Thursday, October 25, 2007

Books: Today's read...

...is Old Man's War, by John Scalzi, and it is fun. It's the illegitimate love child of Starship Troopers and Cocoon with a dash of cyberpunk sensibilities, as if written by Bob Heinlein's ghost.

Loving it immensely. Best freshman SF effort in the tradition of The Master since Freehold.

11 comments:

Billy Hollis said...

I'm shocked you have not read it yet. If you like it, get the two sequels.

Do you read Scalzi's blog? He irritates me sometimes with his politics, but he's a smart guy and an entertaining blog writer. He's at:

http://scalzi.com/whatever/

Brandon said...

I read the first few pages courtesy of Amazon and was intrigued. Going off to join the military in one's 70s? That's a hell of a hook. The book is now on my wishlist.

Anonymous said...

Yep, good book. And both sequels are quite good as well. The second one (Ghost Brigades, if memory serves) is out in paperback. The third one (The Last Colony) is still in hardcover last I checked.

Tam said...

Ghost Brigades should be coming off the Big Brown Truck Of Happiness today. :)

Mark said...

Ahhh, yes. For a first book, it reads really quite alright. Must perform some credit-card maintainance and get his other offerings - OMW's on it's second read-through in three months, which is a jolly good indication.

Don't forget the tiny smidgen of Forever War in there...

Anonymous said...

Ahh yes! To be youg and green again. To travel to exotic planets, meet new species and kill'em.

I sent my copy to Iraq about a month or so back. I haven't read the sequels yet. I'll have to look for them.


Tokarev

trainer said...

Read the first two, and finish with "The Last Colony".

The last book changes the whole paradigm of what is going on there.

The Armed Canadian said...

Excellent read. I have all of his books in the series including the Sagan Diary.

AnarchAngel said...

I've known John since 2001, and he IS a great guy. Very funny, smart, and a good writer.

Oh and his blog is great, though as mentioned he isa bit left. He used to be a bit less left, buthe's one of those people who's been pushed left by the idiocy of the Republicans the last few years. A lot of his commenters are flat out lefty nutbags though.

Ride Fast said...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I forgot all about this book and author.

Unknown said...

Grab The Human Division! It explores what happened after The Last Colony. Good stuff!