I have not really followed much SF in the last few years, with the exception of writers I already follow thanks to their comicbook credentials. But Scalzi’s name kept popping up in different contexts – the most notable of them being Joe Hill’s Twitter feed. There’s only so much name-dropping one can take before caving in, and I began reading Old Man’s War with slightly more-than-average expectations.

Oh. My. God.

Scalzi can write. No, scratch that, Scalzi can turn reader-ly expectations on their head, craft an engaging story and make me root for his characters. And within 20-odd pages, I had gone from Bruce-Banner-wimpy-reader to Hulk-flip-pages-so-quick-they-combust mode. And that hasn’t happened in quite some time. He unravels the world slowly, peeling away layers one at a time. The kind of smart storytelling that builds on familiar sci-fi tropes, is unafraid to go off the beaten track, and sneak in smug little homages – I cannot believe he name-called Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean in the same line! And yeah, he definitely has a wicked sense of humor.

Basic premise – humans are at war. With everyone in the universe. Space colonization is being spearheaded by the Colonial Defence Forces, with senior citizens as military recruits and third-world countries as colonizers. The first book introduces us to John Perry and his first few years in the CDF, as he takes on alien races, all with different agendas. A lot of well-crafted action sequences. Sex when you least expect it. Shout-outs to other sci-fi concepts and works. Be warned – comparisons to Robert Heinlein’s works of military fiction are inevitable, Scalzi goes one up and mentions Starship Troopers himself, in the second book.

There’s a point in the book where everything goes to hell, and that’s when we’re introduced to the second lead character of the series. No details, but the sequel follows this character, so you will understand. By the beginning of the third book, we’ve moved decades since we first encountered Perry, and it’s thrilling to see how Scalzi manages to weave threads and plot-points so fucking elegantly. I just started Book 3 this morning , and I know there’s a fourth book, the title of which tells me that a particular character is just as important as I thought.

Also, Scalzi seems to be the first non-Indian scifi writer who uses authentic Indian names. Face it, it’s grating to hear names like ‘Muralidharan Singh’ or ‘Hussein Kumar’, where writers mash together names without knowing much about ethnicity or religion. So when you come across names like ‘Utpal Chowdhury’, ‘Rohit Kulkarni’ and ‘Savitri Guntupalli’, and even a goat named ‘Prabhat’, you doff your imaginary topi at the writer, and carry on reading, with even more respect for his world-building skills. It’s always the small things.

Highly, highly recommended. Even more so because when I think about it, these books are unfilmable. You’ll know why when you read them.