Anyone who read my post on “The Collapsing Empire” probably remembers that I found the book to be interesting but not outstanding – a tick above average. I also talked a bit in that post about the less than detailed memories I had of reading John Scalzi’s first book – “Old Man”s War”. It was quite some time ago but I remembered having really enjoyed the book. Finally, I mentioned that I’d purchased all of the other books in this series but for reasons I couldn’t recall – hadn’t ever gotten around to reading them.
The act of reading and writing about “The Collapsing Empire” and the vague memories of “Old Man’s War” that surfaced as a result prompted me to go back to the shelf, pull the book and give it a second read. It’s a very simple book – easy to read in a day or two – and I’m glad I did as it’s left me with a very different view of the book and the author.
First, the observations I made about “The Collapsing Empire” seem pretty transferable to “Old Man’s War”. I found the characters a bit shallow and one dimensional. I found the aliens to be simplistic and cartoonish. The Boot Camp / Training section of the book now seems kind of silly – patterned after the boot camp scene in every war movie I’ve ever seen. There were aspects to the scientific / technical / military / weaponry descriptions that just didn’t make sense to me. It was the same type of average that I found in “The Collapsing Empire” – a book that was, in many ways, better written – without the awesome presence of a character like Kiva Lagos. In fact, I found the main character in “Old Man’s War” – John Perry – to be boring even after he transitions into his new life.
Here’s an example of what was, for me, a weird disconnect. At the beginning of the book, after visiting his wife’s grave, Perry makes a visit to the local Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) recruiting station. It’s described as being located in a non-descript strip mall sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and a state authority liqour store. As you progress through the book and you start to get perspective on the resources possessed by the CDF as well as the sophistication of the technology it commands, it’s hard to understand why they’d put a recruiting station in that kind of location. Actually, it’s kind of hard to understand why they’d need a recruiting station at all. Everything done in that scene looks to me like something that could, should and would be done online. Those types of non-sequiturs persist throughout the book. It’s like Scalzi started with an interesting high level concept – enlisting seniors and rejuvenating them in return for military service – but wasn’t able to place it within a fully realized, future world.
The book wasn’t a waste of time – it’s entertaining and I’m glad I reread it. It also hasn’t dissuaded me from starting the 2nd book in the series – “The Ghost Brigades”. I do find the concept interesting and I want to see where Scalzi takes it all but I’m not going to give it that much time. Unless things change, I can skim these and get what I need from them. Once I’m done, I’ll let you know where I land.