The Ghost Brigades | John Scalzi | I hope there is more for years to come!

The Ghost Brigades | John Scalzi | The Ghost Brigades

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The Ghost Brigades

	The Ghost Brigades John Scalzi Tor Science Fiction, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 98 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF's toughest operations. They?re young, they?re fast and strong, and they?re totally without normal human qualms.
The universe is a dangerous place for humanity?and it's about to become far more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF?s biggest military secrets. To prevail, the CDF must find out why Boutin did what he did.

Jared Dirac is the only human who can provide answers -- a superhuman hybrid, created from Boutin's DNA, Jared?s brain should be able to access Boutin's electronic memories. But when the memory transplant appears to fail, Jared is given to the Ghost Brigades.

At first, Jared is a perfect soldier, but as Boutin?s memories slowly surface, Jared begins to intuit the reason?s for Boutin?s betrayal. As Jared desperately hunts for his "father," he must also come to grips with his own choices. Time is running out: The alliance is preparing its offensive, and some of them plan worse things than humanity?s mere military defeat?

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I hope there is more for years to come!

A well written story that is not only entertaining to read but also makes you think (or in my case) dream of what else is happening in the universe Scalzi has created.

The Ghost Brigades

An excellent follow-on to Old Man's War, although one wouldn't need to read the first book to enjoy this one. I enjoyed Ghost Brigades immensely and am currently waiting for The Last Colony to arrive in the post. John Scalzi is an exceelnt author in my view and I can't wait for future works.

Not as good as Old Man's War

Other than names, no specifics (i.e., spoilers) are given in this review. Incidentally, I do not consider 3 stars to be a "bad" review--the book is okay. It is fine as a bridge between Old Man's War (O.M.W.) and the Last Colony [anyone else find that title to be a bit of a spoiler?].

Make sure you read OMW first. It comes first sequentially, but is also a much better book. While Ghost Brigades uses the same recipe as the first book, it uses inferior ingredients in cooking up a similar piece of fiction.

The protagonist from OMW (John Perry) is missing from this book. The other characters from OMW that DO appear in the sequel are flat. Jane Sagan, who should have a great deal more depth and empathy than anyone else in the Special Forces, is completely superfluous to the story [anyone could have replaced her as the SF commander]. She is not developed one iota from the first book, and appears to have actually flattened in the interim.
Harry Wilson returns in what could have been a great supporting role, but is made completely unnecessary by a scientist called Cainen.

The "mystery" inherent to the story suffers from at least one major plot-hole: no one ever reads the suspect's personnel file. The characters involved ALL have the highest level of clearances, including two generals, one colonel, and a military intelligence officer (Sagan), among others. They live in a world in which the internet more-or-less exists inside everyone's head. Files can be downloaded and read almost instantaneously. While trying to deduce the villain's motivations, it simply never occurs to them to access his file.
The mystery also suffers from other common problems: part I of the big reveal is obvious to everyone but the characters in the book, and part II is based on facts not given to the reader at any point in the story.

But all is not lost: the protagonist's (Jared Dirac's) development is fairly engaging. The concept for the story which drives the action is excellent (but only mediocre execution). The action sequences, though sparse, are generally well-written and exciting. If you are a reader anxious to revisit OMW's universe [but not its characters], you will get your wish. This book gives quite a lot of secondary information to understanding past and current events of the Colonial Union, as well as some technological explanations for the science-minded. [I'm not saying they are good explanations--I'm no scientist--but they are there.]

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Fun, but a little sequel fatigue.

I enjoyed reading The Ghost Brigades - but I have a hard time describing why. The story is pretty convoluted, and felt like three different stories in a season-of-a-choppy-television-series way. While Old Man's War was very Heinleinian to me, this book felt more like an Asimov Robot mystery - lots of classic goodness, fun ways of using some new ideas and repackaging many older ones.
I was entertained, but did find myself wondering when he would get to the meat of the story a number of times. The comings and goings of key characters is very `serial drama' feeling, somehow different enough from other fiction to be a little confusing at times.
Mr. Scalzi is a wiz at repackaging the ideas of others - and doing them justice (admittedly and with flair). Having fun with other people's special effects may be wearing a little on me though because I didn't enjoy this installment as much as OMW.
I think I'd rather see it on screen - on television (as it doesn't strike me as a strong or long enough story for a feature length film). It feels like a Sci-Fi channel screenplay to me.
Too little detail is given about the aliens though they are a main feature in the book - we aren't entirely made aware of how they look or behave.
During the course of this book I was annoyed with the author referring to `taking a dump' 4 times. I don't think `taking a dump' rates a mention every 65 pages or so, at least not using the same niche characterization language each time (from different characters).
Glad to have a lot of Jane Sagen in this book.
All in all - it was a book I was happy to have read, but not one I will probably return to in the future like I will with OMW. Looking forward to reading the progression of the characters of this world in the books that follow.

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TOOO SLOW

Very slow read- it took almost 1/4 of the book to develop the main character and the next 150 pages had minimal action.

The first book "Old Man's War" kept your interest much more fully than this sequel.

I am not at all certain that I will purchase any more of his books at this point.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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