"Old Man's War"

[fiefoe]

John Scalzi is fast and smooth. The first chapter was mostly just about an old man in Ohio missing his dead wife, but in the next he's already heading out to space to fight aliens, and we feel we know this guy already.

Lunch table talk among the "clique" is cute, and a good way to slip explanations in.

• I miss my wife. It's easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she's never been anything but dead.
• "If someone were to murder you while you were legally dead, I believe that here in Ohio they could be tried for /disturbing a corpse."
• "The beanstalk .. is here because it's one of the most difficult -  in fact, the most expensive, most technologically complex and most politically intimidating way to (get people to Colonial Station)."
• "I'm going to have a second chance to die young and leave a beautiful corpse."
• "It can also transmit a real-time representation of the activity in your brain. Or to put it another way, it can broadcast your consciousness. This is important, because unlike specific mental processes, consciousness can't be recorded."  {Avatar!}
• "Making us all look good to each other is a way to promote bonding."
• "The one person we're supposed to be the most attracted to: ourselves. For better or worse, these bodies we're in are still alien to us."