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Old Man's War
by: John Scalzi

List Price: £6.99

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Used Price: £1.28
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780330452168
ISBN: 0330452169
Label: Tor
Manufacturer: Tor
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: June 01, 2007
Publisher: Tor
Studio: Tor
Sales Rank: 2193

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Average work
As some other reviwers point out, this is a standard military sci-fi novel, that drinks from two main fountains: Strarship Troopers (ST) and The Forever War (FW).
The writer is somewhat more inclined to use the influence of ST, but does not go the way Heinlein went when he wrote his post fascist manifesto in the shape of sci fi. The author brings us to believe that there will be some good wars in the future, and that technology will do us a lot of good. So far, so good.
However, the influence of FW cannot be forgotten, and the heros have their doubts about their role as soldiers, human beings and killers in a fairly senseless universe. The writer does not go beyond the point of critizicing the misterious governing Colonial Defence ... Read More:

Rating:

- Ho-Hum
Starship Troopers and its critique, the Forever War are the standard works in this genre and this novel is simply not in the same league. It recycles a lot from these two and does not actually expand or improve the concepts so obviously borrowed. If you have read these two novels I would not suggest reading this book as you will be disappointed, unless you are a 13-year old boy.
That said, the fact that this book was published does indicate how a budding writer can use the internet to get a book published. If you are a budding writer, then a study of the methods employed here may be of use. For that, you don't have to read the book.

Rating:

- Not for everyone
As there is obviously a great number of reviews of thís book I'll keep mine fairly short. This book was a bit of a mixed pleasure for me. Some parts of it I liked, whereas I found other parts a bit tedious.
My main complaint is in the alien bit. I like alien stuff - who doesn't, but I don't like it when you get too much of it. I find that aliens work best when they are kept slightly mysterious or are thoroughly presented. It seems as if Scalzi has had a lot of fun writing about different, very different, species, but this diversity is not really for me.

Rating:

- First Rate Sci-Fi
Ignore the cover of this book. It is a truly terrible cover; a horribly old fashioned, space ships in flight painting and pseudo-B-movie, shiny typeface effort that makes this book feel like an Alan Dean foster effort from the mid-1980's. You should ignore it because it is not worthy of the book behind it.

I picked up Old Man's War on a whim because I like the sound of the precis on the back. It struck me as an original concept, sending retirees off in the universe to be rejuvenated and fight for humanity, and I wanted to know where the author would go with it.

Where he takes it is not at all what I expected, even though I had no real preconceptions going in. Not only does he craft a hugely exciting story from his ... Read More:

Rating:

- redeemed by optimism
This was quite a mixed book for me. I found the writing to be fairly poor (actually, I find the writing of most science fiction to be poor). The style is very easy to read, but almost amateurish. The choice of names (Jane, John etc) and the informal style of writing grated on me a bit as did the vulgar names chosen by each person for their "brainpal" (a computer put into their brains).

The story is quite good fun, even if it does have strange fascist overtones. The basic ideas is that when people get to about 75, they are eligible to join the CDF (colonial defence force) who give them new bodies (with green skin and cat's eyes!) and then they go to fight lots of aliens to preserve the human colonies. I laughed out loud as the ... Read More:

Books : Old Man's War