Books like Old Man's War
What should you read after John Scalzi’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- John Scalzi
- 2005
- Military science fiction
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Old Man's War
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchStarship Troopers
Robert A. Heinlein
The book Scalzi is openly writing back to: boot camp, powered armour, bug war, and long arguments about who has earned citizenship. He kept the structure and changed the politics.
- Boot camp among old people
- A brand-new engineered body
- The moral hangover of war
- Long didactic lectures
Great matchEnder's Game
Orson Scott Card
Training, tactics, and the discovery of what the war was actually for. Different end of the age range, same reckoning at the end.
- The moral hangover of war
- Boot camp among old people
- Short chapters, fast pace
- Children, not pensioners
Best for the combat itselfArmor
John Steakley
The bleak version: a soldier in a suit, fighting bugs, surviving by handing himself over to something inside him. Brutal where Scalzi is funny.
- The moral hangover of war
- A brand-new engineered body
- Alien species done inventively
- Structure lurches midway
Best for the cost of it allThe Forever War
Joe Haldeman
A conscript who returns from each tour to a humanity that has moved on centuries without him. The most emotionally serious book on this list, and the obvious next read.
- The moral hangover of war
- Grief for a dead wife
- Boot camp among old people
- Sixties sexual politics show
Worth a look — with a warningDune
Frank Herbert
Here for scope rather than kinship: if the CDF's politics interested you more than its rifles, Herbert's is the deepest version of interstellar power ever written.
- Alien species done inventively
- The moral hangover of war
- Slow, dense, 600 pages
Great matchLeviathan Wakes
James S.A. Corey
The same easy readability aimed at the solar system: two viewpoints, real physics, dialogue that sounds like people. The most bingeable series in modern SF.
- Short chapters, fast pace
- Wry conversational narration
- Alien species done inventively
- No boot camp, no body swap
Great matchRed Rising
Pierce Brown
A body surgically rebuilt into something better, then sent into a brutal training programme among the elite. The transformation chapters land hardest.
- A brand-new engineered body
- Boot camp among old people
- Short chapters, fast pace
- Much bloodier than Scalzi
Worth a look — with a warningHyperion
Dan Simmons
Pilgrims telling each other their stories on the way to something terrible. One of those stories is a soldier's, and it is the best war writing in SF.
- Alien species done inventively
- The moral hangover of war
- Anthology structure, no single plot
Best for staying in this universeThe Ghost Brigades
John Scalzi
The direct follow-up, told from inside the Special Forces — people grown from the DNA of the dead, born adult, with no childhood at all.
- A brand-new engineered body
- Wry conversational narration
- Alien species done inventively
- Perry is barely in it
Worth a look — with a warningStarship: Flagship
Mike Resnick
Straight-ahead military space adventure with a charismatic captain and clear stakes. Pleasant company; nowhere near Scalzi's wit or ideas.
- Short chapters, fast pace
- Alien species done inventively
- Fifth in its own sequence
Worth a look — with a warningThe End of Eternity
Isaac Asimov
For the idea-puzzle side of Scalzi rather than the combat: an organisation editing history, and the man who notices what it costs.
- Short chapters, fast pace
- The moral hangover of war
- No military content
Great matchThe Lost Fleet: Dauntless
Jack Campbell
A commander woken after a century to lead a fleet that has forgotten how to fight properly. Competence porn with real orbital mechanics, and very easy to keep reading.
- Short chapters, fast pace
- Boot camp among old people
- The moral hangover of war
- Prose is workmanlike
- Old Man's War: The Human DivisionBest for more of Perry's universe
Old Man's War: The Human Division
Later Scalzi in the same setting, written as linked episodes about diplomats and troubleshooters rather than infantry. Same voice, different job.
- Wry conversational narration
- Short chapters, fast pace
- Alien species done inventively
- Catalogue record incomplete here
What should you read after Old Man's War?
Old Man's War by John Scalzi works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein — the book Scalzi is openly writing back to: boot camp, powered armour, bug war, and long arguments about who has earned citizenship. He kept the structure and changed the politics.
If what stayed with you was the moral hangover of war, read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card instead: training, tactics, and the discovery of what the war was actually for. Different end of the age range, same reckoning at the end. Armor by John Steakley is the other strong option — the bleak version: a soldier in a suit, fighting bugs, surviving by handing himself over to something inside him. Brutal where Scalzi is funny.
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