Recently I have been mostly reading John Scalzi - I started with Old Man's War which I loved and then quickly followed it up with The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony. Old Man's War is considered to be his debut novel but I've also read Agent to the Stars which Scalzi released as shareware back in 1997.
I like my scifi with a hard science edge (which is probably why I'm not a huge fan of fantasy, with the honourable exception of the Riftwar Saga) and Scalzi delivers this by making the technology and science believable whilst not getting bogged down in the detail. The characters are well fleshed out and I felt that I knew and liked John Perry, the main protagonist.
Scalzi writes with a dark humour that makes his characters very 3 dimensional and his stories have believable aliens that remain alien, but do become understandable.
My favourite kind of alien.
My favourite kind of alien.
The Amazon UK Product Description for Old Man's War:
"With his wife dead and buried, and life nearly over at 75, John Perry takes the only logical course of action left: he joins the army. Now better known as the Colonial Defense Force (CDF), Perry's service-of-choice has extended its reach into interstellar space to pave the way for human colonization of other planets while fending off marauding aliens.
The CDF has a trick up its sleeve that makes enlistment especially enticing for seniors: the promise of restoring their youth. After bonding with a group of fellow recruits who dub their clique the Old Farts, Perry finds himself in a new body crafted from his original DNA and upgraded for battle, including a brain-implanted computer. But all too quickly the Old Farts are separated, and Perry must fight for his life on various alien-infested battlegrounds."
'Scalzi's astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master, Robert A. Heinlein' Publishers Weekly
'Delivers fast-paced scenes of combat, and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise' San Francisco Chronicle
The CDF has a trick up its sleeve that makes enlistment especially enticing for seniors: the promise of restoring their youth. After bonding with a group of fellow recruits who dub their clique the Old Farts, Perry finds himself in a new body crafted from his original DNA and upgraded for battle, including a brain-implanted computer. But all too quickly the Old Farts are separated, and Perry must fight for his life on various alien-infested battlegrounds."
'Scalzi's astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master, Robert A. Heinlein' Publishers Weekly
'Delivers fast-paced scenes of combat, and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise' San Francisco Chronicle
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