Old Man, Look At Me Now

So I have managed to climb a bit higher up Mount Toberead and knocked off in fairly quick succession several tales by a hot "new" writer, John Scalzi. The next Philip K. Dick? The next Robert A. Heinlein? Let's see...

Old Man's War (Tor Books, 2005, ISBN 0-765-30940-8. Cover by Donato Giancola).

The Ghost Brigades (Tor Books, 2006, ISBN 0-765-31502-5. Cover by John Harris).

The Sagan Diary (Subterranean Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59606-117-0. Cover by Bob Eggleton).

The Last Colony (Tor Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7653-1697-4. Cover by John Harris).

I put quotes around "new" as while Scalzi is relatively new to the science fiction genre, he has been active in various media for a number of years and has one of the more popular websites around, Whatever. In reading these books, it is obvious that he is well practiced at the craft of writing, and I look forward to reading the final book in this sequence (I'll modify this review when I do) as well as the other two books I have by him: a novel named The Android's Dream and the essay collection You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing.

Old Man's War opens the sequence. John Perry is at the end of his life...on Earth. Several years earlier he had signed up with the Colonial Defense Forces, when he reached 75, it was time to start his enlistment. Using advanced technology, he is "born" again in a modified body and helps to protect Earth's colonies from a wide-ranging group of aliens who either want our real estate or want to harvest us for dinner.

Sounds like a remake of such classics as Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers (hence the comparison between Scalzi and Heinlein that I often hear), or Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, or even lesser-known classics as the works of David Drake or John Steakley's Armor. There's plenty of combat action, nifty technology (nanotechnology, space elevators and FTL spaceships), and tight plotting.

However the strength of the book lies in its characters. John Perry, for one, and the love of his deceased wife, Kathy, for another. Then there's Jane Sagan, a member of the CDF's Special Forces, who is the genetic image of Perry's deceased wife. The relationship between these is wonderfully drawn and is the power of the book.

(In an amusing aside...either I missed it completely or Scalzi does not describe what the CDF wears until the second book. The BrainPal is described—a brain enhancement that allows soldiers to talk with each other and other abilities, the modified bodies are described—but, I swear for most of the book I was imagining these soldiers fighting...nude!)

The Ghost Brigades moves the action to the CDF's Special Forces. Part of the focus is on Jane Sagan, but most of the book revolves around Jared Dirac. Dirac is a special SF soldier. He had the memories and personality of a colonial traitor dumped into him in the hopes that the traitor's whereabouts could be learned. That did not (appear) to work, so the worry is that the personality might manifest itself (and at an inopportune moment). Dirac joins a SF team and participates in a number of actions that eventually leads to his confrontation with the source of his hidden memories, Charles Boutin. Boutin helped to design the BrainPal that all the CDF's soldiers use and Boutin is working against the Colonial Union.

As with Old Man's War, the book has some nice technology (and we finally learn that the soldiers are clothed!), more detail on the aliens and the Colonial Union, etc. The real strength, again, are the characters, especially those of Jared Dirac and an alien who helps (at first, reluctantly), Cainen. An excellent read, even better than the first jaunt.

The jacket flap for The Sagan Diary describes it as "long novelette". At what point does a long novelette become a short novel? I'm tagging this one both as en entry for the Year in Books, but also as an entry in the Year in Shorts (hey, if you don't like it, get your own blog!)

Scalzi took a completely different approach with this story than the two earlier tales. Set around the end of The Ghost Brigades and before the end of the trilogy, The Last Colony, each chapter revolves around one subject (Fear, Age, Sex) and is an internal dialog/memory of Jane Sagan, a character from the three books of the trilogy. As I read it, I was struck by a memory of another book I had read long ago. Was John Scalzi influenced or inspired by Khalil Gibran's short work The Prophet?

It's a short work, and a very intensely personal work. You may find it difficult to find, but hunt it down. A lot of what is said there can apply to all of us, beyond characters on a page.

(More to come, when I get to The Last Colony.)