Old Man's War: [Negative Pun About Old People]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi
My rating: 2 of 6 stars

Old Man's War is about old people giving up their lives on earth to join the colonial forces as supersoldiers to help defend humanity. That's a solid premise that I can get behind. Old Man's War is, however, not written well.

This book is bad. As I write this, I'm remembering that I only finished it to provide the most honest review. It was fun in spurts, but, on the whole, this book was, as I said, bad. The writing is pedantic at its best and horrid at its worst. Why do I keep expecting more from Science Fiction? Why, oh why, do I injure myself so?

I'll focus on one small issue and one large, big, huge issue. The former is the issue of the use of Old Men in Old Man's War, and the latter is the introduction of exposition.

*** Caution: For Those Who Care, Minor Spoilers Ahead ***

Old Man's Wars are fought by old men and women. That is true. The only thing young about them are their genetically-engineered bodies. So why do they all talk like wise-cracking 20-somethings, fresh off a network sitcom? I mean everyone, as well, from the good guys to the bad guys, the chicks and the dudes. Everyone, and I mean everyone, talks the same. They crack wise all the time. There's no flow, and everyone is just as adept as everyone else.

It's no secret that the bar by which I judge books is painfully higher than that of the average reader, and I feel that that's a shame. So far, I really can't trust other people's ratings or reviews to give me a clue as to what's good. And, to be fair, I don't really find anything all that good.

Which leads me (jarringly) to my second point: The exposition. FOR THE ENTIRE NOVEL, whenever the main character (who is just the same as everyone else) is kind of out of the loop, someone near him (who is just like him), postulates WITH INCREDIBLE ACCURACY as to the nature of the conundrum. What's with this ship? (wisecrack) Answered. (wisecrack) What's going to (wisecrack) happen to us? Answer. Ugh. There is no subtlety, no nuance, no story craft.

There are parts of this novel that raise interesting points on the ideas of life and soul and existence, but for the most part, it's a scifi nerd's two-dimensional wet dream, complete with meaningless animalistic sex without any kind of lead-up or gender politics, and with everything drawing our hero in "over his head," though he manages with identical ease in every situation.

Lukewarm scifi at its most meh. Read this if you hate yourself and have no standards.

2 out of 6

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