Old Man's War

(Paperback)

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Description

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 Defence 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. PRAISE FOR THE OLD MAN'S WAR SERIES "Clever dialogue, fast-paced story and strong characters." The Times "Great fun" Daily Telegraph

Reviews

Gripping and surpassingly original. It's Starship Troopers without the lectures . . . It's funny, it's sad, and it's true -- Cory Doctorow
I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity, and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already -- Ken MacLeod
John Scalzi is the most entertaining, accessible writer working in SF today -- Joe Hill
Scalzi is one of the slickest writers that SF has ever produced * Wall Street Journal *
Clever dialogue, fast-paced story and strong characters * The Times *
It gladdens the reader's heart . . . great fun * Daily Telegraph *
Top-notch. His combat scenes are blood roiling * Washington Post *
Astonishingly proficient * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *

Author Bio

John Scalzi is one of the most popular and acclaimed SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His debut Old Man's War won him science fiction's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, his most recent novel Lock In, and also Redshirts, which won 2013's Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely read blog The Whatever (whatever.scalzi.com) has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.