This novel is an alternate retelling of his novel the Last Colony. This reiteration follows the story for John and Jane Perry’s daughter Zoe. It does close some of the gaps from the Last Colony. There is always a danger when you try to write two completely separate novels that follow the same story line without introducing conflicts. Although it has several month in between read the two I could remember any. Scalzi does a great job getting inside the head of a teenage girl and what would be important to her.

The novel spends a lot of time building the relationship between Zoe and her Obin protectors Hickory and Dickory. Her whole life has geared her toward a role as a leader and she begins to emerge into that role. My hope is the Zoe’s tale isn’t over and that she is able to continue perhaps even working with General Gau.

Zoe’s tale is much more emotional than Last Colony. Enzo death becomes much more magnified due to his role in Zoe’s life and her deep feelings for him. This novel has much more emotional depth in Zoe’s character development.

I’ll tell you it’s damn hard to finish a book when your wife is angrily asking you why your laughing so hard while she’s trying to sleep. Very, Very few sci-fi books have made me laugh outloud while reading them and this was definetly one of them, and it was intend in this book too! (unlike most of the others falling into that category). I’m going to try to not give away some of the more amusing points while trying to give a breif synopsis.

The main character is Harry Creek, decorated veteran of a botched military mission, now a low level functionary for the department of state. Earth has joined the common confederation, a ruling council for the universe. Our sponser is an alien race called the “nidu”, neither Earth nor the Nidu rank very highly in the global (actually universal) scheme of things. Creek stationed in D.C. has the uneviable task of telling alien governments bad news, of which he is spectaularly good at. When the nidu ruler dies a struggle for power will shortly ensure. Depending on the outcome of that struggle the Earth may face itself at war with the Nidu. The Nidu succession requires ritualistic precision and one ingredient only available on Earth. The state department issues Harry Creek the task of recovering this ingredient (before the many other faction on Nidu) and stopping interstellar war.

Where’s the humor you ask? The one ingredient is a genetically altered electric blue sheep.

I hate giving away too much plot line but the store also involves a religion eriely similar to the Scientoligists (oops, think I just got entered into their database), two artifical intelligence (ages 18 and 104), an alien who deal with people, well by eating them whole and a various sundry of other eclectic characters.

Pleasure to read and well done….Rocketships away…

John Scalzi’s website can be found at http://www.scalzi.com

Old Man’s War is the first book of a sci-fi series which continues with the novels Ghost Brigades, The Lost Ones, and Zoe’s Tale. All of the novels deal with humanities struggle to colonize the universe against a virtual plethora of hostile alien species where wars for limited resources and planets are the norm.

 In order to fight these wars humanity has to turn to an unlikely group of heroes to forge their army. The only recruits accepted by the Colonial Defense force are septuagenarians. It is thought that their life experiences make them best suited to handle the stresses and unexpected battles with the diverse and stunningly exotic alien species.

 The challenge for the Colonial Defense Force was how to deal with the failing bodies of their fresh recruits. The recruits expected Dna resequencing and gene therapy or in a worse case scenario the replacement of vital organs and extensive reconditioning. However even they were at a loss for the reality of their terms of service.

 We will skip past that surprise and talk about the issues that the book brings up. The largest of which is how does a soldier deal with the horrors of war and justify their actions. Approaching this issues from both the perspective of a new soldier but an old mind allows the author to express some interesting viewpoints about human nature.

 The hero of the story is widower John Perry who is desperately searching for meaning in his life after the sudden death of his wife. The character is very engaging and sympathetic despite the actions he is forced to undertake while in the defense forces.

 Unfortunately the immediate sequel to this novel mostly abandon his character in favor of the supporting characters from the first novel.