Old Man’s War Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Old Man’s War | 2005 | Buy |
| The Ghost Brigades | 2006 | Buy |
| The Last Colony | 2007 | Buy |
| Zoe’s Tale | 2008 | Buy |
| The Human Division | 2013 | Buy |
| The End of All Things | 2015 | Buy |
The Interdependency Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Collapsing Empire | 2017 | Buy |
| The Consuming Fire | 2018 | Buy |
| The Last Emperox | 2020 | Buy |
Lock In Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Lock In | 2014 | Buy |
| Head On | 2018 | Buy |
John Scalzi had been writing online for years before Old Man’s War launched his fiction career. He posted the first chapters on his blog, Whatever, in 2002. Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor Books read them and offered a contract. The novel was published in 2005, nominated for a Hugo Award, and established Scalzi as one of the most commercially successful science fiction authors of his generation.
Old Man’s War follows elderly recruits given young bodies to fight in interstellar wars. The series expanded to six books, moving from military action to political intrigue. Scalzi wrote in a conversational, accessible style that drew comparisons to Robert Heinlein, though Scalzi’s politics and worldview differ substantially.
The Interdependency trilogy, starting with The Collapsing Empire (2017), follows a galactic civilization whose faster-than-light travel network is failing. It’s political science fiction with a sharp sense of humor about bureaucracy and power.
His Lock In books explore a near-future where a disease locks millions of people into paralyzed bodies, forcing them to operate through robotic surrogates. Redshirts (2012) won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with its metafictional take on expendable crew members in science fiction television.
Scalzi served as president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 2010 to 2013. His blog, Whatever, remains one of the longest-running author blogs online.