The Ghost Brigades

Old Man's War, Book 2

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

John Scalzi's eagerly anticipated sequel to the extraordinary Old Man's War

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…

©2006 John Scalzi (P)2008 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Solid....[Scalzi] sidesteps most of the cliches of military science fiction, delivers fast-paced scenes of combat and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Old Man's War Continues....

Originally posted at FanLit.

The Ghost Brigades is the second novel in John Scalzi’s OLD MAN’S WAR saga. It focuses on the Ghost Brigades — the Special Forces soldiers that the Colonial Union (CU) creates by genetic engineering and who have special powers because of the BrainPal computers in their heads. They’re born in adult bodies and are rapidly assimilated into the Special Forces, though they are a little immature because of their mental age and they lack some of the personality and social skills that come from interaction with “real-born” people in a normal environment. The Ghost Brigades give the regular CU soldiers the heebee-jeebees.

In this story the Colonial Union has discovered the existence of a traitorous scientist, Charles Boutin, who has faked his death by cloning himself and has aligned himself with three alien species who plan to wipe out the humans. Part of his motivation is that he blames the CU for the death of his daughter Zoe who was on a planet the CU blew up. Boutin is helping the aliens by giving them information about Special Forces’ BrainPals. This will allow them to have such technology themselves and perhaps find a way to hack into the BrainPals of the Special Forces soldiers.

This is not good; Boutin must be stopped. When Special Forces discover a source for Boutin’s DNA and his consciousness which he uploaded for safe keeping, they decide to clone him so they can have a soldier who may have Boutin’s memory and who may think like Boutin. (They realize that this could go badly awry.) And so they create Jared Dirac and it’s up to Jared to stop his “father.” Commander Jane Sagan (who we remember from Old Man’s War), is skeptical and worried that instead of catching a traitor, they may be creating another one.

The Ghost Brigades is an exciting story with lots of action, cool ideas, and some of John Scalzi’s humor (but not as much as in Old Man’s War). Scalzi takes the opportunity to make us think about nature vs. nurture, free will, the role of the environment on personality formation, the ethics of cloning, the role of consciousness in the arts, and the relationship between brain, mind and soul.

Scalzi also decides to throw some mud in the water. At this point in the OLD MAN’S WAR story, it’s becoming clear that war is a murky business. Are we supposed to be rooting for the Colonial Union? They’ve got some seriously questionable ethics and our villain is somewhat sympathetic. Has Earth been mistreating her soldiers and/or holding back human technological development? I look forward to learning more in the next book, The Last Colony and its companion, Zoe’s Tale.

I’m reading the audio version of OLD MAN’S WAR which is mostly narrated by William Dufris who, as usual, gives a stellar performance. I recommend this series on audio.

As great as book one, much more in depth on tech

Would you listen to The Ghost Brigades again? Why?

Yes, its a great book

Any additional comments?

I love this book as much as book 1. Books 3-4 are the same story but from different points of view and its not a great story at that. This story is great and it throws you right into the heart of the CDF's best technology and explains it all from the inside out.

Another one you have to wade through at first

But then it does get better. But each time I wonder if I want to buy the next one in the series. I think the performance is good, but I've heard Scalzi read by Wil Wheaton and those were great. But I guess "old man's war" wouldn't go well with a young (relatively) man's voice

A Ghost of a Story

What did you love best about The Ghost Brigades?

It was an interesting concept - Scalzi always makes you think and this book is no exception.

What does William Dufris bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Like his reading - he suits the style of writing and the characters.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The concept is good - but found it hard to connect to the main characters

Any additional comments?

Compared to Old man's War, which admittedly is a tough act to follow, the book disappointed. It is still a good listen.

it was okay

the first book was great. this one was okay. a little predictable and corny. not sure if I'll go for the next one in the series

solid novel

I do wish the different species were more developed and fleshed out. look to Iain Banks or V Vinge for what this story would have been like with chapters from the obin ( even them, if Vinge can do spiders..) and the Eneshan ( other than ch 1 and the one recurring character).
But, this held my interest, Scalzi is very good in his own right. I look forward to continuing the series.

Continuation of a great story

The second book does not fail to stand up. The story is slowly coming to a head and cannot wait to get in book 3. The only thing I found a bit off about this book is the person reading would continually narrate who spoke to the point it was taking away from the story.

Great follow-up to Old Man’s War

Totally different story, but very interesting expansion of the ideas introduced in Old Man’s War. Read that first! But this expands that universe and explores other consequences of the events in OMW.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Great story just one slight issue.

Highly recommend this book, it is very inventive and solidly written. My only issue is that Scalzi seems to be sick on this right-to-suicide philosophy that he has expressed in at least one other book and he brings back more forcefully in this one. It does not greatly impact the overall story, but all life is a gift and should be cherished as such, not needlessly cast aside.Still a very enjoyable read.

Relief of a page turner

It’s really a great joy to find a series of books I relish, I want to get back to as quickly as possible. The characters are funny, intelligent. The story is poignant, thought provoking.