Old Man's War by John Scalzi

[alias_sqbr]

This is the first book I've read in a bit that was neither a children's book nor a romance novel. EDIT: And now I remember I was recced it in a discussion of sf with good romance plots, heh.

EDIT 2: I didn't realise this was part of a series. If the stuff that was missing from this book turns up in the later ones that puts this one a different light.

And, well..it's made me feel less embarrassed about reading romance novels and children's books. Not that it's bad, I quite enjoyed it, but it's pretty blatant manly wish fulfillment.

The premise: many years ago the colonists went into space, and now have a monopoly on space travel and space (ostensibly for reasons of Quarantine but noone on Earth buys that) The only way to get into space is to be from a third world country or join the military once you hit 65. Noone knows how they turn 65 year olds into soldiers but many sign up to find out, including the hero.

The process of joining the military was pretty interesting, but once he did it was fairly straightforward war-is-hell-band-of-brothers stuff, albeit much better at keeping me interested than that genre usually manages. The hero goes from just some guy to the Extraspecial-iest Soldier in the Army through sheer smarts and awesome to an extent which stretched my incredulity by the end.

There's a few genuine attempts at updating the old formula: some relatively well drawn female characters who weren't all love interests, a gay friend who's gayness isn't a big deal, and some nods to ethnic and cultural diversity and the fact that maybe the whole colonising-and-warring thing isn't the best way to engage with the infinite diversity of space.

But despite most colonists being non-Western POC the army is incredibly American and fairly white and we never get any connections to the presumably less American colonist's culture. And the brief nods to "maybe colonising other planets is kind of bad" are imo far overshadowed by the "LETS KILL THOSE EVIL ALIENS" parts.

Comments

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I may have trouble remembering which bits happen in which books in the series, but the cultural diversity of the colonists is addressed later. The military and colonist populations are deliberately kept distinct, and the POV character is very American, so that's hardly surprising. And the evil aliens were killing each other over new territory long before Humans turned up to join in the fray. In later books efforts are made to avoid being shot at.

Yes, I'm a fan, and I like this kind of thing. I say it's worth your time to read the rest of the series for the less warlike bits.

[alias_sqbr]

I didn't realise there was more, if those things are developed later then that changes my POV on the book significantly.