Review of "Old Man's War Boxed Set I: Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony" on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I don't read many series because I have completionist tendencies (hell, I can barely convince myself to DNF a book I'm actively hating), but I'm slowly coming around to trying a few out. I also wanted to try dipping back into military sci-fi which I read a lot of in my early twenties, so this book was killing two birds with one stone with respect to my reading goals.
The premise alone was enough to get my interest; a space military organization only accepts new recruits that are at least 75-years-old, whisking them away to undergo some mystery medical treatment and then off to the front-lines fighting literal aliens, never to return back to earth. As you progress through the story it kinda feels like the idea of an army made up of old people came first and the (to me, weak) justification came afterwards, but whatever. This book definitely …
I don't read many series because I have completionist tendencies (hell, I can barely convince myself to DNF a book I'm actively hating), but I'm slowly coming around to trying a few out. I also wanted to try dipping back into military sci-fi which I read a lot of in my early twenties, so this book was killing two birds with one stone with respect to my reading goals.
The premise alone was enough to get my interest; a space military organization only accepts new recruits that are at least 75-years-old, whisking them away to undergo some mystery medical treatment and then off to the front-lines fighting literal aliens, never to return back to earth. As you progress through the story it kinda feels like the idea of an army made up of old people came first and the (to me, weak) justification came afterwards, but whatever. This book definitely has big "first in a series" vibes though, because damn near the first two thirds of the book is just worldbuilding and training montages; we're well past the halfway point before anything resembling a central conflict shows up.
This book also came across as explicitly pro-military and anti-diplomacy with about the subtlety of an elephant. But, it was fun. Sure, I more or less correctly guessed the big reveal of how senior citizens were turned into supersoldiers, and the lifelong civilians transitioned into hardened infantrymen way faster than I found believable. But we got cool descriptions of aliens and multiple over-the-top battle scenes à la Starship Troopers or Halo that scratched an itch I didn't know I've been sitting on. Interesting ethical scenarios occasionally flashed across the pages, but they were whisked away by the next action scene as soon as they came up.
To me, this was a, "turn your brain off and have fun" kind of book, which sometimes is just what you need.
