Old Man's War

Content Ratings

Moderate Romance

Perry's relationship with a CDF soldier who resembles his deceased wife forms a significant emotional and romantic arc; physical intimacy is depicted with moderate directness within the context of their developing relationship.

Moderate Themes

The novel explores identity continuity after radical bodily transformation, grief and its relationship to memory, and the moral ambiguity of colonial warfare waged for human survival at the expense of alien civilizations.

High Violence

Military combat against multiple alien species is depicted with visceral, detailed descriptions of soldiers being killed and killing; the novel does not flinch from the brutality of interstellar warfare.

Synopsis

At age seventy-five, John Perry enlists in the Colonial Defense Forcesâ€”who recruit only the elderlyâ€”and receives a new engineered combat body, discovering that humanity is engaged in a brutal and constant war for habitable planets across the galaxy. Fast-paced, funny, and emotionally smart, the novel is an affectionate engagement with Heinlein's military science fiction tradition that also grapples seriously with mortality, identity, and the cost of war. A massively entertaining debut.