The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.
Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.
John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.
First paragraphs of a book are supposed to hook the reader. Here is the first line from Old Man's War: "I did two things on my seventy-firth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army."
That grabbed me and from that point on I had a hard time putting the book down.
The story is told in first person by John Perry, is well thought-out and extremely imaginative. Although the story does start a little slow, it was still interesting to read and was needed to show how the CDF turns old people into warriors. There are twists and turns throughout.
This is the first part of what looks to be an ongoing series. So far, there are six more books in the series after this one, all of which I plan to read in the future as I am curious as to just how mankind's future will end up for John Perry.
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