After enjoying Scalzi's The Android's Dream, I went ahead and read this popular space adventure novel. It turned out to suit well my state of mind, which was not terribly mindful at all, given a serious head-cold and sinusitis. The setup is strong, with a series of conflicts with alien space civilizations in a race for colonial real estate in the universe, and the new, enhanced bodies given to old earth-people who want to die in combat rather than an old folks home. The one peculiarity - the problem of quantum universes, entropy, and predictability - is done well, in an understated sort of way. 
 My problem, in the end, is the distinct lack of a narrative arc that ties in with the circumstances faced by our intrepid Old Men. Most of the book is formulaic, and the reader awaits a certain twist that will reveal its uniqueness, not in the imagined alien races, or the technologically enhanced bodies, but in a viable sense of movement that never really appears. This is what The Android's Dream does very well. Here, the Special Forces plot line doesn't carry much of anything. 
 So, a fun read, but not enough to bring me to the next book in the series. Unless, that is, my head cold keeps me as intellectually muted as it has the last day or so.