blog/content/reviews/books/old-mans-war-old-mans-war-1.md

+++
title = "Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1) - John Scalzi"
date = 2015-07-19
updated = 2021-02-12

[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "john scalzi", "reviews", "scifi", "old man's war", "stars:4",
"published:2005"]
+++

[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36510196-old-man-s-war):
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.

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{{ stars(stars=4) }}

"Old Man's War" was a long time in my "to read" list. Today I finally finished
reading it.

I've been following Scalzi for some time on Twitter and he always post
intelligent comments. I read _Subterranean Scalzi Super Bundle_ and really
enjoyed his writing style. The very first book of his was, then, an obvious
choice.

"Old Man's War" is part _The Forever War_. It's war on space. You have
spaceships and soldiers with special training and special weapons.

But while you read about the military life like in "Starship Troopers", it
also has no qualms in killing interesting characters to show that not all
things in war are easy and the bad guys always lose, like in "All Quiet".

The story starts really strong, gets more cerebral in the middle and then
slows a bit in the end. Still pretty enjoyable, specially if you liked the
books I mentioned before. The fact that they way Scalzi writes makes it easy
to read is also a plus.