The Ghost Brigades

I didn't believe the sequel to Old Man's War could live up to the greatness of its predecessor. I was wrong. It is an excellent read that will keep you entertained and keep you thinking. Can't wait to read The Last Colony!

The book quickly starts off with the same witty writing style of John Scalzi, and you are drawn right back into the world of the Colonial Union. The story follows a couple members of the Colonial Defense Force Special Forces, aka- The Ghost Brigades. Among them are the returning Lt. Jane Sagan, Private Jared Dirac, a SF soldier made from the DNA of a traitor, and Cainen, an enemy prisoner of war who oddly has much to teach Dirac about self and humanity. The Ghost Brigades starts as sci-fi military adventure, but you will find a look into self, morality, humanity, ethics, and nurture versus nature, not only through the character and story development, but also from some of the science fiction technology created by the writer.

The CDF uncover a plot that could destroy humanity. The key is a traitor named Charles Boutin. He is a scientist with the knowledge to take down the CDF and leave humans, their colonies and even Earth, completely defenseless. Jared Dirac is a newly born SF soldier born from Boutin's DNA, and imprinted with his consciousness which doesn't take, at first. Can Dirac uncover Boutin's plot, or will he betray humanity like his counterpart?

One of Jared Dirac's first encounters from pages 75-76:

"How old are you?" Cloud asked. ...
Jared's BrainPal informed him he had an internal chronometer; he accessed it. "Seventy-one," Jared said.
Cloud looked over. "Seventy-one years old? That makes you pretty old for Special Forces, from what they tell me."
"No. Not seventy-one years," Jared said. "Seventy-one minutes."
"...At your age most humans have barely got the hang of breathing and taking a dump."
Jared consulted his BrainPal. "I'm doing one of those right now." ...
"I sincerely hope its breathing."

This three part series is great. He takes more time in this book to do some character development for the third book

An interesting sequel, but didn't get to the nature of the characters central internal conflict in the book instead focusing on external plots causing a slight detriment to it.

My third Scalzi novel -- after "Agent to the Stars" and "Old Man's War" -- and I must say it is nearly as good as the other two.

A word of caution though. This novel is not a good starting point for Scalzi's work. It is a sequel to "Old Man's War" and picks up almost exactly where the first story left off. Having said that, Scalzi still manages to make us look at his ficton in a unique way. The character of John Perry, the hero of the first novel, is completely absent from this story although his love, 6-year-old Special Forces Lt. Jane Sagan, does play a pivotal role.

The story involves a escaped traitor to the human race whose personality has been implanted in a newborn Special Forces soldier. The action follows the newborn soldier through his training and the first year of his warrior's life, leading to a fascinating confrontation between the two at the climax of the story.

Aliens are treated a bit more sympathetically in this story, and we learn more about the mysterious "Colonial Union", the government that controls the human race.

Entertaining overall with a good beginning and a decent end... but on the downside, a plodding middle that does much less to expand the OLD MAN'S WAR universe than Scalzi's afterword seems to imply it does. The single biggest difference between this and OLD MAN'S WAR is simply the 3rd-Person POV instead of 1st-Person. The seen-it-before scenario of a soldier new to this world, training, bonding, losing, sacrificing, and ultimately triumphing makes THE GHOST BRIGADES fell like a less-satisfying rehash of its predecessor. And Scalzi uses this narrative as a vehicle for critiquing 20th-Century SF a bit too often.

The most painful part is probably the story's human antagonist, a cartoonishly James Bond-style villain -- too easy to picture gleefully rubbing his hands together while laughing maniacally. Scalzi does much better with antagonistic situations that antagonistic individuals.

There *are* fun moments, chilling ones, a few interesting expansion of humanity's opponents, and a complex enough situation to keep raising the dramatic stakes. I'll likely read the third book, THE LAST COLONY, simply because I already bought it. As for the fourth, ZOE'S STORY, which seems to be a direct sequel or prequel to this one, at this point I can't imagine committing the money or the time.

Again, another wonderful book by Mr. Scalzi. Very different tone and voice from Old Man's War, but I actually think that requires talent rather than being something unfavorable. I like his ability to write with such sentivity and perception concerning his characters.

Scalzi isn't a great writer and his science fiction world is rather derivative, but this and Old Man's War are entertaining reads that place real moral dilemmas on their protagonists while not taking themselves too seriously. Picture a more tongue-in-cheek version of Starship Troopers or Ender's Game.

Scalzi's special forces soldiers, born into adult bodies with preprogrammed, networked minds, are intriguing characters, and the scenes in which Scalzi examines their childlike personalities are both humorous and surprisingly touching. Other times, the story devolves into a straight shoot-em-up with cliched dialogue and inane science, but the author does use plot effectively and got me involved in the characters enough to keep turning the pages.

Some sequels continue the ideas of the original work, while others turn the world upside down. For better or worse, this is the first sort -- made somewhat less distinctive by swapping out the first-person perspective for a nuetral omniscient narrator. At times it reminded me of the best kind of 'Star Wars' tie-in fiction, which is rather less than I was expecting. Still moments that are uniquely Scalzi's trickled through. The first came early in the book, when cloned hybrid supersoldier Jared Dirac passed on a bad joke a shuttle pilot had shared with him involving Sherlock Holmes and a tent, causing his day-old hatchmate Sarah Pauling to break down laughing hysterically. Like 'Old Man's War' the personal stories of these characters are always kept front-and-center ahead of the plot. If the villain is a bit mustache-twirling, his actions put the protagonists into impossible situations and Scalzi is careful to make room for all of the consequences to play out. His characters do brutal, horrible things but the ones he focuses on operate from a fundamentally decent place that made me fall in love with them and acutely feel each loss. I can't wait to buy 'The Last Colony.'

Interesting how I was torn for who to side with, the totalitarian, militaristic humans who aggressively war with almost every other spacefaring species, or the more measured and peaceful tactics of the allied aliens in the conclave. I think the only reason I was even half cheering for the humans was because they were the main characters and I happen to be human.

Continues the incredible story from Old Man's War. Can one find love again in the midst of never-ending war?