Old Man’s War: John Perry Joins Up at 75

In a rather ironic twist, I’m writing a book review on a website about a book that was initially serialized on a blog! John Scalzi owns the site where it all started, and he’s become a well known SciFi author with a series of books that run like this: Old Man’s War (2005), The Ghost Brigades (2006), The Last Colony (2007) and Zoe’s Tale (2008). Old Man’s War is the one that kicks it all off, and it’s the one I’m covering here.

These books all take place in a universe hostile to humanity, where the search for and colonization of new worlds is viciously contested by a variety of alien species and races. While there are some similarities to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, the underlying story in itself is surprisingly unique, well thought out and conceived. Scalzi has also done other innovative things to popularize his work, with his most recent book in the Old Man’s War series, The Human Division, available at a nominal cost through digital downloads. He’s another prolific author, a bit like Brandon Sanderson, with a host of titles in the Old Man’s War universe, and he’s also written an extremely funny and engaging book called Redshirts that is definitely worth a read too!

Seventy-five and joining up

John Perry does two things on his 75th birthday. First he visits his wife’s grave, and then he joins the army. The good news in this universe is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce, and alien races willing to fight us for them are common, so humanity fights, and far from Earth the war has been going on for decades. It’s a great hook, because you want to know right away why anyone at 75 would sign up for something like that.

At the ripe old age of 75, Americans are given the option of “joining” the CDF (Colonial Defense Forces), where they’ll be made young again. No one on Earth or its colonies knows how this miracle is accomplished, and while they continue to supply the raw material, the CDF is responsible for policing and protecting all of humanity in its struggles with the other alien empires. Humanity’s allies are few and far between, and its colonized sphere of space is surrounded by enemies numbering in the trillions. I like how the book doesn’t rush that explanation and lets you sit with how odd it is.

Away from the gravity well of Earth the secret is made clear. As CDF soldiers, and for the 25% who survive, eventual colonists, learn, regenerating their existing bodies is not an option after all. Instead the CDF has come up with a way of transferring their consciousness from their existing bodies into newly cloned ones. These clones are better than the originals, with faster reflexes, better healing and an integrated computer system. What they learn during basic training, though, is that this is the “minimum” humanity needs to survive in a hostile universe, because the aliens they’re competing against are just as fast and even more vicious.

Before any of that, though, Perry has to get through the part where everyone he’s with is old. Part of what makes the early chapters work is the group of recruits he ends up alongside, a bunch of elderly men and women who’ve signed up for the same strange bargain and who stick together through basic training. They call themselves the Old Farts, which tells you the sort of humour the book has, and there’s a real warmth in how they look out for each other before the fighting starts. Each of them left behind a full life, and the book never forgets that. It’s also where the integrated computer system I mentioned, the BrainPal, comes in, and it gives the recruits a way to talk to each other even when they’re in the middle of a mess.

The grave visit at the start is a good way into the whole story, because it gives Perry a reason that isn’t just boredom or bravado. His wife is gone, he has no real ties left on Earth, and the CDF is the only offer on the table that promises anything more than waiting to die. That’s what a lot of the book hangs on, and it’s what turns an odd premise into an emotional one. The sense that Perry is buying a second chance at a price he doesn’t yet understand carries you through the opening stretch, and when the truth about the clones comes out it lands properly.

Perry in the field

After receiving basic training on Beta Pyxis III, Perry is shipped out to the CDF’s Modesto. In his first battle against the enigmatic Consu, a race that seems to model their fighting on whoever they’re fighting and who are significantly in advance of humanity in terms of technology, John is able to improvise a tactic that enables the CDF to win the battle. Through the course of several different engagements his leadership and intuition continue to play a key role, until the battle for Coral. Here the CDF suffers a huge defeat, losing a significant portion of its fleet and soldiers, and John Perry is the only person to have survived, crash landed on the planet.

Rescued by the Ghost Brigade forces, special forces units of the CDF, John joins up with Jane Sagan, a clone generated from his dead wife’s DNA, and prepares to assault Coral again. I know, I’ve stopped just when it’s getting interesting! Trust me, this is one book you’ll love to have in your library, and what I’ve told you so far will only get you to the halfway point. Get it, you won’t be disappointed.

It’s worth saying a bit more about the Ghost Brigades, because they’re what make the second half tick. They’re the special forces of the CDF, and they’re not volunteers in the way Perry is, they’re grown from DNA and trained for the job from day one. That’s what ties Jane Sagan to Perry’s late wife, and why her appearance hits so hard. It’s also part of what keeps it from being just a copy of Starship Troopers with older soldiers, since the human cost is what drives the story.

My thoughts

It’s a really well thought out first book and a definite page turner. It’ll keep you gripped from beginning to end, and the concept of the clones being made from the elderly, rather than just grabbing anyone willy-nilly from Earth, is quite a cool idea! I really liked this book and its overall characterizations as well as the writing, and I’d definitely recommend it.

For character growth and development I’d give it 4/5. The key characters in the series are all believable, and Perry is someone you root for right from the beginning. Finding Jane is quite traumatic and very surprising, and you can really feel for the character throughout the story.

The idea of using the elderly as the raw material is the heart of it for me. A lot of SciFi would simply grab young people off the street, and it’d be the obvious choice, which is why it’s so refreshing that this book goes the other way. Someone who’s 75 has lived a life, buried a spouse, and has very little left to lose, and that makes Perry a different kind of soldier from the usual gung-ho recruit. It also explains why he’s so good at thinking his way out of trouble. That, to me, is what makes it such a well thought out first book.

The universe it sets up is also a good fit for the way the series grows. Because every race is competing for the same limited supply of habitable planets, there’s always another fight coming, and the war never feels like it’s about to wrap up. The Consu being so far ahead technologically is a nice touch too, because it makes the CDF’s wins feel hard earned rather than inevitable. It’s a setup that has plenty of room to run, and the follow-up books use it.

The story and the score

For story growth and development it’s another 4/5, because it’s really good and gripping. While humanity might be one of the few races to “augment” its people in the battles, the obvious question becomes why aren’t other races doing it? Secondary questions of course include why is anyone fighting for real estate in an infinite universe, but that’s a key factor in any space based book, isn’t it!

Since this is the first book of a series, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony and Zoe’s Tale all follow it, and Redshirts is worth picking up too if you want to see how funny Scalzi can be when he’s not writing about war.

Overall rating: 8/10.