Old Man's War

After numerous flights, "Old Man's War" by Scalzi finally bubbled to the top of my pile and got read.

It is really good fun.

I heard about Scalzi a couple of years ago, snagged the book shortly afterwards but it entered at the bottom of the pile and took a while to resurface.
In the meantime I heard more good things about his writing and saw he had a blog I look at occasionally.

The novel is a pretty standard "coming of age" story, with a definite streak of "kick alien butt" mixed in.
The premise is novel, and the writing is good - it reads well, I wanted to know what happened next. Not serious literature, but then it is not meant to be, it is a fun read.

The style is "Heinlein juvenile", and I mean that in a good way, with a touch of cyberpunk maybe.

I'm going to have to go get the Ghost Brigades now, and Sagan's Diary.
May take a look at The Android's Dream also, although the blurb on that one did not make me want to grab it off the shelf.

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That man really is trying to channel early Heinlein, isn't he?
I guess someone had to do it. It sure was fun, though.

Apparently, our narrator was not reliable.

By Brad Holden (not verified) on 18 Feb 2007 #permalink

I hope so, because the backstory makes absolutely no sense at all, if one thinks about it for even a second.
Serious suspension of disbelief required.

Not John Ringo level incoherence (he just goes straight to alien kick butting and never worries about inconsistencies, just as well).

I hope the later books tie up some of the loose ends, though I don't know that I want an over elaborate backstory, that usually ends badly - some sort of fiction incompleteness theorem kicks in.
Consistency is over rated.

I thought that "Old Man's War" by Scalzi was one of the good new-Heinlein juveniles in recent years, along with others by John Varley, Spider Robisnon, Mary Turzillo, Jay Lake, and others.

Spoke to Scalzi about it at the Worldcon in L.A., and then felt like an idiot that I hadn't bought Ghost Brigades while I was there.

I'd first heard of "Old Man's War" on the "Makinglight" blog, not coincidently co-blogged by the book's editor.

And Charles Stross is going to write a new-Late Heinlein novel...