(no subject)
It's 8:30am and I just got home from the overnight ferry journey. I need to get something off my mind, but no one is around to listen, so this journal gets it for others to perhaps read later.
------
Recently, I read a book named Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. I've had it since Christmas, but didn't get around to reading it until now. The book is, to me, one of the best science fiction novels around. It paints a vivid picture of life in some future or another, where Humanity has colonized other worlds, and come into contact with hundreds of alien species. All are vying for what few habitable worlds there are, only a handful allied to Humanity in any manner. Earth is but a backwater, used for recruiting the elderly into the Colonial Defence Forces (CDF). 75 year old people from all of Earth's wealthy countries are recruited, and then their minds transferred into new, genetically-enhanced bodies, before shipping off to training. The elderly are used because they have life experience, something that the CDF finds invaluable.
The book focuses upon the life of one John Perry and his joining the CDF, speaking from the first person and leading through recruitment, training, and several battles to the point where he is promoted to Captain and given any choice of assignments, whilst pining for the complicated almost-clone of his dead wife, who is part of the CDF Special Forces, and thus difficult to find after he saves her life in a battle. This makes the book end on a sad note, given the main character's woes, but not a bad one. The book was still fantastic.
Yesterday, I acquired the sequel, The Ghost Brigades, and read it in 8 hours flat. It was more of the same, although from the third-person perspective of a Special Forces soldier named Jared Dirac. Life fighting aliens and their attempts to destroy Humanity, whilst racing to capture a single traitorous scientist, who Jared happened to be a genetically-enhanced clone of, complete with his dormant consciousness. Over time, this consciousness integrated with Jared's, and he came to have understanding, or so he thought, as to why this scientist was a traitor. The reader is led to accept this to, and to understand it's validity as a reason for doing what he's doing, whilst leaving some questions open.
Really, I would have preferred those questions left open. The book takes a turn in the final two chapters or so, becoming heavy as all the beliefs the reader has had about the Colonial Defence Forces, it's government the Colonial Union, and the universe are generally blown to shit. What was a rosy picture of Humanity fighting to claim it's place in the Universe is melted, turned sour by revelations as Jared meets the scientist that has engineered the plot's major problems. Readers are forced to come to terms with the loss of this rosiness, a darkness in it's place. The Colonial Union is not nearly as noble as thought. The book ends on a grim note, the complicated nearly-clone from the first book adopting the daughter of the now-dead scientist/mastermind and is given freedom to join John Perry, who makes only cursory mentions in The Ghost Brigades, as they become the leaders of a new colony. This is, in reality, a way to get rid of the nearly-clone as she knows too much by the end of the book, becoming a risk to the Colonial Union, risking that rosiness that surrounds the Colonial Union, as far as the rest of Humanity is concerned. This leaves the setup for the third novel, which I own, The Last Colony.
I miss that rosiness, to be honest, and this is the point of the post. I am bothered, far more than I would like to be, by the way the writer destroys this and reveals grim truth to the matter. I preferred the Starship Troopers-esque nobility in Humanity's fight, and miss it dearly. What the writer has done is really quite an amazing piece of writing in how it takes the reader by surprise, even as it seems so cliché, but I feel like I can't forgive this travesty. I have, strangely, become scared of reading the third book, for fear that even what little nobility remains in the existence of John Perry is destroyed too. I really rather wouldn't like to add John Perry to the list of casualties, alongside 'Colonial Rosiness'.
I can't say, really, why it bothers me quite so much, but it has been on my mind for nearly 12 hours now, since I finished that second book, and kept me relatively on edge, strangely. I will, likely, cave in and read the third book at some point, but that won't replace what has been effectively stolen from me. A sci-fi fantasy world to which I could sink into and admire...
------
I feel better after getting that off my chest.
------
Recently, I read a book named Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. I've had it since Christmas, but didn't get around to reading it until now. The book is, to me, one of the best science fiction novels around. It paints a vivid picture of life in some future or another, where Humanity has colonized other worlds, and come into contact with hundreds of alien species. All are vying for what few habitable worlds there are, only a handful allied to Humanity in any manner. Earth is but a backwater, used for recruiting the elderly into the Colonial Defence Forces (CDF). 75 year old people from all of Earth's wealthy countries are recruited, and then their minds transferred into new, genetically-enhanced bodies, before shipping off to training. The elderly are used because they have life experience, something that the CDF finds invaluable.
The book focuses upon the life of one John Perry and his joining the CDF, speaking from the first person and leading through recruitment, training, and several battles to the point where he is promoted to Captain and given any choice of assignments, whilst pining for the complicated almost-clone of his dead wife, who is part of the CDF Special Forces, and thus difficult to find after he saves her life in a battle. This makes the book end on a sad note, given the main character's woes, but not a bad one. The book was still fantastic.
Yesterday, I acquired the sequel, The Ghost Brigades, and read it in 8 hours flat. It was more of the same, although from the third-person perspective of a Special Forces soldier named Jared Dirac. Life fighting aliens and their attempts to destroy Humanity, whilst racing to capture a single traitorous scientist, who Jared happened to be a genetically-enhanced clone of, complete with his dormant consciousness. Over time, this consciousness integrated with Jared's, and he came to have understanding, or so he thought, as to why this scientist was a traitor. The reader is led to accept this to, and to understand it's validity as a reason for doing what he's doing, whilst leaving some questions open.
Really, I would have preferred those questions left open. The book takes a turn in the final two chapters or so, becoming heavy as all the beliefs the reader has had about the Colonial Defence Forces, it's government the Colonial Union, and the universe are generally blown to shit. What was a rosy picture of Humanity fighting to claim it's place in the Universe is melted, turned sour by revelations as Jared meets the scientist that has engineered the plot's major problems. Readers are forced to come to terms with the loss of this rosiness, a darkness in it's place. The Colonial Union is not nearly as noble as thought. The book ends on a grim note, the complicated nearly-clone from the first book adopting the daughter of the now-dead scientist/mastermind and is given freedom to join John Perry, who makes only cursory mentions in The Ghost Brigades, as they become the leaders of a new colony. This is, in reality, a way to get rid of the nearly-clone as she knows too much by the end of the book, becoming a risk to the Colonial Union, risking that rosiness that surrounds the Colonial Union, as far as the rest of Humanity is concerned. This leaves the setup for the third novel, which I own, The Last Colony.
I miss that rosiness, to be honest, and this is the point of the post. I am bothered, far more than I would like to be, by the way the writer destroys this and reveals grim truth to the matter. I preferred the Starship Troopers-esque nobility in Humanity's fight, and miss it dearly. What the writer has done is really quite an amazing piece of writing in how it takes the reader by surprise, even as it seems so cliché, but I feel like I can't forgive this travesty. I have, strangely, become scared of reading the third book, for fear that even what little nobility remains in the existence of John Perry is destroyed too. I really rather wouldn't like to add John Perry to the list of casualties, alongside 'Colonial Rosiness'.
I can't say, really, why it bothers me quite so much, but it has been on my mind for nearly 12 hours now, since I finished that second book, and kept me relatively on edge, strangely. I will, likely, cave in and read the third book at some point, but that won't replace what has been effectively stolen from me. A sci-fi fantasy world to which I could sink into and admire...
------
I feel better after getting that off my chest.