num_pages: 316
description: John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place. we fight. To defend Earth (a target for our new enemies, should we let them get close enough) and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has gone on for brutal, bloody, unyielding.Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force, which shields the home planet from too much knowledge of the situation. What's known to everybody is that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve your time at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine-and what he will become is far stranger.
language: English
title: Old Man's War
titlecomplete: Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
characters: John Perry, Leon Deak, Harry Wilson, Alan Rosenthal, Thomas Jane, Jane Sagan, Jesse Gonzales
genres: Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Space, Fantasy, War, Adventure, Military Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction
ratings_count: 190242
series: Old Man's War
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Locus Award
category: Best SF Novel and Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Geffen Award
category: Best Translated Science Fiction Book
publisher: Tor Books