Old Man's War

Military science fiction that moves fast, jokes often and is easy to read: this opening volume of a seven-book series is built for enjoyment first. Under the war story sits a love story, and the two balance well. Some readers point to much world-building and a thin plot, turns that arrive a little too conveniently, and ideas about colonial conquest that are raised more than examined. Suits anyone who wants an entertaining ride.

Worth knowing John Perry visits his wife’s grave on his seventy-fifth birthday and then joins the army, because the Colonial Defense Forces take only the old and promise a new body; what they give him is green, fast and engineered, and the rest of the book is boot camp and a war against a dozen alien species for the few habitable planets, told by a man who was a small-town advertising writer. John Scalzi serialised it on his own website in 2002, Tor bought it and published it in 2005, and it was a Hugo finalist in 2006, the year The Ghost Brigades continued the series. It is Starship Troopers rewritten by someone with a sense of humour, which Scalzi has never pretended otherwise. About 300 pages, and six books follow.

The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.