I’ve been told a few times that Paxor Seven is a lot like Old Man’s War. Of course I had to read it. The premise of the story is; when people get old they have the option to join the Colonial Defense Force. In doing so, they become soldiers going into space to fight aliens.
There are some interesting dynamics in the book. For example, there’s a disconnect between the technology available on Earth and what the CDF uses. The CDF gets technology from aliens and uses it to their advantage. Earth remains largely unchanged from the modern day. It’s like there are two human civilizations. One on Earth and one in space.
When the main character join the CDF he has his consciousness transferred to a bio engineered body that’s not entirely human. One thing I love about the new body is it has blue skin. I’ve noticed that in a lot of books the author will make the main character human or look human. I get it, but it's nice to have something different.
I think Scalzi did a great job with the book. It had a good balance of action and character development. One thing I appreciated is character deaths. We are told in the story that a lot of the CDF soldiers die in combat. This was upheld in the story. I think I would have hated it if we were told how dangerous it was and everybody skated through by the skin of their teeth. Consistency is important.
Good book. I really enjoyed it. Check it out.
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