The Ghost Brigades
by John Scalzi
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Book Reviews of The Ghost Brigades
Book Review: Born to be bad?
Summary: 4 Stars
A sequel to Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi offers fans of the former book a chance to go back to an interesting yet dangerous reality. In Scalzi's semi-far future (a few centuries hence), mankind has expanded beyond Earth, with colonies throughout the Galactic neighborhood. The skip drive allows people to go light years in an instant, avoiding all the problems of the long distances. Unfortunately, there are lots of other intelligent races out there, and many are in competition for the same planets; for this reason, the Colonial Defense Force exists, using high-tech weapons and specially conditioned soldiers to protect human interests.
If Old Man's War owes a lot to Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, The Ghost Brigades owes at least a small bit to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, with its tale of children and war. Jared Dirac is no ordinary child, however: from the moment of his "birth", he is physically an adult and mentally close to it as well; what he lacks are true experiences, but he will get them soon enough. He is a member of the CDF's Special Forces, a.k.a. the Ghost Brigades, humans developed for the sole purpose of fighting.
Jared is even more special. While the other Special Forcers are created from the genetic material of dead people (hence their nickname), Jared is created from a living man and further, given this man's consciousness. Although he has his own personality, he also is affected by the man he was based on. This man, Charles Boutin, is a traitor to humanity who has joined an alien coalition with a secret plan to stop the CDF; Jared was created to help unearth what that plan is.
The story follows Jared's development as a soldier and the first battles he fights prior to learning of his origins. At that point, an identity crisis is inevitable: will Jared be able to help the CDF, or will he try to betray them like Boutin. The final answer will involve finding Boutin himself.
For fans of Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades is initially dissatisfying. John Perry, the hero of the first book is never present, as are few of the other characters. Even the one exception, Jane Sagan, is absent for much of the first half of the book. In addition, Jared takes a long time to appear: he isn't "born" until page 65 of this 314 page story. Fortunately, Scalzi is a good writer, so even if it takes a while for the plot to really kick in, it's worth the wait. The Ghost Brigades not only offers a good story, but it more fully fleshes out Scalzi's fictional universe and hints at more stories to come. It may not be as good as its predecessor, but it is pretty close.
Book Review: Rock solid sci-fi
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the 2nd book of the Old Man Series, but you definitely don't have to have read the previous book (Old Man's War) to appreciate what's going on in this book. Scalzi fills in any gaps that the reader might have missed out on from the first book.
The Ghost Brigades themselves are a sort of extremely enhanced version (and not altogether human) of the Navy Seals, if you can compare them to anything. They aren't quite human and there's the whole moral debate about them being created from the DNA of the dead , but they're damned good at what they do and are the elite line of defense for the Colonial Defense Force's (CDF) toughest operations against alien forces throughout the known universes. They're forever young, fearless, lightening quick, and definitely don't have the same moral/ethical issues about their elite ops like regular soldiers might.
As it stands, the universe is a extremely dangerous place for humanity and many alien races wish to halt their expansion and annihilate them completely. Three main alien races (Eneshans, Obin, and the Rraey) are all seemingly working together on these goals, but with a twist - they've had some help and that help is in the form of a brilliant human scientist, Charles Boutin. To have any chance at the right to continue to exist, humanity must find out the reasons for why Boutin turned his back on them. To do this, in comes Jared Dirac - a superhuman hybrid that has been created out of Boutin's DNA and in theory whose brain ought to be able to access his old electronic memories.
The effort seemingly falls short and after a while Dirac is placed in the Ghost Brigades. At first, Dirac seems to be just a "ordinary" superhuman soldier until his old memories start to surface. Will they be enough to save humanity in time? What else will be revealed and will it be even worse than the reasons that Boutin turned traitor initially? Scalzi does a great job of taking the reader on an action-packed ride as the battle for humanity's right to exist rages on throughout the colony and alien worlds alike. The science of the skip-drives and all of the technology can be a little hard to follow at times, but that seems to be the way with these military sci-fi books the first time around. It's not pivotal to the point where you have to understand all of the terminology and concepts that you can't enjoy the main plots, which is a plus.
If you're looking for a good science fiction book and are a fan of military sci-fi in particularly, pick this book up at your local bookstore and watch the pages fly by!
-Travis S.
