the story progresses, however, as his age and experience don't really play a role in the ensuing training and battles -- as former civilians, they still had to learn everything from scratch. Perhaps because it's told from the first person's perspective, the main character's military success and talent and good fortune did not seem so convincing, and instead leave him looking a bit Mary Sue. Nevertheless the author managed to hold my attention with his imaginative descriptions of the alien species and battles encountered.

Spoiler: By the end of the story, I had to question the premise of the story. If new soldiers can be grown from artificially engineered DNAs, why do they still need these old soldiers? Why not just grow more soldiers of the "Ghost Brigade" style? Maybe this is a question the author answers in the sequels, but for now, it detracted from the enjoyment of this book.

One person found this helpful

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Joseph Cowan

Where the heck was I?

December 10, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I have been reading scifi since I was 14 reading JG Ballard. I am now 67. And in all that time I never ran across this series or John Scalzi. I was hooked from page two. The writing style is smooth as a great bourbon and as satisfying. The dialog is witty and snappy, more preferable than yuck-yuck tales. I am gratified that there are 5 more books in thus series and many other to while-away the winter. Thanks, John.

2 people found this helpful

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