Blurbs mean a lot to me. 

I put a great deal of trust in them, and time and again blurbs have proven an excellent curator of books. 

But blurbs are used and abused—like everything else. Old Man’s War has a blurb on its front cover that states the following—

“…Scalzi’s astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master”.

The grand master being Robert A. Heinlein. 

Heinlein is a legend, and arguably a founding father of the sci-fi (spec-fi?) genre. If there were a Mt. Rushmore of sci-fi authors he’d probably almost certainly be one of the faces¹. 

Does Old Man’s War read like an original work of Heinlein? 

Of course not. 

I went through three stages reading this book. Disappointment, Delight, and Despair.

Disappointment

The dialogue is brutal, and it hit rock-bottom during the first third of Old Man’s War.  When I say brutal what I mean is trite and soul-crushing nothingness. Kitsch. 

Dialogue you might expect from network television—predictable and uninspired. Something is wrong if I’m finishing the sentences of a book I’m reading for the first time. Scene after scene evoked deeper and deeper eye-rolls. Many scenes felt like filler, or rote recitation of agreed upon small talk.

Mechanical and dull.

I considered putting the book down. Something I never do. I can’t remember the last book I quit on. My unofficial reading mission statement is No bad books. Obviously this is an unattainable goal. Each year I read 1 or 2 bad books. I’ve read one already. 

I kept going.

Delight

It got better.

The story zoomed out. Part two is less dialogue driven, and more big picture stuff. A future spacefaring earth competing with alien species for resources. Scalzi’s creativity shines here. I found myself absorbed in a really well crafted and compelling vision. Part two of this book is borderline great, and it’s here where I understood the Heinlein comparison.

Starship Troopers isn’t remembered for its sweet action scenes². It’s endured because of Heinlein’s speculative vision and world-building. It’s a philosophical novel. A novel that forces readers to consider their relation to society, and how exactly that society functions.

For a brief minute Old Man’s War flirted with this idea. Refugees, Genocide, American Exceptionalism, colonialism, and a supreme military industrial complex. For a brief minute—or 120 pages—Scalzi incorporated all of these concepts into his story without compromising any of its creative integrity. 

Despair

My glee was short-lived.

Part three devolved, and quickly. If part two was a drug, part three was its crash.

The bad dialogue returns. Stereotypical scenes and characters flourish, and the plot rots into a vapid love story. You can skim large swaths of the concluding chapters and miss nothing. That is a bright red flag.

Old Man’s War is an admirable debut novel. Scalzi is a fascinating guy—the more I read³ about him the more I think I’ll end up reading the sequel⁴. He went from blogger to Hugo award-winning author. And anyone even attempting to write compelling and smart sci-fi will get a second chance from me. 

Old Man’s War is the second bad book I’ve read this year. But I still think you should read it.

1. The other three—Le Guin, Asimov, and PKD
2. The movie is awesome entirely for its action scenes, and also a slightly memorable shower scene.
3. His thesis advisor was Saul Bellow
4. Old Man’s War begins a trilogy.