Old Man's War

 

Author:  John Scalzi

Begun: March 4th 2025

Finished: March12th 2025

Type: Ebook on Libby

Rating: 5/10

In the future older people, on their 75th birthday, can choose to join a space army.  They must say goodbye to everything and everyone they knew and fight aliens.  No-one really knows anything about what happens...but they all blithely go because they've heard they get younger bodies.  

Does anyone really think any person with any modicum of sense would look at that and think, "Heck yes, I'm in!"?  Like...no.  Absolutely not.  

The first part of the story deals with saying goodbye - which seems laughably easy for everyone - and then a bunch of juvenile hijinks.  I was reading it thinking, "Was this written by a 13 year old boy?"  It was so...weird.  These older people have just left behind everything they loved and they're all geeked out because they have young fit bodies?  It's just BIZARRE.  The language of the book fawns over abs and sex while disparaging older bodies.  

Anyway, so off these people go, after being told that after 10 years (they were told "two, up to ten but that's highly unlikely" when they signed up....and then as soon as they were away from earth "Lol, nope, it's definitely ten...and 90% of you will die in that ten years"...AND NO-ONE OBJECTS) they will be released from the army and can be colonists but will never ever be able to go back to Earth.   Then they spend a while being screamed at.....I mean seriously, what 75 year old would put up with being screamed at by a psycho?  What 75 year old would be called "son" and be like, "Yeah I'm cool with that"?  

Anyway off they go and just straight up murder a bunch of aliens.  Made me want to barf. 

There's so many things WRONG with the story.  Pretty much the only thing I was ok with: Scalzi clearly adores his wife.  

Oh, and also there were gay characters in the book and they just were people.  Nothing was made of their sexuality.  It just was what it was. Often in books gay characters are used to make some kind of point, and it's bloody annoying because they're just people doing people things.  In that respect Old Man's War was VERY refreshing.  

I must get to some quotes that irritated the heck out of me. 

Once in their new bodies, they are told to experiment with them and find their limits.  So they did.  A woman was hurt while doing so.  This is what she got from Scalzi:

"...she was back in action two days later, which obviously spoke more to the Colonial medical technology than this silly woman's recuperative powers.  I hope someone told her not to do such a stupid move in the future."

W. T. and I cannot emphasize this enough, H.  Hey, Scalzi, why don't you try being more sexist and patriarchal in the future, I don't think you quite laid it on thick enough here. 

"But remember that back home, you most likely would have been dead in ten years, too - frail and old, dying a useless death."

"...it's not just because you're all retired and a drag on the economy."

Holy cow.  The AGEISM.  Unbelievable.  

My mother is 80.  My inlaws are in their 90s.  Ageing, yes.  But useless?  WTH???  NO!  No, absolutely not!  This is utterly repulsive. 

And here we come to the segment that had me like "NOPE. Nope.  ABSOLUTELY NOT."  I was giving the book the side eye and then this turned up:

"Our second problem is that when we do find planets suitable for colonization, they are often inhabited by intelligent life.  When we can, we live with native population and work to achieve harmony.  Unfortunately, much of the time, we are not welcome.  It is regrettable when this happens, but the needs of humanity are and must be our priority.  And so the Colonial Defense Forces become an invading force."

I can't even express the rage that I felt reading that.  And it's just bloody glossed over like it's nothing.  Revolting.  

Then the main character, John - hey, waddya know, same name as the author, miraculously becomes the leader of the training group and then goes out to fight and is brave and innovative and clever and SPECIAL and saves the day yada yada.  Insert eye roll here.  

During training he's the leader of all the groups and chooses group leaders, some male some female.  One is a kindergarten teacher who "taught kindergarten for thirty years, which automatically makes her the most qualified of us all."  Could you get any more patronizing?  And then, hey, waddya know, a few pages later she's demoted.  Because of course she is.  Then a man takes over her squad and whips it into shape in a short period of time and they started winning trophies.   I wanted to stick my finger down my throat and gag myself. 

The first Scalzi book I ever read was Lock In, and I absolutely loved it.  I've read several since then and have not been impressed. Starter Villain was ok, but everything else has skeeged me the hell out, or bored me.  This book was so horrifying that I believe I may be done with Scalzi.  I may read Lock In again to see if I still love it as much as I did, and to try to cleanse my mind of this book.  *Shudder*.  

And I haven't even MENTIONED how dead people's DNA is cloned to make "special forces" fighters.  The whole book reeks of a lack of ethics. And the characters are all, "Well that's problematic" and that's it. 

Overall:  Hell no.  I would like to know if, in the end, this whole racist Colonialism crap is taken down and destroyed, but I'm not willing to read the sequels to find out.