Looking for a great SF lite read for an afternoon? -With good wit, great pacing, intriguing premise, strong character development, and a military theme -Old Man's War is for you! (This book is John Scaliz debut novel as a science fiction writer ) rating 8.7/10

I've now read the first 3 books of the Old Man's War series.  Fantastic!  The story keeps moving, never gets bogged down and yet never leaves you feeling like it glossed over something important.  Unfortunately we can't describe much of the story, since it would surely spoil something, but rest assured each book is a complete and finished tale.  Yet there is an overarching story that ties them all together.

Here's the overview from the back cover:

Quoted Text

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news 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: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

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.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger.

Best sci-fi I've read in a long time, possibly ever.  Scalzi is a great writer.

I'm currently on the 4th book, which, at this point, I can't recommend.  It's still great quality writing, but I really can't stand the main character, or her friends.  Proof positive that it doesn't matter how well you craft a tale, if the reader can't get behind some characters they won't be interested.

I've now finished the 4th book in the Old Man's War trilogy.  While reading the author's notes at the end, I learned that Scalzi had intended to stop after the 3rd book but was pressured by the fans to write this one, and to write it about Zoe.  Well.  He should've stuck with his plan.

Zoe's Tale takes place at the same time as Last Colony (Book 3).  It's the same story over again, but skips over all the interesting galactic war stuff to tell Zoe's side of the events.  Since Zoe's involvement in the overall story was sideline at best, that leaves all kinds of room to talk about putting people down with her new best friend; gushing stupidly over a boy; and being a general pain in the a** to the people around her.  

There was really only one spot in Last Colony where Zoe went off and accomplished something pivotal to the story.  Since John Perry (the point-of-view for Book 3) wasn't there, we didn't get to know what exactly happened.  This is the sole reason I continued reading this book, to see how that event had occurred.  To anyone who's curious, it's in the last 60 pages or so.  You can safely skip ahead till Chapter 22 (page 329 of 392 in my copy).  The only thing you'll be missing is how she got the stone knife.

Speaking of how she got the stone knife, that's just one of the many scenes that bugged me.  It was yet another example of her being better than everyone else.  She's a cocky little wise-a**, which led me to wanting to see her knocked down a notch or two.  Instead Scalzi decided to warrant her cockiness by actually making her superior to pretty much everyone else.  This girl is insufferable!  To top it off, he wrote her as a real man basher.  Men are all stupid, and this is reinforced repeatedly.  Instead of surprising her by letting a man show some intelligence, Scalzi merely lets one dumb ape quote poetry, thus providing Zoe with a love interest.  Even John Perry, her own Dad, a decorated military leader, couldn't have possibly thought of using a Dodgeball tournament to keep youths occupied on a long voyage.  Since Zoe can't be wrong, Dad did indeed require the help of his female assistant and his wife to make the idea workable.  As Zoe puts it, "Savitri and Jane were the real brains".

The dodgeball tournament was a solution to a problem Zoe discovered.  Groups of male teens with similar backgrounds were starting fights with other groups.  As one such brawl was about to break out, Zoe walks right in between the two groups and mocks the "alpha" male in each.  Thus diffusing the situation with ridicule.  Unfortunately I have real trouble believing that a young girl would step between two gangs of strange guys that were about to duke it out.  Personally, I kept expecting one of the gang leaders to backhand her and tell her to mind her own business.  Instead they crumble at the might of her verbal abuse and run off with their tails between their legs.

This could have been a good book.  Orson Scott Card did this trick with Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, telling the same story twice from different points of view.  Except in both of those, the characters grew.  All I got out of Zoe's Tale was a better-than-thou teen who flips between humble and egotistical when it adds prestige to her character and never learns that she's not the centre of the universe.  In fact, the author does pretty much everything to prove that she IS the centre of the universe.

I give Zoe's Tale a big thumbs down.  It's a sour aftertaste to the wonderful first three books.  An aftertaste you can do without.

I just read Old Man's War over the weekend. I did enjoy it a lot, however I couldn't help but think its a lot like Forever War or even Starship Troopers, because it is.  That aside there's enough uniqueness to the story that kept me enthralled.

The Good: Interesting concept of when people turn 75 their usefulness on earth is rather limited, so they can join the Colonial Defence Forces and fight for humanity. The mechanism for making them young seemed believable to me. The alien-ness of the other races is terrific.

The Bad: I felt the first third of the story was slow and painfully predictable (especially the sex part). Also, there are people who have unique and excellent skills, such as Alan's character as a physicist, which are not fully utilized in any way. Which to me is a tremendous waste and feels illogical.

The Ugly: 200 years into the future and people still flock to looney tunes? Don't think so. How many people flock to 1920's silent films today? None, unless you're a film geek. That's why the first third I felt was bad, it didn't feel like 200 years into the future.

I wonder if Diddly you still have books 2 and 3 that I might borrow?