Old Man’s War is about a soldier named John
Perry and his exploits in the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF). The first-person
narrative follows Perry’s military career from CDF recruit to the rank of
captain. It is set in a universe heavily populated with life forms, and human
colonists must compete for the scarce planets that are suitable for sustaining
life. As a result, Perry must learn to fight a wide variety of aliens. The
characters in Old Man’s War have enhanced DNA and nanotechnology, giving them
advantages in strength, speed, endurance, and situational awareness.
John Perry, a 75-year-old retired advertising
writer, joins the Colonial Defense Forces who protect human interplanetary colonists.
Volunteers sign letters of intent and provide DNA samples at age 65, which John
and his now deceased wife Kathy had done ten years prior to the beginning of
the story. After visiting his wife’s grave to say goodbye (as volunteers can
never return to Earth), Perry takes a space elevator to the CDF ship Henry
Hudson, where he meets Thomas, Jessie, Harry, Alan, Susan and Maggie, fellow
male and female retiree volunteers. They dub themselves the “Old Farts”.
Following a series of sometimes bizarre psychological
and physical tests, Perry’s mind is ultimately transferred to a new body based
on his genetic material. His new body is a younger version of himself, but
genetically engineered with enhanced musculature, green skin, and yellow
cat-like eyes. He now possesses enormous strength and dexterity,
nanobot-enhanced artificial blood, enhanced eyesight and other senses, and most
critically, a BrainPal, a neural interface that, among other capabilities,
allows Perry to communicate with other members of the CDF via thought.
After a week of frivolity and orgies in their
new bodies, Perry and the other recruits land on Beta Pyxis III for basic
training, during which the CDF’s heritage in the United States armed forces is
made clear when the recruits are taught the Rifleman’s Creed. Perry’s drill
instructor, Master Sergeant Ruiz, adopts a tough and disdainful persona towards
the recruits, but later discovers Perry is the creator of an advertising slogan
Ruiz adopted as a personal mantra, “Sometimes you just gotta hit the road”. As
a dubious gesture of respect, Perry is given the job of platoon leader during
the weeks of training before he is shipped out to the CDF ship Modesto. His
first engagement is with the Consu, a fierce, incredibly intelligent and
religiously zealous alien species. Perry improvizes a tactic which enables the
CDF to win this first battle quickly. This is soon followed by a number of
battles with, among others, the bear-like Whaidians and the tiny Covandu. By
the end of this last engagement Perry begins to suffer psychological distress
over killing the Liliputian Covandu and accepts that he has transformed both
physically and mentally.
Now a veteran, Perry participates in the
Battle for Coral. The planet contains coral reefs valuable to the attacking
Rraey, as well as a human colony. The Rraey also have a taste for human flesh.
The CDF plans to rapidly counterattack with a small force before the Rraey
establish their coral strip mining operations, but the Rraey have somehow
obtained technology to predict the appearance of a space ship’s skip drive, a
feat that should not be possible, and use this knowledge to ambush and destroy
CDF ships as they arrive in the Coral system. Perry’s quick thinking allows him
and his fellow soldiers on a transport shuttle to escape the wreckage of the
Modesto and make for the planet’s surface, but they are shot down. Everyone but
Perry is killed in the crash. Perry is grievously wounded but survives thanks
to his artificially enhanced body. Perry is left for dead by a Rraey search
party, who find CDF soldiers inedible, but he is rescued by members of the
mysterious “Ghost Brigades”, the Special Forces units of the CDF. Perry thinks
he has died when he sees a younger green version of his dead wife Kathy, who in
reality is Jane Sagan, the leader of the Ghost Brigades rescue team.
After being repaired, Perry tracks down Sagan,
who turns out to have been grown based on Kathy Perry’s DNA sample, as legally
allowed by her letter of intent to join the CDF. Unlike John, Jane has no
memories of Kathy’s life, as she is only six years old. But after learning
about Kathy, Jane seeks to learn more from John about being a “realborn” person
and what kind of life one can have outside the CDF.
Sagan manipulates her chain of command to
promote John to an advisory role to gather information from the Consu during a
ritualistic meeting to obtain information. Perry discovers that the Rraey had
received the skip-drive detection tachyon technology from the Consu, which was
used to set up the ambush at Coral. Perry also manipulates his chain of command
to have the last two of his friends from the “Old Farts” transferred out of
combat duty to military research. Sagan and Perry then participate in a Special
Forces operation in an attempt to capture or destroy the borrowed Consu
technology in advance of a major attack to recapture Coral from the Rraey.
Perry is instrumental in the successful outcome of the battle by capturing the
technical manual for the Consu detection system, which was destroyed in the
fighting, and saving Sagan after she is severely wounded. However, he never
sees her again after delivering her to a shuttle which returns her to the
secretive Ghost Brigades.
At the conclusion of the book, Perry is promoted to captain following his deeds at Coral, and despite the separation, holds hope of reuniting with Sagan when their terms of service conclude.
Source: Wikipedia