The Ghost Brigades | John Scalzi | Outstanding read again!

The Ghost Brigades | John Scalzi | Wow... Ghost Brigades may be even better than Old Man's War

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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

Outstanding read again!

I would really love to provide a great review of this book, but I feel like anything that I'd say would give away part of the plot and encourage you not to read it, and I certainly don't want that to happen at all.

Let's just say that Scalzi does a tremendous job writing science fiction for people who people who do and don't like science fiction alike. He deftly weaves human nature, xenobiology, and metaphysical concepts into a tremendous narrative that's hard to put down. If you've read his first book in this universe (Old Man's War), then go read this one already. If you haven't, read that first (you won't regret it), then get this one.

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Wow... Ghost Brigades may be even better than Old Man's War

I enjoyed Old Man's War a lot. While it had a lot of familiar sci-fi elements, Scalzi's writing style is unique and refreshing; full of clever humor, great characters and intense action. In The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi simply takes all of these elements and enhances on them. I think I liked this book even better.

The Ghost Brigades is a much different book than Old Man's War. It seems to me that with this book, Scalzi drifts a bit from Heinlein territory and truly breaks into his own. Old Man's War didn't really have a solitary focus, other than the life of it's main character John Perry. It was all over the place from one alien battle to another. The Ghost Brigades has a more singular plot, which is to prevent the destruction of humanity from 3 alien races that have allied against mankind. At the heart of this is a civilian scientiest turned traitor who has sold mankind's best secrects to this new alliance.

Enter Jared Dirac: a clone of this scientest with the man's memories and conciousness implanted directly on top of his brain. The purpose of his creation is to find out exactly why Boutin betrayed the human race and see if there is a way to stop this war. The copy seemed not to work at all and Jared becomes his own man, joining the special forces as they try and prevent this war the hard way.

Jared is a very interesting character and nearly the complete opposite of John Perry from the first book. Rather than an aged and experienced man who's grown tired of his boring life on Earth and joins the army, we have a newborn man who's knowlege is programmed straight into him, forced into the special forces and forced to experience life's harsh realities very quickly. We see him slowly turn from a naive and noble child into a man that begins to resemble the one he was cloned from.

Of the characters in Jared's platoon, only 2 others really get any in depth development. One is Sarah Pauling whom Jared bonds with quickly, who have some sort of relationship between them that is about as mature as you can expect from people who are less than a year old. The other is a fairly major player from Old Man's War, Jane Sagan. If you've read that, you're already emotionally invested in her. We do have other interesting characters outside of his platoon, namley Cainen (sp), a Rheah who was captured in the beginning and has in depth knowlege of the triple alliance against the Colonial Defense Force. He is given a disease and then kept alive by a daily antidote that will only be given if he cooperates. Despite this, he actually comes to care about Jared and his human captors. I found him to be probably the most interesting character of this story.

And let's not forget the action. There's not as much space combat as there was in Old Man's War, but the ground missions are incredibly intense, and much more interesting than those in OMW, as the goals are much more specific and the stakes larger.

This is a great book and Scalzi has a fan for life. I'll be reading Android's Dream and await Last Colony to come out on paperback next month.

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Decide for yourself...

As soon as I finished "The Old Man's War" I came straight to Amazon and started looking for more books in the series. After reading a couple negative reviews of "The Ghost Brigades" I was almost afraid to purchase it. I hate to read work by authors that I love, and be dissappointed in the work.

This is not one of those books. While this is a continuation of the world presented in "The Old Man's War," it's not really a sequal. Scalzi has created a very vivid, expansive universe. In "The Ghost Brigades" the reader is exposed to another level of that universe.

If you're expecting another adventure of the plucky hero, John Perry, this isn't it. If you enjoy the work of John Scalzi give this title the consideration it deserves.

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A good read that stands alone

This is the first book by John Scalzi that I read, so I can't compare this to his previous book as others have done. But, if you haven't read his previous book, don't let that stop you here. Although this book starts a bit slow, and the author tends to rely too heavily (in my opinion) on exposition, the plot really settles into a nice groove after the protagonist completes boot camp. The second half of the book is very entertaining, and the book leaves with a very rewarding ending. I look forward to many more great books from this author.

Character development is complex and intriguing as the main protagonist has somewhat of an identity crisis, while at the same time engaging in harrowing missions that literally impact the fate of humanity. Most of the characters are sympathetic and likable. Even the antagonist has the somewhat redeemable trait of having undying love of his 4 year old daughter, who's grave makes more than one appearance in the story. The alien races and cultures are very sketchy and I found myself wondering more about their back stories.

There are several sexual scenes, but nothing too explicit. I feel this book is appropriate for teenagers and adults.

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A solid, simple read

I think that the world created by John Scalzi in this book has a lot of potential. I did not realize when I picked it up that it was actually the second one that he'd created in this universe (the first being "Old Man's War").

But I also felt that he didn't take advantage of the rich potential offered by the universe he'd created. There was really only one line through the novel and everybody and everything was dedicated to following that single thread to its conclusion. The protagonist (Jared Dirac) has a genetically-modified body that is detailed early on in the story but then is virtually ignored for the rest of the novel. Similarly, there are many characters introduced (his immediate commander, the various top brass folks) who hint at being very interesting and whose past and possible intrigues are not at all pursued. Maybe there is an intention to do so in later novels or these are elaborated upon in the earlier book but then there is no attempt to recap any of this in "The Ghost Brigades".

Further, the relationship dynamics (conflict between Jared and team mates, interactions between the "normal" people and the "Special Forces") are very simple with easy and final resolutions. It makes for a very comfortable read but a less richly textured story.

Finally, the story wrapped up very conveniently and neatly. Again, I felt, not taking advantage of the universe that has been conceived and is waiting for its potential to be seized upon. I tend to be a "happily ever after" kind of guy (too much Hollywood-style entertainment I suppose), but I realize that there are very few nice, neat certainties in the world, and certainly few situations where everybody's goals all line up so that everybody will be happy at the same time or for the same reason.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and the story immensely. I find Mr. Scalzi's presentation engaging and I loved his exploration into consciousness and trying to grapple with the realities, both technical and moral, presented by being able to transplant consciousness from one body to another and some of the implications of literally creating soldiers (slaves) and convincing them that servitude is a noble life goal. I will definitely be picking up his other offerings. But I will do so expecting a quick, easy read rather than an in-depth, complex narrative.

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