Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Old Man's War

In Starship Troopers Heinlein told us why men fight.
In The Forever War Haldeman told us Vietnam Really Sucked.

In Old Man's War John Scalzi says: maybe you're both right.

From the back cover blurb: On John Perry's 75th birthday, he did two things. First he visited his wife's grave, then he joined the army.

Well technically he joined the Colonial Defense Forces. I'm not going to say any more about the plot, because I am not certain what I could say that would not give something away.

Suffice it to say:

This is John Scalzi's first book. It was nominated for the Hugo award in 2006. It easily could have won, as it's better than at least two of the other nominees that year (both of which we also very good)

I bought Old Man's War on Saturday, today I went to the bookstore to buy the sequel. While standing in the SF section, I showed another customer the book. He started thumping the book and saying "yeah, yeah, yeah yeah".

At checkout one of the cashier's said, Oh Scalzi, yeah, have you read the first one?
Another cashier, said, what's he got, oh yeah.
First Cashier: Don't forget hte third one.
2nd Cashier: We have the third one?
Me :Yeah it's on the shelf.
2nd: I didn't know we had the third one, I looked
1st: It's there...

So two things:

1) If you have not yeat done so, go real Old Man's War - now.
2) From now on "yeah, yeah, yeah yeah" is apparently the sci fi reader's secret code for this series.

1 comment:

Home on the Range said...

Old Man's War is very good. I'd forgotten. Now, need to read again.