I guess my problem with Old Man’s War was that I expected more from a Hugo Award nominee. If that book is an example of what is considered top drawer sci-fi anymore, that’s sad commentary.
To me, the trouble with the read was that it wasn’t any one particular type of book. A lot of it read like an attempt at light humor sci-fi (à la Stainless Steel Rat), some of it read like an attempt at serious commentary (à la Heinlein/Asimov/Niven), and some of it read like an attempt to skewer other authors’ attempts at both. In the midst of a seemingly serious section of the book, you get this silly scene about how they learn about what one much more advanced race did to help their adversaries, which plays out like a ridiculous comedy minus the funny bits. The plot is entirely predictable, yet nothing is truly “resolved” at the end of the novel (I won’t spoil why). It’s just a very pedestrian attempt at too many things, none of which it does all that well.
And, of course, it has the almost obligatory sex scene that is a staple of male-written sci-fi since back in the 40s. It’s like he had a check-list and said, “oh, yeah, have to turn on the sci-fi fan-boi nerds.”
I kept waiting for the plot to get really good, because the idea is certainly interesting. I waited all the way to the end, and got for my trouble about four hours of so-so entertainment.
Is this really the best that modern Sci-fi can manage? This guy’s got what, four Hugo nominations for novels, one of which he won (Redshirts)? Are the others that much better?
It’s no wonder I keep going back and re-reading my old science fiction books. <sigh>
Agent to the Stars is available free at Scalzi’s website, which you linked to, and also here, which is where I found it. I tried to read it but didn’t get very far. But then for some reason I got the audio version (read by Wil Wheaton) and really enjoyed it. It’s a pretty good first contact story, with humor, but not just played for laughs. Wheaton’s performance somehow brought out the humor and made me relate to the protagonist, or at least got me far enough into it so that Scalzi could do so. Since then, the Wil Wheaton audiobooks have been my preferred way of experiencing Scalzi. I agree with those who have said that his stuff is entertaining, fairly light and easy science fiction and that his essays/blog posts are well worth reading.
Never read “Old Man’s War”, but I’ve I’ve read four books by Scalzi that I’ve enjoyed. He’s more of a light, breezy SF writer than a deep serious one.
Redshirts: This is the one he one the Hugo for, but IIRC it happened in a year with a weak field. It’s a very fun read that starts as a sendup of Star Trek and sci-fi TV shows and then gets very meta and even poignant.
Locked-In (and it’s followup Head-Off): SF noir mysteries set in a near future. The world premise is that about 2-3% of the world population has been afflicted with an incurable neurological disease that causes its victims to total control of their bodily functions and leave them trapped coma-like in their bodies, but fully conscious (aka Locked In). The Locked In basically live online in cyberspace, but can also download their consciousness into an android body. The protagonist is the first Locked-In FBI agent in a unit that specialized in crimes involving Locked-In.
The Collapsing Empire: His most recent work, and the second volume is due out in a few months. It’s Scalzi’s attempt at writing a more serious, hard sci-fi work alone the lines of more recent Hugo winners The Collapsing Empire and The Broken Earth.
I like Old Man’s War. It had an interesting premise for how the society managed it’s military. The strategic pieces were solid; he mostly avoided the oversimplistic tropes that are common in the supposed alien threat. He sucked at making the tactical level interesting, suspenseful or organically support the broader story. I ended up just skimming those parts for the shoehorned in pieces needed for the bigger, ongoing plotline.
ISTR later hearing he picked military sci-fi for his first attempt at publishing a novel based on market perceptions. I’m not sure if he did but it certainly felt like a real possibility.
I made it into the third or fourth in the series before I quit mid-book. IMO they dropped off steadily after the first.
^This. It’s the only thing other than the Old Man’s War books I’ve read by him. It was decent and kind of fun. It was an idea that at the time I just assumed he picked from conversations over drinks at a convention. He was just the guy who finally turned it into a published book.
I don’t have a strong opinion either way on Scalzi. He turns out solid, but not great, work. If the premise is interesting enough his name won’t turn me off a book. I don’t go out of my way to look for his stuff though.
Wow, it would have been a lot funnier in the 1980’s or 1990’s. It felt so old and worn out and had no interesting turns. I laughed a couple times, but it was only OK for me.
