Washington Post Review of OMW…

Posted on February 19, 2005    Posted by John Scalzi      4 Comments

…Courtesy of Paul Di Fillipo. The review is halfway down the page. It’s a good one, which is nice:

His speculative elements are top-notch. His combat scenes are blood-roiling. His dialogue is suitably snappy and profane. And the moral and philosophical issues he raises, while not as deeply plumbed as in Joe Haldeman’s classic The Forever War (1975), still insert useful ethical burrs under the military saddle of the story.

What I found particularly amusing, given the brief discussion I gave it in a previous recent entry, is Di Fillipo addressing the question of John Perry’s luck:

One seemingly inevitable tic of this archetype is that our hero ends up being uniquely valuable to the war effort, thanks to the strength of his character and the forces of chance. John Perry conforms to this pattern as well, as you know he will. Still, it’s hard to complain about such predestination. The tale of a grunt who dies during the first engagement would be merely the stuff of journalism.

Ha! Yes, exactly. Also — and not to be ignored — I would imagine it would be far more difficult to sell a first novel (particularly in this genre) in which the hero was a bystander to history rather than in the thick of it. I think ten novels from now I might try that, though, and see what I can do with it.

As an aside, the very nice person who alerted me to the review suggested that I probably knew about it already. Despite my clear and obvious interest (read: obsession) in these reviews, it had in fact slipped past me. If you do see a review of the book somewhere, please feel free to send me a note about it. It will be most appreciated.