Neat concept - at the age of 75, you can choose to enlist in the space army. The paypoff is you are promised a brand new body. The risk is nobody tells you what the space army does or . . . anything, really.
I can't say it was a great book, and I had a few questions when I got done, but I enjoyed Mr. Scalzi' writing style and his sense of humor. It's worth a read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man%27s_War
Do you enjoy reading books with a likeable, sarcastic cast? How about ones with politics spanning multiple worlds and huge empires that seem on the brink of crumbling?
Then do I have the book for you.
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi is, like most Scalzi novels, fun.
It’s a cast of adventurers in space with charming, if somewhat crass, personalities. All who have their flaws and qualities that make them more than the caricatures they could have been. Some are likeable, like Marce Clarmont, whose mild mannered-good-guy routine is played against the intrigue of life at court with hilarious and often heart-breaking results. Or like Kiva Lagos, who is likeable because you cannot stop laughing when she is on the page. Her seemingly utter lack of tact is a delight, though I feel I must put a warning here; if you don’t like swearing, skip this book. I think Kiva says the F-word over one hundred times – that’s a rough estimate, but I would be surprised if it were less.
And even the hateable characters are likeable in their own way. Like all the best villains you must be able to empathise with them, and the way the Nohamapetan’s stumble under the pressure of their parents and the society they had a hand in creating, is endearing, even accounting for the utterly detestable things they do.
To describe The Collapsing Empire as fun and leave it at that would be doing it a disservice. This is a book with something to say and it says it clearly. A mirror to society today and the path of relentless consumption that we appear to be on, this book is a warning about what such mindless greed can and will cause, our own destruction.
One would have to be purposefully ignoring the message and theme of the book to miss it, however, don’t let that fool you into thinking that Scalzi stands on a pedestal and preaches, screaming into your face.
The Collapsing Empire will make you laugh and cry, worming its way into your heart before it reaches up into your head.
This book is fun, silly, heartfelt, and smart. It might not be for you, but I would give it a try. If you want a great example of fast paced action-adventure science fiction, this is it.
(As always feel free to head here if you want to read more!)
I like John Scalzi's humor and would want to read something similar but in Fantasy. I don't mean a goofy fantasy world, but a serious fantasy world with characters with a healthy doze of humour. Dark humor is okay. It's like the situation is The Broken Earth Trilogy, but the characters are Avatar: The Last Airbender.
In short: Maybe serious world, not so serious characters.
I've listened to both Lock In and Head On several times - the versions narrated by Wil Wheaton. But having come back to both on Audible they sound... different. The first chapter of Head On seems like it has been edited significantly.
It just sounds weird, but I'm not sure if I'm misremembering or they have been redubbed.
ETA: After "acquiring" a copy of both and listening to the first chapters along with my audible copy, I can report they have not been redubbed or edited. I am now concerned that I may be losing my marbles though...
Not to be derogatory but I broke my cherry on his book “Old Man’s War”. It’s an excellent sci-fi novel about a guy who joins the intergalactic army on his 75th birthday. Just reading the synopsis online had me hooked. Anywho, I was looking for something else to read and getting ideas from Goodreads and saw his book “The Collapsing Empire”. It has some of my favourite themes, space, ships, and unique characters who curse a lot. As a guy who had some sailor experience it had me excited to turn the pages and relive some moments through fantasy. As I’m on the last book in his series, I would recommend it to anyone else that enjoy science fiction and who have dreamed of travelling to other planets.
It's been a number of years since I read the first two books and while I remember most of the context for things and a quick google search jogged my memory for who the Obin are, I'm a a bit at a loss for how John and Jane's relationship works. I think she's from his original wife's DNA, but she doesn't have any of those memories, right? Or... I forget.
Anyway, just kinda weird to jump back into a series and have the main characters talking a out a relationship between a 90 year old and a 16 year old when you can't remember the full context as to why that should be OK.
Thanks if anyone can give me a quick rundown!
I find that I like to alternate with a good hard sci-fi / dense read (Neal Stephenson for example, or blindsight which I just finished) and then an easy read / plot driven / space opera. My go to for the latter is Scalzi. Quick reads, plot driven, easy to follow, not depressing (just finished blindsight and thought it was a great read but man was it depressing not to mention rereading a lot of paragraphs). Problem is I’m running out of Scalzi books. Anyone have any advice for similar authors or works to Scalzi? Petty broad question but also curious if anyone else likes to alternate reads in a similar manner.
May has us checking out the first book in John Scalzi's Old Man's War series.
