Old Man's War by John Scalzi (4.5 stars)

There's a great premise here: at 75, people living on Earth can optionally enlist in the Colonial Defence Force, get some advanced medical treatment, and hop on a one-way flight into space to defend far-flung human colonies. Sclazi writes a ripping military Sci-Fi space opera, with significant influence from Starship Troopers and The Forever War, but with less moral, political, and thematic depth and more fast-paced action. That may be good or bad depending on your point of view.

That's not to say the characters are shallow, Perry is well-rounded, intelligent, and desperately misses his wife, who dies a number of years before he joins the CDF.

For as much as I hate the cemetary, I've been grateful it's here, too. I miss my wife. It's easier to miss her at a cemetary, where she's never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.

The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after another - it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.

The medical treatment, it's outcomes, and the old people's reactions to their new fitness was fascinating reading. The BrianPals felt a lot like Google Glass plus 20 years.

I hated the section with Master Sergeant Ruiz as the cliched drill instructor. Scalzi acknowledged that he was writing a cliche drill instructor and tries to address it head on:

"You're under the impression that I'm talking like this because this is just something drill instructors are supposed to do. You're under the impression that after a few weeks of training, my gruff but fair facade will begin to slip and I will show some inkling of being impressed with the lot of you, and that at the end of your training, you'll have earned my grudging respect...You're impression, ladies and gentlemen, is completely and irrevocably fucked."

But the scenario described is exactly what happens.

Battles are had, aliens and humans die in creative ways, and it's all very entertaining (the Consu reminded me of Dr. Who's Sontarans in their war-like temperament). However, the human-led massacre of Lilliputian aliens is ridiculous (stomping? really? even today's weapons could easily destroy a tiny city more efficiently) and a bizarre way to introduce Perry's moral conflict.

All that aside, it is a great thriller which is impossible to put down. That's so rare I'm willing to forgive much.

4.5 stars