Old Man's War (Old Man's War, 1) - Softcover

Scalzi, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765315246 ISBN 13: 9780765315243

Publisher: Tor Books, 2005

Synopsis

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.

Old Man's War Series
#1 Old Man’s War
#2 The Ghost Brigades
#3 The Last Colony
#4 Zoe’s Tale
#5 The Human Division
#6 The End of All Things
Short fiction: “After the Coup”

Other Tor Books
The Android’s Dream
Agent to the Stars
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded
Fuzzy Nation
Redshirts
Lock In
The Collapsing Empire (forthcoming)

About this title

About the Author:

John Scalzi won the 2006 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and Old Man's War, his debut novel, was a finalist for science fiction's Hugo Award. His other books include The Ghost Brigades, The Android's Dream and The Last Colony. He has won the Hugo Award, the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for science-fiction, the Seiun, The Kurd Lasswitz and the Geffen awards. His weblog, Whatever, is one of the most widely-read web sites in modern SF. Born and raised in California, Scalzi studied at the University of Chicago. He lives in southern Ohio with his wife and daughter.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

“In this room right now are 1,022 recruits,“ Lt. Colonel Higgee said. “Two years from today, 400 of you will be dead.”

Higgee stood in the front of the theater, again. This time, he had a backdrop: Beta Pyxis III floated behind him, a massive marble streaked with blue, white, green and brown

“In the third year,“ he continued, “another 100 of you will die. Another 150 in years four and five. After ten years -- and yes, recruits, you will most likely be required to serve a full ten years -- 750 of you have been killed in the line of duty. Three quarters of you, gone. These have been the survival statistics -- not just for the last ten or twenty years, but for the over two hundred years the Colonial Defense Forces have been active.”

There was dead silence.

“I know what you’re thinking right now, because I was thinking it when I was in your place,“ Lt. Colonel Higgee said. “You’re thinking -- what the hell am I doing here? This guy is telling me I’m going to be dead in ten years! But remember that back home, you most likely would have been dead in ten years, too -- frail and old, dying a useless death. You may die in the Colonial Defense Forces. You probably will die in the Colonial Defense Forces. But your death will not be a useless one. You’ll have died to keep humanity alive in our universe.”

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0765315246
• ISBN 13: 9780765315243
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320