Old Man's War

Introduction

Old Man's War is about a soldier named John Perry and his exploits in the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF). The first-person narrative is similar in overall structure to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War as it follows Perry's military career from CDF recruit to the rank of major. It is set in a universe heavily populated with life forms (much like David Brin's Uplift Universe), and human colonists must compete for the scarce planets that are suitable for sustaining life. As a result, Perry must learn to fight a wide variety of aliens. The characters in Old Man's War have enhanced DNA and nanotechnology, giving them advantages in strength, speed, endurance, and situational awareness.

Synopsis

John Perry, a 75-year-old retired advertising writer, joins the Colonial Defense Forces who protect human interplanetary colonists. Volunteers sign letters of intent and provide DNA samples at age 65, which John and his now deceased wife Kathy had done ten years prior to the beginning of the story. After visiting his wife's grave to say goodbye (as volunteers can never return to Earth), Perry takes a space elevator to the CDF ship Henry Hudson, where he meets Thomas, Jessie, Harry, Alan, Susan and Maggie, fellow male and female retiree volunteers. They dub themselves the "Old Farts".

Following a series of sometimes bizarre psychological and physical tests, Perry's mind is ultimately transferred to a new body based on his genetic material. His new body is a younger version of himself, but genetically engineered with enhanced musculature, green skin, and yellow cat-like eyes. He now possesses enormous strength and dexterity, nanobot-enhanced artificial blood, enhanced eyesight and other senses, and most critically, a BrainPal—a neural interface that, among other capabilities, allows Perry to communicate with other members of the CDF via thought.

After a week of frivolity and orgies in their new bodies, Perry and the other recruits land on Beta Pyxis III for basic training, during which the CDF's disdain for the United States armed forces is made clear, although one thing they got right was the Rifleman's Creed. Perry's drill instructor, Master Sergeant Ruiz, adopts a tough and disdainful persona towards to recruits, but later discovers Perry is the creator of an advertising slogan Ruiz adopted as a personal mantra ("Sometimes you just gotta hit the road.".) As a dubious gesture of respect, Perry is given the job of platoon leader during the weeks of training before he is shipped out to the CDF ship Modesto. His first engagement is with the Consu, a fierce and incredibly intelligent, though religiously zealous, alien species. Perry improvises a tactic which enables the CDF to win this first battle quickly. This is soon followed by a number of battles with, among others, the bear-like Whaidians and the tiny Covandu. By the end of this last engagement Perry begins to suffer psychological distress over killing the Liliputian Covandu and accepts that he has transformed both physically and mentally.

Now a veteran, Perry participates in the Battle for Coral. The planet contains coral reefs valuable to the attacking Rraey, as well as a human colony (the Rraey also have a taste for human flesh). The CDF plans to rapidly counterattack with a small force before the Rraey establish their coral strip mining operations, but the Rraey have somehow obtained technology to predict the appearance of a space ship's skip drive (a feat that should not be possible) and use this knowledge to ambush and destroy CDF ships as they arrive in the Coral system. Perry's quick thinking allows him and his fellow soldiers on a transport shuttle to escape the wreckage of the Modesto and make for the planet's surface, but they are shot down. Everyone but Perry is killed in the crash; Perry is grievously wounded but survives thanks to his artificially enhanced body. Perry is left for dead by a Rraey search party (who find CDF soldiers inedible), but he is rescued by members of the mysterious "Ghost Brigades", the Special Forces units of the CDF. Perry thinks he has died when he sees a younger green version of his dead wife Kathy, who in reality is Jane Sagan, the leader of the Ghost Brigades rescue team.

After being repaired, Perry tracks down Sagan, who turns out to have been grown based on Kathy Perry's DNA sample, as legally allowed by her letter of intent to join the CDF. Unlike John, Jane has no memories of Kathy's life, as she is only six years old, but after learning about Kathy, Jane seeks to learn more from John about being a "realborn" person and what kind of life one can have outside the CDF.

Sagan manipulates her chain of command to promote John to an advisory role (as a lieutenant) to gather information from the Consu during a ritualistic meeting to obtain information. Perry discovers that the Rraey had received the skip-drive detection tachyon technology from the Consu, which was used to set up the ambush at Coral. Perry also manipulates his chain of command to have the last two of his friends from the "Old Farts" transferred out of combat duty to military research. Sagan and Perry then participate in a Special Forces operation in an attempt to capture or destroy the borrowed Consu technology in advance of a major attack to recapture Coral from the Rraey. Perry is instrumental in the successful outcome of the battle by capturing the technical manual for the Consu detection system (which was destroyed in the fighting), and saving Sagan's life after she is severely wounded. However, he never sees her again after delivering her to a shuttle which returns her to the secretive Ghost Brigades.

