John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place.

So: we fight. To defend Earth (a target for our new enemies, should we let them get close enough) and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has gone on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force, which shields the home planet from too much knowledge of the situation. What's known to everybody is that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve your time at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine-and what he will become is far stranger.

約翰·斯卡爾齊，美國當代著名科幻作傢和博客作傢，1969年5月10日齣生，畢業於芝加哥大學，現居俄亥俄州。

2005年，斯卡爾齊的處女作《垂暮之戰》由美國著名科幻齣版社Tor齣版，隨即獲該年度雨果奬最佳長篇提名，斯卡爾齊本人也因此榮膺 2006年度約翰·W·坎貝爾奬最佳新人奬。

受到獲奬的鼓勵，斯卡爾齊又創作瞭《垂暮之戰》的三部續作——《幽靈旅》《最後的殖民地》和《佐伊的故事》，且均受好評，其中，《最後的殖民地》獲得2008年雨果奬最佳長篇提名。