Read All About It: The Ghost Brigades

We return to John Scalzi's repertoire once again with the sequel to Old Man's War, and I am loving it. Scalzi is one of the best authors on the market, and each book of his that I read confirms that claim.

The Ghost Brigades is a fantastic sequel that breaks away from the previous protagonist to focus more on building up the rest of the world as well as creating a larger narrative and focus for future novels. I heartily enjoyed it for its candor, creative application of technology, and its convoluted and captivating plot.

Known as the Ghost Brigades, the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces are elite troops created from the DNA of the dead to be perfect soldiers in the ever raging battles of the universe. However, one of the top scientists researching new upgrades for the Ghost Brigades, Charles Boutin, is a turncoat, and may be spilling secrets to the enemy.

Jared Dirac is a soldier created from the DNA of Boutin in a desperate attempt to access Boutin's memories and motivations. When that fails, however, he becomes a regular soldier in the Ghost Brigades, serving out his military career with his fellow soldiers.

As those dark memories start to resurface, however, Jared is drawn into the larger conflict--and his memories might hold the key to saving humanity from extinction.

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The Ghost Brigades is a interesting sequel, and it follows the same flow as it's predecessor: not too serious, but not a ride in the park either. It's a space epic rather than a philosophical rumination, and has a plentiful cast of superhuman soldiers, strange aliens, political machinations, and humor to make it into something special.

This is one of those books that makes you think about the "humans are aliens" concept when faced with the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Scalzi's universe has upgraded the classical human condition into a morally vague and physically excelled breed of war, and there isn't much that he doesn't take a friendly jab at. Scalzi writes these books to prove that humans are dangerous free-thinkers, capable of destruction on an epic scale because of the ability to think outside the box, and he does this really well. You leave thinking that humans are a superior species because of their emotional tendencies and ability to fuck shit up. Because if there are aliens out there--then we must be aliens as well. And if you really take a hard look at our species as a whole, we're pretty weird. Awesome, but weird.

Really, The Ghost Brigades is just another science fiction novel that upgrades it's predecessor with moral questions and emotional cues, but it works. It's fast paced, technically creative, and draws from so many science fiction sources that it's impossible to name them all. Readers get to see the story from unique perspectives, including an alien one that creates the opening for Scalzi's emotional ending.

If you haven't read Old Man's War yet, I seriously recommend that you get a jump on it, as well as the rest of the series. It's fun, easy to read, and mindlessly scientific in the best way. Until we meet again to review The Last Colony, the third novel in this series, keep an eye to the skies, and watch out for falling soldiers.