A while ago at Stainlesssteeldroppings, Carl mentioned a book with an intriguing title- You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop To A Coffeeshop- Scalzi on Writing by John Scalzi. There was even a link to this Scalzi character's blog. Sadly I learned the book had a limited run of 500 copies but I also learned Whatever is a great blog. Eventually Scalzi authorized a second run of 500 copies of the book so I scooped one up. I read it after Christmas and it was great. So I bought two of his novels. At the same time I picked up a copy of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, thanks largely again to Carl who recently reviewed it glowingly.
All that is a long-winded way of saying that I read Ender's Game and Old Man's War this week and loved them both. On the surface they have similar plots occupying opposite ends of a spectrum- one is about a little child (Ender) thrust into training for war, and the other is about an old man who joins the army at 75.
Ender is a sad book and you really feel for little Ender who really gets put through the ringer, deliberately, in order to make him a better military leader. Does Ender want to be a better military leader? Of course not, he just wants to be left alone to be a kid. So you sympathize with him and watch in horror as he is turned into a monster. I won't say much more if you haven't read this classic (came out in 1977 same year as Star Wars) but I will say the ending is one of the best endings ever. And I mean the very end, not the climax, which is also good. Oh yeah, and another thing which was cool was how close Card (or do you call him Scott Card?) came to getting the internet right.
Old Man's War is meant to be much more fun, and it is, but I will also admit that I teared up in a few places with this one whereas I didn't with Ender. Mostly because marriage has turned me into a big softie and I cry whenever someone loses a spouse on tv now. Don't tell anyone. And Old Man's War is predicated on the old man joining the army because his wife is dead and there's not really anything else to do. Luckily there's lots of fantastically weird alien baddies and fast-paced action since I'm pretty sure that military SciFi is not known for its tearjerker qualities.