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The Ghost Brigades | 
| Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 1548
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.3 x 1
ISBN: 0330457101
EAN: 9780330457101
ASIN: 0330457101
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Sci-fi for Everyone December 2, 2008
The numerous reviews of John Scalzi's 'The Ghost Brigades', his follow up to the excellent 'Old Man's War', pretty much cover most of the points I would wish to raise so I'm not going to waste time repeating them.
What I will say is that, as someone who is highly selective about the science-fiction novels they read (the works of Peter F. Hamilton, Toby Frost's hilarious Space Captain Smith series and the odd dip into Steam & Cyber Punk territory is about it) I would not hesitate to recommend The Ghost Brigades and its prequel to fans and non-fans of Sci-fi alike.
Not only has Scalzi created a fantastically well realised possible future for humanity in these books, he has done it without the need to sacrifice plot or character to make way for huge chunks of descriptive prose or by creating a doorstep sized tome of a novel. As with all the best sci-fi the universe on show is there to service the plot, and not vice versa. Non-sci-fi fans need not fear being overwhelmed by vast reams of explanatory text intended to provide almost geeky levels of detail designed to prove how much time and effort the author has put in to create his vision of the future.
Instead Scalzi concentrates on the two most important elements of what makes any successful novel, be it science fiction or another genre entirely; namely character and plot. Despite the fact that its set in the future and some of the characters are only partially human or not human at all they all jump off the page and feel very real. The emotions on display here, as with Old Man's War, be they love, fear, betrayal, excitement or wonder, feel very real. This is not the cold science-fiction where technology is more important than people. The Ghost Brigades is all about what it is like to be human (or inhuman), what people feel and the decisions they make, and for it to work the reader has to associate and feel for the characters, and Scalzi's ensures that we do.
Before you begin to fear however, that this may be some long meditation on the himan condition don't worry, its not. Its a very exciting tale of one unique man's struggle to save the human race. Whereas 'Old Man's War' was a very simple and linear tale told from one person's perspective and really served mostly as an introduction (albeit an immensely enjoyable one) to Scalzi's universe, The Ghost Brigades is more of a conventional thriller in terms of structure and is more satisfying dramatically than its predecessor for that reason. In fact if you ignore the fact that the book is set in the future it is at heart just a very good example of a tale about one man's quest to uncover the truth behind a conspiracy.
So whether you're a lifelong sci-fi fan, dip into the genre from time to time like me, of have never even seen Star Wars, I would recommend The Ghost Brigades. I would also recommend reading 'Old Man's War' first. You will not be disappointed if you do.
Loved it! October 6, 2008
Love this author's writing style, a great new read, complex and well developed plots, no loose ends...:)
 The Human Empire: You are either with us or against us August 30, 2008
Not as much fun as Old Man's War. Not using the first person narrative of the previous book in the series makes everything a little impersonal and it is not until you literally (via BrainPal) get inside the head of the newly created Special Forces character Jared Dirac does the book stop being populated by a series of faceless generals and scientists. When the young clone soldiers in his squad are shown old science fiction films as part of their training their reaction to Star Wars is hilarious. Although I disagree with their opinion that Starship Troopers is dumb and lacks philosophy. However that could be a charge leveled at this book where the one philosophy seems to be "kill them and take their planets before they kill you and take yours". In fact for the most part this reads like an imperialist dream, with the interests of the Human Empire needing to be protected from hordes of violent unworthy alien savages. The war crimes committed by the human forces to "protect" the colonies begin to their toll on the reader. The alternative offered by the human traitor is no better, making this a fairly uncomfortable book. It is only in the final few chapters the missing emotional attachment is recovered and you start to care again and the story becomes just as involving as its predecessor. By the end my faith was restored sufficiently that I am now looking forward to reading The Last Colony.
A superb follow up to Old Man's War August 11, 2008
The Colonial Defense Force his discovered a traitor to humanity, Charles Boutin, who faked his own death and is working with three other alien races to bring a war against the CDF. However, the project Boutin was working on, a way to transfer a consciousness into a blank clone, has left an interesting development - during his research he stored a copy of his own consciousness in a system.
Now that the CDF have found it they want to use it to get into the enemies mind and create a clone of Boutin. Although this is not a normal clone, they have used their advanced techniques to grow a body fit for the Ghost Brigades: the special forces of the CDF made up from the DNA of volunteers that died before starting duty. Fully grown and built for fighting the Ghost Brigades are a deadly force.
The attempt at transferring the memories of Boutin into the clone appears to fail and he is given a new identity: Jared Dirac. Dirac is sent off to train with his fellow soldiers and assigned to the squad of Jane Sagan who is ordered to watch him in case of any developments. And developments there are which turn into a race against time to find Boutin before war breaks out.
Following on from Old Man's War 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. Well, Ghost Brigades did live up to those expectations in a spectacular fashion, delivering more of what was good about OMW and expanding on it further.
This time around the narrative is no longer in the first person allowing plenty of freedom for Scalzi to fill us in on the little bits of information we missed out on in OMW. This one is definitely more descriptive, with a few examples of info dumping, but Scalzi keeps the story well paced with few diversions. Although the humour found in OMW isn't as prevalent in 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 of other science fiction authors I read. These are books that you can pick up and enjoy at any point and will appeal to almost any science fiction fan.
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 now and he can count me in as a fan for life, his stuff truly is exceptional.
 Great success for Scalzi March 4, 2008
Following on from Old Mans War this tale continues in the futuristic world dreamed up by John Scalzi. Whilst to many a sci-fi book relies upon the sheer strength of the science within, Scalzi likes to let his characters do the talking and with each protagonist allowing the sheer strength of character to push the tale futher along. That's his key strength to my mind, the way that he allows them to grow and decide their own destiny within the book. Well written, cracking characters and above all a story where the spirit of man demonstrates what it can truly accomplish when pushed to the limits.
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