Book review: John Scalzi — Old Man’s War

I’d been hearing good things about this book for a while, so when it was mentioned as one of the incentives to sign up for Tor’s new online promotion material, I went straight over to give them my email address. The link for the OMW download arrived just before lunch yesterday. I didn’t intend to read it then and there, but flicked through the file to make sure it had downloaded properly. Had my attention snagged by some of the dialogue in the first chapter. Decided to read the first chapter while I was eating lunch.

I read the whole book. It’s *that* good at getting you to turn the pages.

It’s a Heinlein pastiche, primarily influenced by Starship Troopers but with significant nods to some other books, particularly Space Cadet. But it’s an original and interesting riff on those themes, not a knock-off. Here it’s not the young men but the old men who go to war, and there are some well thought out reasons as to why.

The basis of the book is that the Colonial Defense Force has rejuvenation technology, and if you live on Earth the only way you can get access to it is to sign up to be a soldier when you turn 75. One-time only offer, use it or lose it. Nobody on Earth knows exactly what the technology is or does, because part of the sign-up deal is that you are declared legally dead on Earth, and can never, ever return. Oh, and you’re signing for a term of at least two years, and up to ten — and while little detail comes back to Earth about the colonies, it’s clear that soldiering is a risky business.

John Perry’s got nothing to lose. He and his wife made the decision to register as potential recruits when they turned 65. She’s dead now, and there aren’t any other ties strong enough to hold him to Earth. So he enlists in the old man’s war, and finds out just what’s out there on the other side of the sky. It turns out to involve a lot of hostile aliens and a multi-way battle for territory that can get very, very nasty indeed.

Perry’s a decent and likeable man, and it’s fascinating to watch him go through the process of being moulded into a soldier. While this is military sf that makes no bones about it sometimes being necessary to fight to live, it isn’t a lazy glorification of the military. You could equally well read it as a subtle critique of unthinking glorification of the military. There are some significant moral issues raised in a quiet way and simply left there for the reader to think about if they notice them.

There’s a good and funny look at what it means to be old, followed by an exploration of what happens when a mind with 75 years of experience gets a new body that’s not just fifty years younger, but seriously tuned for performance. And there’s some thoughtful discussion of identity and what it means to be human that makes the book more than just a romp. But it’s also a very fine romp, and enormous fun to read.

I do have a couple of criticisms. Perry is both smart and lucky, as befits an action hero, even a 75 year old action hero. But his rapid rise through the ranks and special shininess edge a little too close to blatant Mary Sue territory in places. Yes, it’s a pastiche of the pulp style, but it broke willing suspension of disbelief a couple of times, at least for me. And I found the ending a little too abrupt, feeling as if Scalzi had simply run out of story for now. However, there are two more books in this universe, and I was left wanting to go out and buy them.

(There is also one specific issue which bothered me a *lot*, but it bothers me for personal reasons which won’t pertain to most readers — see Nicholas Whyte’s detailed post on the Bender episode: http://nhw.livejournal.com/642176.html

plus the discussion in the comments thread for why that scene is the way it is and why some of us still think it comes over as a bone tossed to the more rabid “peaceniks are dumb” milsf fans. Lots of spoilers.)

If you’re a Heinlein fan, this book’s well worth reading. But it works in its own right as well, whether or not you’ve ever read any of the books it’s influenced by. If you’re looking for some milsf with some decent science fiction speculation, this one’s worth a look.

Old Man’s War at Amazon US
Old Man’s War at Amazon UK

Tor’s sign-up page: http://www.tor.com/

Scalzi’s blog

Book Review: Pohl & Kornbluth — Gladiator-at-Law

Pohl and Kornbluth’s’s sharp satire of the consumer society and corporate corruption of government is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago. “Gladiator at law” describes a possible future for the 1950s in which the working and middle classes are kept under control by the threat of losing their job and with it their tied housing–and the unemployed masses are kept quiescent with bread and circuses, Roman style. Reality tv may not have gone quite as far as the entertainment for the proles depicted in this novel, and science fiction is an exploration of possible futures rather than a prediction of an actual future, but Pohl and Kornbluth’s depiction of one of those potential futures is uncomfortably close to present day reality.

There are some nicely drawn characters, and a realistic look at the hazards of battling powerful vested interests — while there is a happy ending, it comes at a price. The novel is short by today’s standards, but a good read, and well worth hunting down a copy at a reasonable price.

GLADIATOR AT LAW at amazon.com

Gladiator-at-law (Classic Science Fiction S.) at amazon.co.uk

Gladiator-at-law (Gollancz hardcover) at amazon.co.uk

paperback at Powells

Book Review: Larry Niven — Neutron Star

I much prefer Niven’s shorter, earlier, and solo efforts, and his first short story collection demonstrates why. This is a wonderful collection of short stories from Niven’s Known Space universe, with stories ranging from the readable to the superb. There is an astonishing breadth of imagination displayed here, with not one but several alien races who are *alien*, in appearance, psychology and culture. And it’s not just the aliens; Niven shows how human cultures have diverged during periods of colonial isolation, developing different moral codes.

They’re all hard sf, but Niven is one of the authors who can populate his hard sf setting with plausible characters who feel like real people. There’s also some thoughtful discussion of moral problems in a couple of the stories.

