I was pleased to finally read this prequel to “The Ghost Brigades” which I read last year.
Like “The Ghost Brigades” I found “Old Man’s War” to be a fairly simple story that explores a world where it is really possible to get a second (and a third and a forth..) chance to live your life.
Set in a future where the human race is competing with myriad other alien races for substantially the same resources, the humans recruit their soldiers from Earth’s seventy year olds and give them new and improved bodies to get the best kind of soldier: One that is physically superb and has the grounding and experience to understand what’s at stake and a stake in the future that they are helping to protect (they pretty much all have children and grandchildren that they want to see survive into the future).
Told exclusively from the point of view of the protagonist, you will not get lost or confused as to what is going on. Nor is there any need to try to interpret different story threads to try to divine future confluences as you do with the more complex stories told by Peter F. Hamilton or Frank Herbert.
This is an enjoyable, easy read that IMHO speaks to issues that it is absolutely possible that the human race may face one day.