Exciting news! John Scalzi’s military science fiction gem Old Man’s War is heading to Netflix. If you haven’t read this series, give yourself the gift of reading for Christmas and get this book! Old Man’s War is already considered a classic even though it was released just over a decade ago in 20o5.
Netflix will develop the book into an original film. Truth be told, I find this a bit disappointing. The book and the works that follow, scream “Make me into a series!” There is so much story in this well. In fact, at one point the series was in development at Syfy. At that time, the project was called The Ghost Brigades (named after the second book). However, seeing any iteration of the series on a screen is fantastic. Syfy’s loss for sure.
John Scalzi has cemented his place as a science fiction great. He wrote the award winning Red Shirts for which he won three Hugo awards in 2013 (you should also read this. It is another gem especially for Star Trek fans). His style is modern, witty and wonderfully sci-fi. In Old Man’s War,
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place. So: we fight. To defend Earth (a target for our new enemies, should we let them get close enough) and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has gone on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity’s resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force, which shields the home planet from too much knowledge of the situation. What’s known to everybody is that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You’ll serve your time at the front. And if you survive, you’ll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine-and what he will become is far stranger.
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