Follow this link to get the details:
https://www.doofmedia.com/2021/05/03/may-2021-book-club-selection-old-mans-war-by-john-scalzi/
What do you think of Old Man's War? What would you like us to talk about? Let us know!
See you Friday, May 28th at 9:30 PM!!
I recently listened to The End of All Things written by John Scalzi and narrated by Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, & John Scalzi.
This is the sixth book in the Old Man’s War Series. While I attempt to avoid spoilers, it’s not wholly possible to do so in this review. If spoilers are an issue for you I suggest you stop reading now.
This book is a series of novelettes that highlights not only the continuing division between the Colonial Union and Earth, but also highlights certain issues in the larger Colonial Union itself. In addition to this the Conclave continues to view all human activity with some suspicion, particularly because a mysterious third party is dead set on driving wedges between all of the factions in order to profit from their destruction. In addition to that, John Scalzi offers an alternative perspective to one of the stories here with a different, if non-canon, ending.
Narration: The narration on this book was divided into three parts, with William Dufris narrating the first section, Tavia Gilbert narrating the second section with an afterward and discussion by John Scalzi. The narration was generally well done.
Conclusion: This book continues to explore the universe in the Old Man’s War universe. It actually adds quite a bit of story depth to this universe, thus anyone who has been enjoying this series will enjoy the additional context.
For more audiobook reviews by me, please check out my audiobook reviews on goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/126703488-gene-parish
Hello, Reddit! I'm John Scalzi. You may know me from such books as "Old Man's War" and "Redshirts" and "Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City." My new book "The Last Emperox" came out last week and completes the Interdependency trilogy I began with "The Collapsing Empire." I'm here to answer your questions about "Emperox," any other book/project of mine you want to talk about, science fiction and fantasy, writing, life, the universe and everything. Ask me anything! If I don't know the answer I will make one up on the spot (I may make one up on the spot even if I DO know the answer, fair warning).
Proof: https://i.redd.it/aiskx9goeft41.jpg
I got this and having read a few posts on returns, and how the author gets screwed on them, I'd prefer not to return it. I'm just wondering if I should bother continuing past chapter 2. I'm having incredible difficulty with how "he said" "she said" is read out after almost every sentence. I like the premise of the book but I'm finding it hard to not focus on the "he said," "she said" repetition. If anyone has listened to it, can you tell me if this continues throughout? Thanks!
Edit: Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions!
What's the general opinion of the auother John Scalzi in the sci-fi community? I've read 3 of his books now and though I find them fun and easy to get through, I also find them frustratingly pedestrian somehow. Maybe it's how they're based in the future but everyone talks like a millennial, or maybe it's his lack of description. Anyway just curious what you all think of his style.
I’m trying to choose between the Wil Wheaton narration and Amber Benson.
I’ve listened to both samples and they both sound fine to me so I was wondering if anyone who can give me an idea of which they prefer and why?
I’ve noticed Ambers recording is an extra hour also, is there any reason for this or is the narration just slower?
EDIT: Thanks to everyone who replied, it’s been interesting to read your thoughts and based on that I think I’ll go with Amber - more range of characters in the narration and the fact I already have other books by Wil has swung it for me.
So I'm about close to the half way point of this book and...well it's interesting so far. Oh spoilers for the first half of the book.
Like does Kiva ever stop being super annoying? I don't understand what he's trying to do with her character? Like it seems he's setting her up to have a heel face turn towards the end where she makes up for her shitty behavior, but on the other hand it seems like he wants you to like her. And yet she's probably the worst written character I've ever read.
"Lady Kiva?" Vrenna prompted "I'm sorry," Kiva said. "I got distracted thinking about sex."
Reminds me of that famous scene from Moby Dick.
"Ishmael?" Queequeg said. "I'm sorry," Ishmael said. "I got distracted thinking about Moby's Dick."
Really gets to the heart of the human condition doesn't it.
The book also seems to lack any kind of description. Like Marce getting kidnapped and rescued happens so quick I felt literally zero tension the entire time. The lack of descriptions extends to almost everything he describes one room as "ornately decorated" okay what's ornate about it? Another as "built in the early Interdependancy style" again what style is that how does it look?
What do we get when Kiva is on End? "run-down, unhappy, a few sooty fires in the distance." That's the only line of description we ever get.
Like is he going for some ultra minimalist style? Or did he have to cut words out to make room for such crackling insightful dialogue as this "One fuck you, you shitty little example of a human being."
That particular line is rich coming from someone who helped organize the kidnapping, profited from it, then tells the guy she helped kidnap to shut the fuck up while his sister grins stupidly in the background.
