The Ghost Brigades | John Scalzi | Excellently crafted, a good story all the way through

The Ghost Brigades | John Scalzi | Okay...

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The Ghost Brigades

	The Ghost Brigades John Scalzi Tor Science Fiction, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 106 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellently crafted, a good story all the way through

I bought Ghost Brigades on the strength of Old Mans War, which I liked but thought a bit light. Ghost Brigades surprised me with it's step up in all qualities - it gets off to an intriguing start and just keeps going.

The story developes through-out with engaging characters and ideas and it rewardingly does not flinch from the consequences of its plotting.

Okay...

...but not nearly as good as the first. Interesting concepts explored, but the original novel just had all the right punches.

A Good Sequel, Very Enjoyable Read

I really enjoyed John Scalzi's first book in the series, "Old Man's War", had high expectations for "The Ghost Brigades", and fortunately was not disappointed.

This book takes place shortly after the events in the first book and follows Jane (from the first book) and a clone of a suspected traitor who has been implanted with the original's memory (no spoilers here, you can get that off the back cover :-) What you really get is a look into "The Ghost Brigades", one of the more interesting aspects of Scalzi's universe. While some of the cultural and technical elements require a little suspension of disbelief, the overall story is a fascinating follow up to a great book.

Highly recommended if you enjoyed "Old Man's War". I am very much looking forward the next book, "The Last Colony".

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Excellent follow-up to Old Man's War

Starts with a tricky bit of misdirection, and remains very entertaining the whole way through. Like Old man's War, it balances intense, vivid action with more thoughful parts that add depth to the story.

This time there is less action though and it did bog down the proceeedings just a tiny bit. There was one really awkwardly written part about 2/3 of the way through, like maybe that section had never been revised or something. However, that was corrected quickly and the book went on to a very exciting and interesting climax.

After 2 great books Scalzi is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. His writing style is so smooth, and I am looking forward to picking up The Last Colony as soon as the paperback is released, as well as checking out his other stuff.

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Never Hits Its Potential

Living as a healthy adult from your first moment of consciousness would be difficult enough; what Jared Dirac has to deal with - being templated with the mind of a scientist (Charles Boutin) turned traitor - seems like piling on. The Ghost Brigades is John Scalzi's followup to Old Man's War, but rather than follow John Perry (that novel's main character) it follows Dirac, as he is "born", integrates with the Special Forces (adults from birth, like him), and begins to remember things from Boutin's mind. How Dirac deals with all this - how human is he, and how human are the other Special Forces he works with - is the main conceit of the novel.

Which is good, because it's the novels strongest point. While Scalzi doesn't explore it as well as I was hoping after Old Man's War - perhaps because of the absence of John Perry and his complicated relationship with Jane Sagan (who does return, as the commander of Dirac's unit) - Dirac is an interesting character. What's problematic, however, is that Scalzi is frequently more interested in writing a fun ride than fleshing out his ideas, and Dirac's development feels somewhat wasted. It's hard to pinpoint where things specifically go wrong, but Scalzi's prose, while solid and with some nice passages, never manages to grab hold of the ideas and potential before everything sort of slips away. The action is capable but never all that exciting.

The book is still a page-turner, however, and I read fairly quickly to the end. The Ghost Brigades is a good book, and an improvement on the second half of Old Man's War, but only rarely rises above the level of fun distraction.

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