#old man's war

[thelastofthebookworms]

You'll find the other polls in my 'sf polls' tag / my pinned post.

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[bean-writes]

Now taking ficlet/one-shot requests!

Comment your request (any fandom, genre, theme, whatever)!

I'm curious to see what you guys ask for!

[spockvarietyhour]

Scalzi served as Creative Consultant on SGU so it's only fair someone would carry his book.

[lordguppi]

Meh :)

[lukecoalman]

I did this drawing after reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi. I liked imagining the CDF as Kirby like space opera soldiers. With their green skin and unitards. Just finished reading Ghost Brigades. The books are a ton of fun.

[desdasiwrites]

"The universe is a big place. Maybe we're not in the best neighborhood."

– John Scalzi, Old Man's War

[archiethinking]

More on the first book of Old Man's War.

The book as a whole is bittersweet. Its like a literary tug-of-war. You get a piece of story, a little excitement. You progress the protag's story. But for every little thing you take, the book eventually tugs back. A death here, an emotional exposé there. The story isn't all too positive, but it ends on a hopeful note. The protag, having gone through several wars and having lost many of his friends, has finally gotten to a point of stability. The raw force of the ocean waves calms to a pleasant breeze--and even though you know there will be more sadness and tragedy in the next one, you are relieved to see him having evolved to a place with promising avenues, with a person he loves out there somewhere, on special secret missions he doesn't know much about, not for the lack of trying.

[klinefelterrible]

DISCWORLD FANDOM

OUAT FANDOM

And other fandoms I enjoy

THANK YOU FOR BEING THERE FOR ME AND WITH ME

anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful

[thisworldisablackhole]

Old Man's War, by John Scalzi - 3.5/5

To be honest, I was a little bit hesitant to read this one right after reading Ender's Game. Ender's Game was just such a slog and it kind of soured me on the very male-oriented military sci-fi perspective, and with a book literally called "Old Man's War", I was very much expecting the same type of bland narrative.

Well, I was wrong. And I couldn't be happier. Old Man's War was an absolute treat, albeit far from perfect. There are still some similarities to Ender's Game of course, especially in the way the book is written (it's very easy to follow along with), but Old Man's War flips the script on it's head and takes a much more satirical approach inspired by Starship Troopers. This book is simply hilarious, and more so, it is honest about it's intentions. Scalzi doesn't try to sell us on some bullshit philosophy, double entendres or questionable politics like Orson Scott Card did. There's even a point where the hilarious Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz says something along the lines of "If you think we are trying to wear you down, it's because we are." There are no mind games being played here.

Old Man's War has a great sense of humour and fantastic pacing, but it definitely leans heavily on tropes, often to it's detriment. The jokes begin to feel a little predictable and corny, and John Perry sometime seems like too much of a "perfect" main character. You know, the type that doesn't really have any flaws and always does everything right. Despite this, there is a subtle shift toward a more serious tone in the end, and a very well written twist that somehow managed to make me still give a shit about the characters.

I don't think I loved the book enough to pursue the rest of the series (at least not right away), but damn this was just a fun read. I heard someone use the term "popcorn reading" to describe this book, and I think they put it perfectly. This is pure entertainment—the type of book I think everyone needs on their shelf to give them a break from more dense and convoluted reads. In that way, it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do, with flying colours. Well done, Scalzi.

Now I'm already a decent chunk into A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, and I'm absolutely loving it. A much needed change in perspective that I am so grateful for.

[azeutreciathewicked]

I am SO glad I finally picked this up and read it. I wish I had read it sooner.

This was written in 2005 and brings the best of Heinlein's Starship Troopers while introducing outstanding technology ethics questions. The obligatory drill sergeant scene was hilarious to me, having seen and read my share as well as having experienced a watered-down version of it in officer training (I did ROTC and served as an officer for several years to pay for college, like many young people who couldn't afford college). It was a great subversion of the genre trope and refreshing in many ways in its honest. For me, the book picked up in the second half as we got to see the ethical issues emerge: is the Colonial Defense Force really just defending colonies? What are the implications of the technologies being used to make super soldiers?

Reading this book today reveals that Scalzi was visionary in portraying a generation of young people who were born literally wired in to a social media analogue, and showing the cultural and social schism that would result from that upbringing. As a recovering academic who used to study topics like cyborg theory, this floored me to see in how accurately it was shown. I LOVE this book for that and more, and eagerly picked up the next two books in the series. A funny coincidence: I had picked up book 5 many years ago when I was doing retail therapy by grabbing discount paperbacks prior to grad school. It's been on my shelf forever, and I keep seeing it and thinking, "Scalzi seems really cool; I should read this," but never got around to it. I'm glad I get to read this series in order, and am excited to finally read that book when it's time.

Books really are there for when we need them. And this was the right time for me to read this book, just as it was the right time for me to read Starship Troopers when I was getting ready to leave Active Duty while stationed overseas. This book was refreshing after the genres I'd been mired in, and I'm reminding myself of my love of scifi, space opera, and space marines with this.

[spockvarietyhour]

Love the lil touch of Chuck reading The Martian General's Daughter. It comes up in Universe too with a random airman reading Old Man's War in Subversion:

[phatburd]

Flaunting it just to enrage the anon:

what’s your opinion on those people who buy/collect multiple editions of the same book just bc they “love” it? personally i think its kind of weird and annoying to be that obsessed with one book, and also kind of classist to show off that you can afford wasting money like that. but idk, what’s your stance?

go outside

[allskywalkerswhine]

in fics where luke gets plopped into the prequels i want every jedi within ten metres of him to think hes the weirdest jedi theyve ever seen. he has negative lightsaber form. he doesnt know what a kata is. he handstands when he meditates. his solution to sith is to try and have a chat. hes a political radical who keeps suggesting revolution. you ask him what the jedi code is and he says "kindness and compassion and helping those in need :) ". you ask how he used the force like that and he says some shit about how you are a luminous being limited only by your mind. the councils authority is just a suggestion. he is somehow the new favourite of both qui gon and yoda

[desdasiwrites]

– John Scalzi, Old Man's War 

[ofburntorangesuns]

Rex ol' boy