I hate to be that guy, but don’t judge this book by its cover. The art is lovely enough, so I mean no offense to the artist when I say that this, like so many sci-fi covers, looks like it’s gonna be capital S serious. Red alerts in deep space and stoic men and nary a woman in sight. If you’ve read any Scalzi, you know it won’t be, but if I were a new reader, this would not be a book I’d pick up immediately. […]
Scalzi Gon’ Scalzi: Funny, Thought-Provoking, Occasionally Profound
In last year’s CBR I reviewed Old Man’s War, the first book in an NYT best-selling sci-fi series by John Scalzi. The gist of the first book was that when you reached a certain AARP-like age on Earth, you could enlist in the space marines to protect humanity from…something. You’d take an elevator up to space, and then you weren’t quite sure what came next. You were legally dead on Earth. That’s kind of all you as a space marine cadet knew. Without spoiling the first […]
What Does Humanity Mean?
You can pick up any reasonably well written book and make a case for it being an exploration of what it means to be human, the state of humanity, or the universal truth of the human condition. Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series is very definitely asking what defines humanity. In the universe of the Old Man’s War series, Scalzi pushes the envelope of humanity. Colonial Defense Force soldiers are created when In The Last Colony, we return to the protagonist of Old Man’s War, John […]
Fucking Humans
John Scalzi has created a fascinating sci-fi universe in his Old Man’s War series. The Ghost Brigades is as much a horror story as a sci-fi adventure. Scalzi references Frankenstein repeatedly as he plants questions about the boundaries of being human, the ethics of creating life, corporate control, and who we consider monsters. Scalzi presents some interesting and deep questions, but ultimately sidesteps the more problematic answers by wrapping up his stories with happyish endings. Which is fine. These days I’m reading for neater resolutions and happier endings. […]
I Will Never Feel Bad About Loving a Mary Sue Again
Last night I had my first John Scalzi dream, borrowing from Lock In, Redshirts, and Old Man’s War. My consciousness has just been downloaded into a body, and I am standing on a cliff overlooking a harbor. There’s another person sitting in a machine gun nest in front of me telling me that “he” is on the boat just docking (I’ve also been watching Shetland, so we’re all speaking with Scottish accents and the landscape is bleak and beautiful). Because I am a John Scalzi hero, […]
My Dream Blend of Sci-Fi
John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War has everything I want out of science fiction: space battles, politics, religion, cosmologies to make you think about your own preconceptions, and heart. If you aren’t familiar with this modern classic, OMW centers around John Perry, an old man nearing the end of his life. In the OMW world, once you hit a ripe old age you can enlist in the space marines. You are legally dead once you enlist, and you never come back to Earth. You say your goodbyes and head […]