Another book review...

Here comes another attempt to get you people out from in front of your TV's and computer monitors with another wonderful, insightful, eye opening Fusion's book review!!!!

Today Ill be discussing John socializes Old Man's War. At first this book seems like your typical Sci-fi spacefairing Starship Troopers knock off. After about the first 30 pages of the book you see this is pretty far from the truth. I guess Ill start with the set up of the book.

In the future (the book never actually tells you how far in the future) humans have expanded to the stars and started colonizing other planets with the advent of skip drive technology. One thing which humans quickly discover however throws a monkeywrench in the colonization plans: The galaxy is FULL. Most of the planets which can be inhabited by humans are already taken so if we want to expand we have only one choice: Take the planets by force. Enter the Colonial Defense Force. These guys are the ass kickers and the name takers of human space fairing forces. Sounds familiar correct? Well not really, because the CDF only recruit's people over the age of 75. So how does an army of 75 year old humans conquer alien races? Well they have their consciences transplanted into the genetically-altered-super-soldier-bodies. The book explains why geriatrics are used for this and it seems to flow nicely with the the storyline.

One of the things which the description on the cover mentions and which I at first was worried would ruin the book was the somewhat muddled morality which is the nature of conflict. Is it right for humans to wipe out entire species of aliens just so we can colonize another planet to expand the human empire? Make no mistakes this book points out many times that we ARE NOT the good guys in the galaxy. We are the invaders, the monsters coming in from outer space to crush your civilization and take your planet as our own. Honestly I loved this underlying theme of humans representing the very thing we think of as evil. What makes it work nicely is that the book doesn't club you over the head with it. The main character ponders these thoughts but never gets too bitchy about it.

As for the rest of the book you have a cast of sympathetic characters, combat, typical sci-fi techno-speak, interesting aliens and enough gut and gore to keep anyone interested. This book has me so engrossed I read it from front to back in 1 day. Its not overly long and the sequel to it just came out a few weeks ago. So get out there and do some reading you computer nerds!!!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765309408/103-0804588-7445412?v=glance&n=283155