So anyway is it worth finishing lol?
Edit: just wanted to add something that rankles me. The ship names, clearly a nod to the Culture with with out any of the wit that Banks brought to them. Banks didn't just use snatches of random sounding sentences he usually tried to make them poetic sounding or jokey. if you're going to ape the great man himself, at least do it well. Culture ships also have names that hint at some interesting personality or even deeper stories behind the names.
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Agent-to-the-Stars-Audiobook/B004DQWIZM?ref=a_hp_c10_dd&pf_rd_p=00deb5a2-b13c-48e2-a72b-f5fe4bd5a5f3&pf_rd_r=PAGGW1AWCYD3GB742MME
Hey y'all,
I have been steadily absorbing excellent novels for the last 5 years through Audible. I decided to start my own book (yay), and I have been looking into writing tip videos. One thing I've noticed is that almost every line of dialouge in Scalzi's books has the tag "[character name] said". I know from the writing videos I've seen that switching up the word for "said" (using "remarked" or something like that) comes off as fan fic-y. On the other hand, I find it pretty irritating to hear "[character name] said" every two seconds. So what is the right thing to do here? A video I saw pointed out that you can remove dialouge tags in some contexts, but that obviously can't always work. I can't think of any other author whose tags grate on me like this. Is it simply because Scalzi's dialouge is so conversational and the tags need to be in there more often? If anyone has any insight here, I would appreciate it, because I want to start as strong as I can. Thanks!
Hello! I’ve lurked around this sub long enough and finally have something of note to post.
A few months ago while lurking on this sub I came across a post where various science fiction books were recommended, chief among them were the Old Man’s War series, Peter Hamilton’s Judas Unchained, Dune, and Ian M Banks culture series. Needless to say being a massive fan of sci fi I bought all of them. I’ve been on the fence on buying them for a while but reading your descriptions and explanations for the books really made the decision for me.
So a little background (you can skip this as its not in context of the book but more of who I am):
I am from Malaysia a country which unfortunately doesn’t really have that much of a science fiction community or circle for me to share my thoughts and have discussions with. In fact unfortunately among my closest friends only I read books and if any of the others do their area of interest is definitely not sci fi. As some of you may know, that makes the mind a little lonely because sometimes all you want to do is discuss the various ways humanity can move along the Kardashev scale. Anyway moving on, I’m a child of the sci fi era, grew up watching Star Trek (TNG), Stargate, and Star Wars, not to mention all the other amazing shows such as Battlestar Galactica and etc. More than anything since I was a kid I wanted to be in a starship, I wanted to be a part of a generation that took mankind to the stars. These books recommendations from these sub has been perfect to fill the void left by not having any decent sci fi series on TV/streaming.
Now, onward with the series: Old Man’s War:
Omg this book series is amazing. I am close to finishing the 3rd book in the series “The Last Colony” and I have got so much to talk about that I couldn’t wait till it was done to post this.
Scalzi is an amazing author. Prior to this series I finished the Last Emperox series to familiarize myself with his writing and am thankful for that. The Last Emperox series is good but Old Man’s War is simply on another level. The world building around the CDF and the war fought by humanity is amazing. God I really hope they make this into a series and I hope they get Aaron Sorkin to write it because he can definitely bring to life Scalzi’s dialog's.
The Old Man’s War series is so human. [SPOILERS] Humanities quest to adapt and survive is really shown off in this book with Brainpal and the modifications the soldiers go through.
Humanity it seems can neve
... keep reading on reddit ➡Any ideas for a John Scalzi'ish author? Like the universe that he built up, but seems I have reached the point where there are no new books to indulge in . Any good ideas?
So I was looking through book suggestions for some SF and everywhere I went I kept seeing Old Man's War(A personal fav) but nothing else by Scalzi. I remember back when OMW was being released he was being compared to the next Heinlein but I haven't heard anything about him in a while. His new books never get recommended and after how good the first 4 OMW were I am a little shocked by that. Has anyone read his newer stuff, I confess the only other books of his I read was redshirts and fuzzy nation, neither of which were for me.
Does anyone recommend any of his newer books? Do you think he will be remembered as a Heinlein type (most of his books are recommended by someone) or more a Joe Haldeman (Pretty much just one or two books universally agreed) Not that it's bad company to keep I'm just curious.
Download from Tor's site here.
Theoretically, this offer is limited to the US and Canada. Redditors have commented in the past that imaginative people find ways around this.
If you have to be stuck inside the house, why not read a free book?
Stay safe, everyone!
Disclaimer: I have no connection to Tor other than as a consumer of their products.
