The Ghost Brigades is the second instalment in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe, and a somewhat different beast than the first novel. As the title suggests, this time we focus on the Ghost Brigades – the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Force (CDF). While we met Jane Sagan during the events of Old Man’s War, this time we see events from the point of view of the Special Forces soldiers, and it’s one that is both harrowing and action-packed in equal measure.
The CDF have discovered a traitor to humanity, Charles Boutin, who faked his own death and is now working with three other alien races to bring a war against the CDF. However, Boutin’s work before he defected, a means of transferring consciousness into blank clones, has left behind an interesting development – a copy of his own consciousness.
Now that the CDF have found the copy they want to use it to their advantage by creating a clone of Boutin for a memory upload. However, this is not a normal clone and the CDF have used their advanced techniques to grow a body fit for the Ghost Brigades. With members of the Ghost Brigades created from the DNA of volunteers that died before starting duty, and that of alien species whose traits may offer a further advantage to soldiers, it’s safe to say that the fully-grown and built-for-fighting Ghost Brigades are a deadly force.
But the attempt at transferring the memories of Boutin into the clone appears to fail, and instead he is given a new identity: Jared Dirac. Dirac is sent to train with his fellow soldiers before being assigned to a squad commanded by Jane Sagan, with her orders to watch him in case of any changes to his personality. And developments there are, the worst of which turn into a race against time to find the real Charles Boutin before war breaks out.
Following on from Old Man’s War (review) I doubted that The Ghost Brigades could live up to my expectations. After all, Old Man’s War was a fantastic novel full of everything that is good about science fiction. Not only did The Ghost Brigades did live up to those expectations in a spectacular fashion, it delivered more of what was good about the first novel while expanding on it further.
This time around the narrative is no longer in the first person, and this allows plenty of freedom for Scalzi to fill us in on little bits of information we missed out on in Old Man’s War. This novel is more descriptive, bringing the setting and events to life in even greater detail. While there are some points of info-dumping throughout the narrative, it’s done in such a way as to be barely intrusive into the story. Scalzi also keeps the story well-paced with few diversions, another strength carried over from Old Man’s War. Although the humour we were treated to during the first novel isn’t as prevalent in The Ghost Brigades, the times it does appear it is wholly suited to the situation and will bring a smile to your face, if not make you laugh out loud.
This brings me to what I like about Scalzi’s writing – it’s down-to-earth without all the usual in-depth descriptions that other science fiction authors I read tend to include. These are books that you can pick up and enjoy, and will appeal to almost any science fiction fan.
There is also the added depth and focus to the story present here. Not only do we see The Ghost Brigades from the inside, but our narrator of most of these events, Jared Dirac, is different than those around him. We often find that his view of the situations that arise is slightly different from those of his colleagues, and we see that he is exploring this internally. When events really get going and Dirac discovers his true identity, we really see some interesting conversations and reactions. Scalzi has managed to craft a character that is not only interesting to read, but is one that the reader can genuinely care about.
The Ghost Brigades is yet another example of science fiction at its finest. An action packed, straight to the point novel, it will keep you turning those pages – and not just to find out what happens next, you’ll want to read more of writing like this. I’m fully signed up to John Scalzi and he can count me in as a fan for life, his stuff truly is exceptional.
Publisher: http://panmacmillan.com
Author: http://www.scalzi.com
November 2015, 356 Pages
Paperback, ISBN: 9781447295389
Review from purchased copy
© 2015 Mark Chitty
