Old Man's War

Here we have another book with a blurb comparing the author's style to Robert Heinlein: "Heinlein without the lectures", to be specific. Unusually, this turns out to be a fairly accurate description!

The underlying premise of Old Man's War is that future Americans are only allowed to leave Earth to colonize other planets if they agree to join the Colonial Defense Forces . . . at the age of 75. The CDF won't take any recruits younger than that! The story explores the reasoning behind this peculiar requirement, its various effects, and the side-effects of the particular methodology used by the CDF to turn septuagenarians into functioning soldiers.

John Scalzi does make numerous observations during the course of the book, but he isn't as politically/ethically oriented as Heinlein so this book is a lot milder in tone. As such, it's quite enjoyable to read but it's likely to vanish from your consciousness almost immediately, leaving nothing definite or noteworthy behind.

Rating: 3.0