Book Review: Nice fun novel with a deeper side, and sharp and funny writing
Summary: 4 Stars
John Scalzi won last year's Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and his first novel with a major publisher, Old Man's War, was on the Hugo ballot. That novel told of human colonies in a hostile galaxy, whose army consists of old people who have agreed to serve in the military in exchange for a new body. The backstory of that novel hinted at a complex political situation involving the many alien races the humans share the galaxy with. His 2006 novel, The Ghost Brigades, addresses that situation a bit more.
The title refers to the Special Forces branch of the Colonial Defense Forces. These are particularly enhanced soldiers, cloned from soldiers who didn't survive the period between agreeing to serve in the CDF and getting transferred to their new body. They have special abilities, most particularly a quasi-telepathic link with other members of their unit. But they are for the most part secret. In Old Man's War we met one Ghost Brigade soldier, Jane Sagan. (These soldiers are given names derived from famous scientists.)
In this novel a plot is uncovered: three alien races, the Rraey, the Obin, and the Enesha, have agreed to unite against humanity. And one human, Charles Boutin, a brilliant scientist, has turned traitor after the death of his daughter. Boutin's expertise is consciousness transfer. The CDF have a copy of his consciousness, and they transfer it into a clone of his body, hoping to find out what made Boutin go bad. But the transfer doesn't take (at first), and the clone, called Jared Dirac, becomes a regular Special Forces member.
He joins Jane Sagan's unit, and eventually participates in key actions, such as a mission against the Eneshans, in which his unit commits atrocities in order to convince the Eneshans to abandon their alliance against humans. This stress begins to recall his Boutin memories, and he is set on a path leading inevitably to the real Charles Boutin, and to some wrenching revelations about galactic politics, and about human interactions with aliens.
It is once again a lot of fun. There are weakness -- some excessive implausibilities in the plot most particularly. And I am not entirely convinced by the characterization of the Special Forces members (though Scalzi does try ...). But it's pretty good overall, and I did like the increased moral complexity of this future as described here. Not a great novel, but a nice fun novel with a bit of a deeper side. There are some nice ideas, some good thinking about such things as the importance of consciousness, and plenty of sharp and funny writing.
Book Review: A fab sci-fi tale, even without reading Old Man's War!
Summary: 5 Stars
In The Ghost Brigades, Jared Dirac is "born". Developed from human DNA, but altered and enhanced, he awakes as an adult, and is ready to fight as a member of Special Forces in about a month. The galaxy is full of other races competing for a limited number of habitable planets, and a constant supply of Colonial Defense Forces soldiers is essential for humanity. However, Dirac is the product of DNA of super-traitor Charles Boutin, who seems to be favoring aliens over humans. The question is whether Boutin's consciousness is in Dirac's head as well as the BrainPal that allows Dirac to integrate with his squad mates.
Will Jared Dirac join traitorous Boutin, or come to humanity's aid?
In Old Man's War, author John Scalzi described the training of traditional soldiers. In The Ghost Brigades, you'll learn more about Special Forces training. There is very minor overlap with the first book, primarily in regards to the adventures of Jane Sagan, a Special Forces soldier and intelligence officer.
It was fun reading about the books and movies that interest these Special Forces super soldiers:
"The verdicts were reasonably consistent. The War Of The Worlds met with approval until the ending, which struck the 8th as a cheap trick. Starship Troopers has some good action scenes but required too much unpacking of philosophical ideas; they liked the movie better, even though they recognized it was dumber. The Forever War made most of the 8th unaccountably sad; the idea that a war could go on that long was almost unfathomable to a group of people who were a week old. After watching Star Wars everyone wanted a lightsaber and was irritated the technology for them didn't really exist. Everyone also agreed that the Ewoks should all die. ...Ender's Game delighted them all; here were soldiers who just like them, except smaller. The main character was even bred to fight alien species like they were. The next day the members of the 8th greeted each other with the salutation ::Ho, Ender,:: until Brahe told them to knock it off and pay attention" (p. 98). Fun. I think if Scalzi had read the sci-fi works of Iain M Banks, these Special Forces recruits would have also appreciated the exploits of the soldiers in The Culture (The Player of Games).
Enjoy.
Book Review: Not as good as Old Man's War
Summary: 3 Stars
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.]