At the conclusion of the book, Perry is promoted to captain following his deeds at Coral and despite the separation, holds hope of reuniting with Sagan when their terms of service conclude.

Skip Drive

Old Man's War introduces a new form of FTL interstellar travel called a Skip Drive. The Skip Drive takes an object like a space ship, punches a hole in space, and places the object at its destination in a new, essentially identical universe. There are limits on the skip drive due to the characters not knowing all there is to know about how it works. The limitations are as follows:

The Colonial Union and other governments use devices called skip drones to communicate. These skip drones are essentially computers equipped with skip drives. A ship or satellite will launch one of these devices away from local gravity wells and skip to its target locale and upload its information to the local people.

More advanced races, notably the Consu, have a more complex understanding of skip drives and can even detect ships skipping into a system.

BrainPal

The BrainPal is a neural implant that allows members of the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) to send and receive data, including speech, battle plans and much more. CDF soldiers use their BrainPals to translate alien languages, watch classic cartoons, and read old books.

A BrainPal allows a CDF soldier to operate colonial technology by thought alone. A CDF rifle can only be used by someone with a BrainPal.

To the members of the Ghost Brigades the BrainPal does much much more: it provides a synthetic consciousness that allows the newborn soldiers to function until their own identities develop. This gives people who meet Special Forces the impression that they know everything. When presented with a situation that is unfamiliar to the newborn soldier, the BrainPal loads the relevant and important information directly into the mind at an amazing rate.

MP-35

The MP-35, also known as "empee", is the main infantry weapon used by the Colonial Defense Force (CDF). The weapon features self assembling and self repairing capabilities, the ability to interface with BrainPal, and ammunition composed of nano-robotic bullets able to transform immediately into any type of projectile desired, including bullets, incendiaries, explosives, and beams. These features make it superior to conventional weapon types, as it solves the problem of excessive weight associated with carrying multiple weapons, weapon jamming, and enemy use. The weapon proved to be very versatile and adaptable in the battlefield, as shown in Perry's first battle against the Consu where he took full advantage of the weapon's adaptability and used BrainPal to program a sequence of fire that exploited the enemies' weakness to win the battle.

Beanstalk

The beanstalk is a space elevator, built by the CDF, connecting Earth and the CDF space station. The space elevator, officially built to transport colonists and CDF recruits to space, displayed the CDF's power and technological prowess. To Earth's inhabitants, the space elevator defied physics and was extremely impractical. Henry hypothesized that the entire concept of the Beanstalk was taken from another alien species. In real life, John Scalzi notes that the feasibility and practical application of a space elevator is speculative.

Modified bodies and consciousness transfer

In the early days of human colonization it became clear that human soldiers were not cut out for fighting the endless hordes of alien aggressors.The spirit was willing, but the flesh was found wanting. Humans were not strong enough, tough enough or fast enough to compete with the countless xeno breeds that desired the eradication of the human race. Humanity was saved by two technologies: the ability to grow an engineered human body to maturity in a few months and the ability to transfer a consciousness from an old body to the new one (provided that the brains are identical). This tech is the foundation of the Colonial Defense Force, allowing them to recruit senior citizens from Earth and transfer their minds to new super-soldier bodies. The most noticeable features of the engineered bodies include chlorophyll enhanced dermis for energy absorption, the above-mentioned brainpal, yellow eyes that appear like a cat's eyes for enhanced vision.

Nanotechnology

The Colonial Defense Forces use nanotechnology in almost every aspect of their military operations. Combat armor is made from interlinked nanobots, medical nanobots perform surgeries and help to regrow limbs, and the very blood of the CDF soldier has been replaced by a nanotech solution called "smartblood" that does everything that blood can do, only better (such as holding one's breath for over six minutes), and a few things that blood can't do (like explode on command). The primary infantry weapon, the MP-35 or "empee", assembles its ammunition on demand from a block of raw materials (with six types of ammo: rifle, shot, grenade, missile, flamethrower and microwave beam), and can use its ammunition block for self-repair.

