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.

This was a very interesting idea. When you hit 75 you can join the Colonial Defense Forces (outer space military) and they, theoretically, make you young again. Of course, there’s always more to it than that. The main character gets thrown into situations that he’s both very prepared for in one way but totally unprepared for in others. The relationships, mainly friendships, are interesting and I loved following the main group of old people in the novel. There were some unexpected moments, including what’s actually going on with the CDF and the soldiers in the main infantry and the special forces. There’s humor throughout and I found Scalzi’s writing style to be enjoyable. 

   This book wasn't for me.
   I'm a character driven reader and all the characters in this book were so one dimensional it hurted. Like, I get that the main focus of the story is the war, but some of the characters we spend more then half of the book with and they are as flat in the end as they were when first introduced and because of that I ended up not caring when someone died.
    The main character clearly had what I like to call "action anime male protagonist symbrome", with includes: plot armor so he doesn't die even when he should, being perfect in everything he tries to do and having hot woman interested in him just because. I didn't hate him, but I also didn't like him, he was just a bland protagonist. 
   Also, the author seems to be very confused on what type of book this is. He seens to be writing a fantasious story with unrealist alien science, with is totally fine, but then he tries to explain away the craziness like it is real Earth science and it gets really confusing. Especially because the tone of the story is all over the place, going from stupid jokes to action packed scene to stupid joke in the blink of an eye with paragrafs of science throw in the middle. 
    It poses some big questions, like: Is colonizing space by killing entire aliens species ethical? How much can you alter your body and self until you are no longer a human? Etc. However, those questions are never answered. The war is just there and that is not good considering that said war is the center of the plot.
   The only saving grace for me was Jane and her relationship with John. Wich didn't help much since she only shows up in the last, like, 10% of the story. Honestly, if the book was told from her perspective I would have enjoyed it more. The whole concept of the the Ghost Brigades was interesting, but,  unfortunately, not interesting enough to make keep reading the series.

While Old Man's War brought very little to the table in terms of new ideas to the sci-fi genre, it executed tropes well enough to remain enjoyable. The plot was a touch predictable, thanks to the numerous info dumps meant to hold your hand throughout the narrative, but the wit in the prose continued to hook me again and again.

If you are giving this book a shot and find yourself struggling in the beginning, the story drags its feet (imo) until about 60% into the story. Then it actually gets interesting beyond the whole training montage sequence the story is up until then. At the same time, the fact it took THAT long for me to finally not put the book down isn't great, either.

There's more to this series, but I'm not really jumping to find out what's next. Maybe I will someday. For now, I'm content with what I read and shall move along.