Reviews with content warning for Violence - Vanamehe sõda

Part 1 is interesting with the premise of transferring an old person's conciousness into a younger body in order to live the rest of their years young, fighting in a galactic interspecies war. I'm more interested in these scifi aging processess than the war.

However, there are underlying racists themes and very clear antagonizing of the opponent, altough the sole reason for war seems to be to fight for habitable territory on planets all over the space, even though humans like to stay mostly on planet Earth.

The second part begins with an army initiation into the warfare, and I lost interest by the first introductory sequence. Strict hierarchy and very authoritarian superiors seem to make me lose my interest; the scifi aspects are put on the back burner to dive deeper into the war aspect of the story. The scale of these two subjects just tipped so that the plot doesn't interest me enough to continue further.

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meimayy's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

John Perry with the dry humour, signs up to be a soldier out there in the dangerous universe, where one can only expect the unexpected. I can appreciate the non-sugarcoated action.

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theycallmespinthia's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.25

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chigh's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I started reading Scalzi with Starter Villain, which I loved it's hilarious, light-hearted, supervillain story. To see if I liked Scalzi's writing further, I decided to go with the Old Man's War series. I'm not sure that was a good decision. That statement is not a reflection upon this book.

It's a pretty good book. I at least superficially liked the characters with in it. I'm not one to overly like war/military stories, but I did choose to read it). I didn't like the Full Metal Jacket cliché of "boot camp". But I did like the story of taking "elderly" people and giving them new life and putting them in new situations. I would like to have seen more, intentionally diverse characters in main roles and more interactions between them rather than battle scenes. Perhaps it's what they've been through that makes the characters, but we'll never know because it wasn't written that way.

Because this series name is the same as this book, if it continues with nothing but war and battle, I may lose interest. I'd prefer conflict of a different nature.

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No

2.0

This is my second book by John Scalzi and I’m beginning to think that they are not the author for me. Their humor makes me cringe in secondhand embarrassment and I’m pretty sure it is not meant to have that effect.

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katy_bee's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Scalzi has become one of my go-to authors for good easy reads. This one has echoes of the Forever War and there's a fair amount of the inhumanity of war but it's lighter in tone with more humour. I just enjoy being along for the ride

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eliaa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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