January Book of the Month: Old Man's War by John Scalzi

Himeo

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Quoting rules from the book club thread.

1. Make thread, 1 week notice ahead of time when the reading will officially start.
2. Poster creates poll, 5 book options. Highest vote is the book to be read. The 2nd and 3rd most popular voted books may be included in next RBCT poll perhaps.
3. Sony you have 14 days.... Posters establish reading length time. Spoilers obv need to be in just about every post. Format would be "Im on page XXX: Spoiler"
4. After the established time has passed, people can being posts without spoiler tags, and a new thread could be proposed.
5. The most requested books of last months book thread will be included in the next month's poll.
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It's like herding cats with you bastards. Fine. I change my vote from Redshirts to Old Man's War.

Next month's poll will have the two highest runners up, the two most suggested books in this thread, and the winner of January's wildcard contest.


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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 alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going 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. Everybody knows 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 two years 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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Posting schedule:

Book thread posted 1st of the month and Wildcard contest begins.
Reading begins 8th of the month.
Wildcard contest ends: 15th of the month.
Spoilers lifted 22nd of the month and next month's poll opens.

No posts from 1st-7th about the book or plot, can only post that you're participating.

Wildcard contest:

Post a picture of your copy of the book with a highlighter. Optional: photoshop the cover of the book to include a highlighter. Best picture wins the contest and can pick one book for the next month's poll.
 

chaos

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Cool. I'll start reading maybe tomorrow, have to finish the second Dunk and Egg story first.
 

Void

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Finishing up Wise Man's Fear right now (Jesus I'm ready for that book to be over with), so will be able to start on this one on time.
 

Himeo

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Got the paperback version today at Barnes & Noble for 8$ after taxes. Looking forward to starting this on the 8th.

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I'll grab a copy while I'm out today and give it read.
I should note that this will likely be a big departure for me. I mostly read horror or comedy, with a bit of fantasy thrown in from time to time. I'm hoping I don't have trouble getting into it.
 

Wolfen_sl

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Bought the audiobook version of this a couple weeks ago. Won't get to it until after A Memory Of Light, tho.
 

T-rex_sl

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I just read this book a few months ago, but I'll try to participate. This was also the only book we tried to read as a group on FoH, and it quickly failed (but there were a lot of negative nancys).
 

Smocca_sl

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I'm not really all that into sci-fi but I plan to give this a shot. Sounds fun!

ty for the ebook download btw
 

Himeo

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Reading begins tonight, you can post about the story but please include spoiler warnings until the 22nd.
 

chaos

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I'm about halfway through the book, just finished Chapter 8 I think

So far it is a pretty good book, easy to read. The only real gripe I have with the book is that Scalzi sometimes feels the need to describe the technology in a way that doesn't make sense coming from a first person point of view. In some cases that could be warranted as the central premise of the book is the Colonials have incredibly advanced technology which they have kept from Earth denizens.

At this point in the story they have just finished their boot camp and are shipping out. I have a lot of questions about the background. How did the Colonials come to separate from the rest of Earth so completely? What prompted the Subcontinental War? Why are Colonials favoring the citizens of the subcontinent rather than the rest of humanity? They allude to a possible answer behind this last question in conversation between John, Jesse, and Harry on the beanstalks up from Earth (i think) but we don't really know why.
 

Zodiac

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I'm up to chapter 17...

I think it's the author's writing but I'm not really liking the book overall. I feel no connection to the main character and don't really give two shits when any of the "old timers" die. Maybe it's because I've been reading too much fantasy lately but the descriptions of like EVERYTHING seem really lacking. Also, the dialog seems really I dunno, fake or forced or something. I find myself groaning at the bad little "humor" lines he puts in. Hopefully this huge battle our main character is going into with the SF kids will be amazing.
 

chaos

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I just finished it. I'll wait until spoilers are lifted to post further thoughts. It was a pretty easy read, though.
 

chaos

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Yeah I do, I'll throw them up when I get home. Or the torrent is on Pirate Bay if you want to be adventurous.
 

Himeo

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I just finished it. I'll wait until spoilers are lifted to post further thoughts. It was a pretty easy read, though.
Started yesterday, quick and easy to read. Finished this morning. If anyone is on the fence about it, give it a shot. It's a pretty good book.

edit: Oh shit, there are sequels? I'm down.
 

Aevry

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Blazed through the book in an afternoon. Not typically a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed it and will definitely thumb through some of his other novels. 7/10 for me!