This is what I was thinking, too. Cute, but not enough to continue.
DSYoung, Scalzi isn’t the best that modern SF has to offer–as long as by “the best” you don’t mean “fun popcorn reading.” I read every new Scalzi book as soon as I see it, but he’s not doing anything special, just writing entertaining stories.
You looking for something truly innovative? If you want hard SF, try Ancillary Justice. If you’re willing to go a helluva lot less hard, but want something even better, try The Fifth Season. If you’re just wanting amazing ideas and don’t care too much about character, try The Three Body Problem.
None of these have the caramel popcorn joy of a Scalzi novel, but all of them grapple with ideas in the best SF traditions.
For what it is worth, I did pick up and read Redshirts. I found it to be a moderately interesting book, nothing special. It was at its best in the “climax”, but slow and not all that funny for most of the first half. I’ve read many works in science fiction that aspire to the funny which were better-written. And I’ve read light-hearted works with a serious message that were also better-written.
If I was still a SFBC member, and these works popped out of the box as monthly selections, I wouldn’t be upset. But I certainly agree that they are not top-of-the-line science fiction by anyone’s standards (I hope!). No, not everyone can be Ursula K. LeGuin. But when one looks at the list of Hugo winners and nominees from 1960 through 1989, it is clear that really good science fiction was not that unusual back then.
LHOD, I shall try your suggestions. I’m retired; reading time is greatly expanded. I’d love to find some real decent options for science fiction.
I read Forever War as something of a reaction to Starship Troopers, rather than a plagiarism of it; in light of the author’s (Haldeman) own service in the Vietnam Way.
Back to Scalzi, I really enjoyed Redshirts. It is fun, more than funny, and there is enough substance to make me think a little. *Collapsing Empire * was pretty good too.
Awesome, and I’d love to hear what you think. Personally I think we’re in one of SF’s strongest periods: there are a lot of writers doing really interesting work in a lot of subgenres, from New Weird (look up Jeff van der Meer if you’re interested in the stuff) to Space Opera (James SA Corey is rockin’ it) to more cerebral stuff like Ann Leckie’s or China Mieville’s or, if you stretch the SF definition a little, NK Jemisin. I don’t know that any of them are as consistently amazing as Le Guin, but I’m kind of a fanboy there :).
One of his newer books, The Dispatcher, is more of the “your world, with one change” type wrapped up in a noir type tale. In this case, the one change is that homicide victims disappear and instantly reappear, naked and unhurt, back in their homes. No one understands how or why, but everyone needs to deal with it. The dispatcher of the title has the licensed and certified job killing people who are about to die for other reasons. Insurance companies require dispatchers be present in any risky surgery, for example.
Scalzi writes most of his books in the first person. I find that how much I enjoy that kind of writing depends a lot on the character telling the story. I like and relate to Scalzi’z protagonists, which keeps me engaged in the stories.
I loved “Lock In” and am saving the sequel for a rainy day. He did a series of parallel world (IIRC, “The Merchant Princes” novels) that he ruined with hysterical political rant as a deus ex machina*, but he’s on a second series in the same multiverse that people tell me is a lot better.
Redshirts is great too.
Even when I disagree with him, I usually enjoy reading his essays (even the ever-so-smarmy “White privilege is like you’re playing a video game with cheat codes while everyone else plays on the toughest setting” one. I think/thought the analogy was stupid beyond words, but it was thoughtful enough that it make me try to think of a better analogy which did help me grasp the concept a lot more. )
*This will ruin the first six books. It quite literally ends with an anti-Bush/Cheney screed where they (probably correctly, given the story, IMHO) nuke the shit out of the parallel world. And if it was just a snotty off-hand line about them, I’d ignore it. But it’s like an Ayn Rand screed where he Just! Won’t! Shut! Up! about his hobbyhorse.
:: bangs head on desk :: Mea culpa. I ‘discovered’ both authors at the same time and (to me, they have very similar prose styles) and I always get them mixed up. My apologies for any confusion. :smack:
That said, Stross has a crazy-brilliant series called “The Laundry Files” which mixes James Bond with the Chtulhu mythos. Highly recommended