Consu

The Consu are a fierce, technologically advanced, and strongly religious alien race. They believe in helping deserving races reach "Ungkat", a state of perfection for a whole race. The Consu are the most advanced alien race presented in the Old Man's War. Unlike other alien species, the Consu do not fight for territory, but out of devotion to their religion. Their home world uses a dyson sphere around one of their suns to harness all energy leaving the dwarf star. This sphere that surrounds their home system is impenetrable to the weapons and technology of every other known species. They possess technology such as tachyon detectors that even the CDF can't reverse engineer or fully understand, which was the reason for the Consu being nearly invincible against the CDF. They are the only alien species able to do so. Because they are the most technologically advanced out of all the alien races presented in this book, when they fight battles, they use weapons technology similar to their opponent to keep the battles fair. They rarely meet with outsiders and any Consu that does meet with an outsider gets killed and shot into a black hole so that their atoms can't defile any other Consu. The Consus believe in staying pure from any lesser alien race than they, so they send criminals to meet with outsiders so that high ranking Consu don't have to be killed when the meeting is over and undesirable Consu can be killed instead.

Covandu

The Covandu are a liliputian species, the tallest only measuring an inch, but otherwise very similar to humans. Their aggression in colonizing planets is similar to humans' as well, sometimes causing conflict. One human colony was taken over by Covandu when it was abandoned due to a virus (which did not affect the Covandu). After developing a vaccine, humans returned to take it back by force.

They are gifted in the arts, specifically poetry and drama.

Rraey

The Rraey are a species described in Old Man's War as being considerably less advanced than the CDF. They consider humans as a part of a "balanced breakfast" and are even known to have celebrity chefs showing how to best butcher a human. They became a serious problem for the CDF after acquiring technology from the Consu to predict the trajectory of a vessel's skip drives, a feat that was previously considered impossible. The only physical description of them is a mention that they have a head and limbs and "muscular bird-like legs". They developed a craving for humans, going as far as creating many dishes for different parts of the body. They are a few decades behind the CDF in terms of technology and weaponry, but nonetheless, still considered a threat to the CDF. The skip drive detection device given to them by the Consu enabled them to wipe out an entire fleet of CDF ships without any casualties to their own.

Whaidian

The Whaidians are an alien species that have an appearance similar to that of a "cross between black bear and a large flying squirrel." Their home consists of small planets that are linked together. They are artistically gifted and are nearly as technologically advanced as the CDF. For this reason they are targeted by the CDF and their spaceport is completely destroyed by a fleet of CDF ships.

Themes

Old Man's War sits in the military science fiction genre but themes of the ethics of life extension, friendship, marriage, the significance of mortality, what makes one human, and individual identity are present within the novel. Aging plays its biggest role near the beginning of the novel with the CDF being able to find a way to reverse the effects of aging. The themes of marriage and friendship is explored in the characterization of John Perry through his continued love of him dead wife and his later meetings with Jane. When it comes to identity and humanity John Perry is the focus of attention and his characteristics by the end of the novel whether one believes John Perry is or is not human.

Scalzi states that he was influenced by Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and modeled his books format after Heinlein’s novels. He wanted to make the story as sympathetic as possible to the reader in which one can understand events such as being in a war.

Scalzi took what he learned about Heinlein and produced four lessons on how to create a novel centered on characters. These lessons are that a story should only exist for its characters, make room in the characters for the reader, make the characters talk like people, and make the characters act like people. His novel's themes were based on the four lessons in which to make a character as connectable as possible while still keeping his theme of space military.

Sequels

Appearances in other works

A character can be seen reading the book in an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate Universe, as a shout-out to Scalzi in his role as creative consultant on the show.

SyFy is planning to make a television series based in the OMW's universe.

Public reaction

Old Man's War was well received both domestically and globally. Many readers thought it to be a well-written and original piece of literature that avoided the major cliches of the science fiction genre. Old Man's War was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2006 but lost to the novel Spin, written by Robert Charles Wilson. Old Man's War was ranked #1 on a Tor.com reader poll as the best science fiction and fantasy novel of 2000–2010. In 2012 it was voted #1 on the Locus online reader poll for best science fiction novel of the 21st century, and in 2011, Old Man's War was listed 74th on the NPR.com reader poll of the Top 100 science fiction and fantasy books/series for 2011.