Audiobook Review: Old Man’s War written by John Scalzi and narrated by William Dufris

In case you were wondering, we finished the #sekritvideo.  Despite the best attempts of the gods of technology, we finished and submitted it to the competition with one minute to spare.  One minute.  It was intensity at its best.  Believe it.  Now, I feel like I’ve gone back to the land of normal.  It almost seems as if the weekend never happened.  I know it happened.  It was awesome.  In celebration of the end of the #sekritvideo, I thought I’d write another book review.  Hopefully, this time It will be more of a book review than a commentary on what I happen to be doing. (It appears that I’m failing on that point as well, but you’ll forgive me, right?)

I heard of this book through a post at boingboing, I think.  The details of that memory are fishy.  How I came to listen to this book is only a passing detail.  The fact is that I did listen to it, and I shall now relate that experience. 

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi is the story of a not so far off future in which humanity has entered into the race for galactic power.  For humans on earth, this race includes farming out the elderly from and letting them fight the galactic war after they have lived a full life. Once they reach space, they never return to their life on earth and are not even guaranteed living out their full term of service.  The galaxy is a scary place full of plenty of hostile aliens and insects and creatures.  I’ll give Scalzi one thing, he tells a good story. 

If you thought the next word of that last sentence should have been “but”, you get a gold star.  I had one issue with the audiobook.  It is a pretty minor issue, but one that grates on your nerves when you are listening to the story.  This time it hasn’t a thing to do with the narrator either.  Dufris’ narration fit the story perfectly.  The problem stemmed from the continual use of “he said,” “she said,” “Tom said,” etc., in the dialog.  There was nothing for the narrator to do, but even simple conversations are jarring because the “he said”/”she said” interrupts the flow of the story.  Like I said, pretty minor issue, but an annoyance. 

Don’t let this keep you from the story.  Please don’t.  I loved the story.  I loved the story.  That’s all that matters, right?

Anyway, I must return to the land of normal now.  I’ll just have to daydream about aliens and #sekritvideos.