Space Opera Fans discussion

Just what the title says, I can't figure out what makes Old Man's War so very readable and I want to know what the secret sauce is.
I realize most people will disagree with me, but I actually thought this wasn't a very well written book. The plot and characterizations were very lazy. But with all that I found the book hard to put down and breezed through it in a couple of afternoons. So what do you think? What makes Old Man's War so attractive and easy to read?

Jonathan wrote: "Just what the title says, I can't figure out what makes Old Man's War so very readable and I want to know what the secret sauce is.
I realize most people will disagree with me, but I actually thou..."

It's been 10 years since I read it Jonathan, and although I gave it 4 stars, I can't remember a great deal about it. If I remember correctly my reaction was slightly different from yours - I started with very low expectations, but enjoyed it enough to buy and read the next couple in the series (rating them 3 and 4 stars).

Because you've asked the question, and because I thoroughly enjoyed his website post two days ago ("What I'm expecting from the new administration"), I'm planning to re-read Old Man's War as soon as I finish Surface Detail.

I read it in 2011, and gave it 4 stars but didn’t do a review of it. I gave the two sequels 3 stars.

Aha, this group discussed the book in 2014 (I joined it in 2015). Link to that discussion is
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

In a word, flow.

Scalzi has mastered the art of one sentence leading to the next and the next and the next. Before you know it you’ve read 10 chapters. Not many people talk about this skill, but it’s an important one that few authors have. Stephen King has it in spades. Even when their books are objectively bad, such as Scalzi’s Lock In or King’s Fairy Tale, the easy readability due to the story’s flow makes them popular.

Frictionless storytelling is tremendously appealing, whether in prose, comics or movies, and it just feels good.

I think Trike probably has it right. But also, I think the main character is so easy to identify with. Maybe we don't really want to live forever, but the idea of living longer with a newly healthy body? Intriguing. And he's very ordinary. Not a really a superman. Not an intellectual giant. But clever and practical.

Good points from Trike and Betsy - I'm looking forward to re-reading it now.

Trike wrote: "In a word, flow.

Scalzi has mastered the art of one sentence leading to the next and the next and the next. Before you know it you’ve read 10 chapters. Not many people talk about this skill, but i..."

Gotcha, but how does he do it? I can't even begin to guess. Any ideas?

Jonathan wrote: "Gotcha, but how does he do it? I can't even begin to guess. Any ideas?"

i think only a writer or storyteller could answer that question and of course john scalzi himself.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Scalzi couldn’t explain it either. I used to be a software developer, and I’ve also taught college courses in Computer Science. Trying to explain to someone else how I came up with an idea for how to implement a solution for something we hadn’t solved before is HARD.

I follow Scalzi on BlueSky and one thing about him: he posts constantly. Mostly nothing important. Just what he's doing, what his cats are doing, what his followers are saying, what his wife is doing. Although none of it is super personal and certainly not offensive, it borders on the over-sharing, and I'm thinking about unfollowing him.

However, I wonder if that's not related to his skill as a writer. He essentially writes constantly even when he's not actually working on his latest book. He writes about everything. So he has a lot of practice and has probably learned through a lot of trial and error how to tell a story most effectively.

I don't follow him on social media, but I do dip into his website occasionally, and he's posted today that he has just completed the 7th book in the Old Man's War series (Shattering Peace) which he thinks will be released about September. I think I've only read the first three in the series, so I might start again from the beginning with the aim of finishing number 6 by late August.

Teresa wrote: "It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Scalzi couldn’t explain it either. I used to be a software developer, and I’ve also taught college courses in Computer Science. Trying to explain to someone else ..."

If you want to learn how to do something, teach it. 😆

Betsy wrote: "However, I wonder if that's not related to his skill as a writer. He essentially writes constantly even when he's not actually working on his latest book. He writes about everything. So he has a lot of practice and has probably learned through a lot of trial and error how to tell a story most effectively."

In addition to that he was also a journalist, a film critic and wrote non-fiction books. (I remember seeing his name associated with the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books back in the day. The “john” thing is a coincidence.) So I think imparting a lot of information in as few words as possible was a skill honed doing that. Writing a lot all the time for your entire life will impart some chops, I’m sure.

Jonathan wrote: "Gotcha, but how does he do it? I can't even begin to guess. Any ideas?"

Part of it is simple sentences using basic words in the current vernacular. I’ve never seen him use a two-dollar word like “defenestration” or “vernacular”. (So I’m out of the running. 😁) And his sentence structure is based not on “proper English” using prescribed grammar rules but rather in the same way people talk. Which, I will note, is exactly the same way Stephen King writes. The Catcher in the Rye also does this. When I finally got around to reading that book I had to constantly flip back to the copyright page to reaffirm it was written in 1951 and not last week.

I do this, too, although clearly not as well. But it means starting sentences with words that are against the rules. Like, y’know, “but”. And sentences which don’t have noun-verb-subject order, typically in order to emphasize a point. Short shots.

Because the writing is breezy, the reading is a breeze. Everyone I know in real life says I write the way I talk, which is not something I’ve ever consciously tried to develop, and I’m willing to bet folding green that writers like Scalzi and King are in the same boat. Except better at it.

“defenestration” - love this word! learned it's meaning when facebook used to let you do something other than POKE a person. (ya know, the poke feature is STILL on fb!)

Maybe the fact that it's written in first person has something to do with its readability. I generally avoid books written in first person, though I made an exception for The Hunger Games and found myself wondering if writing prose in that perspective has some advantages I wasn't aware of. It did seem to have some charm at times. However, I'm still not a convert.

Last night I started re-reading Old Man's War, and was fairly rapidly 25% of the way through, and enjoying it thoroughly. I think Trike's points are all totally valid; the book is a fast read because it's straightforward, uses lots of dialogue, has no complex language or structure, and no complicated technical aspects. So far there are no particularly horrible characters, the basic concept is interesting but not too complex, and the humour is mostly enjoyable. Those sound a bit like back-handed compliments, but the book was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2006, and its by no means pulp fiction.

I think I stopped reading the series after the third or fourth book - I can't remember why; it'll be interesting to see if I get further this year.

Interesting. I really liked Old Man's War when I read it in 2014, and I immediately bought the second book in the series, but haven't read it. I somehow just never felt enough interest. Then I read the first two books of the Interdependency, and bought the third one, but didn't finish it. Just lost interest. Now I bought Starter Villain, but haven't read it yet. I don't know what that says about me or Scalzi, but I keep trying.

Talk about timely, this dropped today:

Catching lightning in a bottle: the story of John Scalzi's Old Man's War
https://transfer-orbit.ghost.io/john-...

Trike wrote: "Talk about timely, this dropped today:

Catching lightning in a bottle: the story of John Scalzi's Old Man's War
https://transfer-orbit.ghost.io/john-..."

thank you! that answered the question and gave lots more info. great read.