This collection is nearly forty years old as I write this, and it shows–there have been advances in technology that Niven didn’t forsee, making for some oddly backwards technology in the stories. But science fiction isn’t about predicting the future; it’s speculation about possible futures and the people living in them. Good sf lasts even when it’s overtaken by events in real life, and these stories haven’t been harmed by the passage of time since they were written.

All in all, a well-rounded collection that shows what can be achieved with the short form in science fiction.

Neutron Star at Barnes and Noble
Neutron Star At Amazon
Neutron Star at Powell’s

Book Review: Iain Banks – Excession

Another book set in the universe of the Culture, Bank’s powerful, hedonistic galactic civilisation devoted to pleasure and doing good works. This one focuses on the machine intelligences of the Culture rather than the people, and makes it clear that the machines are people too, complete with virtues, vices, and erratic behaviour. “Excession” is hard work, but worth it. It’s a complex book with multiple plot threads and it’s stuffed with dazzling ideas. The Excession itself is an enormously powerful alien artefact/entity that appears and then simply sits there doing nothing; but by doing so it provokes a great many other entities into action they may regret. Banks has the writing skill to pull it off, but you really do have to be paying attention right the way through. It’s not perfect — there are a lot of ship characters in this one, not all of them clearly delineated by personality, and it’s very hard to keep track of who’s who at times. It does repay the effort, though. It’s funny, moving and thought-provoking, and holds a mirror up to ourselves in the same way the Excession does to the people and civilisations that encounter it.

Excession from amazon.com
Excession at amazon.co.uk
Excession from Barnes & Noble
Excession from Powell’s

Book Review: Arthur C Clarke — 3001 The Final Odyssey

Clarke returns to the universe of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the fourth and last novel, this time focusing on Frank Poole, the astronaut murdered by Hal in 2001. A thousand years later, Poole’s frozen corpse is retrieved and revived by a society that regards him as a hero and a living national treasure. At first he’s fully occupied with learning to live in an alien society and providing information to historians. But as boredom sets in, he finds himself drawn back to space and the Jupiter system… and the possibility of a meeting with David Bowman.

As Clarke notes in an afterword, it’s not possible to be completely consistent in a series about the near future that was written over a period of thirty years, and this book is better viewed as a variation on a theme rather than a sequel. With that in mind, the within series continuity glitches aren’t an issue, although there are a couple of annoying glitches within the book’s own timeline. The real problem is that this book is mostly a travelogue of the year 3001, with the section about the monoliths feeling sketchy and tacked on. There’s also a problem with some blatant preaching in places, when characters who are supposed to be having a conversation sound more as if they’re reading a prepared speech to sway an audience. I found it annoying, and I agree with many of the views being espoused.

It’s a readable and often enjoyable book, but I expect better from Clarke. I’d have felt cheated if I’d spent the money to buy this in hardback

3001: The Final Odyssey at amazon.com
3001: The Final Odyssey at amazon.co.uk
3001: The Final Odyssey at Barnes&Noble
3001: The Final Odyssey from Powell’s

Book Review: James White – Dark Inferno (aka “Lifeboat”)

Bibliographic details at Sector General website.

James White is probably best known for his Sector General stories, but his long and varied career included quite a variety of sf, and this is a nice example of the other material. It’s hard sf with beautifully drawn characters and social background, a combination which is rarer than I’d like.

The story is set in the relatively near future, during the time of colonisation of the solar system. Mercer reports to his first post as a ship’s medical officer, on board a passnger ship bound from Earth to the Jovian colonies. To the passengers he has status as a crew member. In reality the medical officer is considered no more than a glorified steward by the rest of the crew, because that is normally all his job entails on a ship whose passengers are carefully screened for medical problems. But this trip is different, because the unthinkable happens as Mercer puts the passengers through their orientation lectures — a genuine and very dangerous accident, requiring everyone to take to the lifeboat capsules before the ship’s reactor explodes. Now Mercer has to do the part of the job nobody ever expected to be needed — he has to try to keep the passengers not just alive but sane as they drift in three person plastic bubbles, with no prospect of rescue for several days. Tempers fray as conditions in the pods grow ever more hellish, and Mercer has nothing but a radio channel and a psych manual to help him keep people under control…

The description of the space flight itself is excellent, with some very nice touches such as the scene where Mercer is instructing the passengers how to manually orientate their pods so that they can use the one shot motor to regroup at the designated meeting point. It creates a very believable picture of what might be a real journey. But along with the hard sf there is an interesting plot and superb character building, beginning with Mercer himself, and then gradually introducing the crew and some of the passengers. Most of the book is from Mercer’s perspective, but once the main characters are established there are occasional sections from the points of view of other characters, showing the psychological effects of both the unpleasant and worsening physical conditions, and the fear that the rescue ship will not arrive in time. The developing emotional relationship between Mercer and a young widow and her son is particularly nicely done. It’s clear at the end of the book that with time they’ll probably become romatically involved, but White never pushes the pace of the relationship beyond what’s plausible in the situation he describes.

There’s some quiet commentary on various social issues of the time this book was published (1972) which are still relevant today. This ability to slip in social commentary without resorting to blatant preaching was one of White’s strengths as a writer.

An excellent book, and well worth seeking out.