Books : The Ghost Brigades

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Author name: John Scalzi

: The Ghost Brigades
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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN num: 9780765354068
ISBN number: 0765354063
Label: Tor Science Fiction
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: May 01, 2007
Publishing house: Tor Science Fiction
Sale Popularity Level: 2089
Studio: Tor Science Fiction



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Product Description:
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 acess 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…




Customer Reviews
User popularity level: out of 5 stars

Rated by buyers 4 out of 5 stars - Excellent follow-up to Old Man's War
Starts with a tricky bit of misdirection, and remains very entertaining the whole way through. Like Old man's War, it balances intense, vivid action with more thoughful parts that add depth to the story.

This time there is less action though and it did bog down the proceeedings just a tiny bit. There was one really awkwardly written part about 2/3 of the way through, like maybe that section had never been revised or something. However, that was corrected quickly and the book went on to a very exciting and interesting climax.

After 2 great books Scalzi is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. His writing style is so smooth, and I am looking forward to picking up The Last Colony as soon as the paperback is released, as well as checking out his other stuff.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Wow... Ghost Brigades may be even better than Old Man's War
I enjoyed Old Man's War a lot. While it had a lot of familiar sci-fi elements, Scalzi's writing style is unique and refreshing; full of clever humor, great characters and intense action. In The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi simply takes all of these elements and enhances on them. I think I liked this book even better.

The Ghost Brigades is a much different book than Old Man's War. It seems to me that with this book, Scalzi drifts a bit from Heinlein territory and truly breaks into his own. Old Man's War didn't really have a solitary focus, other than the life of it's main character John Perry. It was all over the place from one alien battle to another. The Ghost Brigades has a more singular plot, which is to prevent the destruction of humanity from 3 alien races that have allied against mankind. At the heart of this is a civilian scientiest turned traitor who has sold mankind's best secrects to this new alliance.

Enter Jared Dirac: a clone of this scientest with the man's memories and conciousness implanted directly on top of his brain. The purpose of his creation is to find out exactly why Boutin betrayed the human race and see if there is a way to stop this war. The copy seemed not to work at all and Jared becomes his own man, joining the special forces as they try and prevent this war the hard way.

Jared is a very interesting character and nearly the complete opposite of John Perry from the very first book. Rather than an aged and experienced man who's grown tired of his boring life on Earth and joins the army, we have a newborn man who's knowlege is programmed straight into him, forced into the special forces and forced to experience life's harsh realities very quickly. We see him slowly turn from a naive and noble child into a man that begins to resemble the one he was cloned from.

Of the characters in Jared's platoon, only 2 others really get any in depth development. One is Sarah Pauling whom Jared bonds with quickly, who have some sort of relationship between them that is about as mature as you can expect from people who are less than a year old. The other is a fairly major player from Old Man's War, Jane Sagan. If you've read that, you're already emotionally invested in her. We do have other interesting characters outside of his platoon, namley Cainen (sp), a Rheah who was captured in the beginning and has in depth knowlege of the triple alliance against the Colonial Defense Force. He is given a disease and then kept alive by a daily antidote that will only be given if he cooperates. Despite this, he actually comes to care about Jared and his human captors. I found him to be probably the most interesting character of this story.

And let's not forget the action. There's not as much space combat as there was in Old Man's War, but the ground missions are incredibly intense, and much more interesting than those in OMW, as the goals are much more specific and the stakes larger.

This is a great book and Scalzi has a fan for life. I'll be reading Android's Dream and await Last Colony to come out on paperback subsequent month.





Rated by buyers 4 out of 5 stars - A solid, simple read
I think that the world created by John Scalzi in this book has a lot of potential. I did not realize when I picked it up that it was actually the second one that he'd created in this universe (the very first being "Old Man's War").

But I also felt that he didn't take advantage of the rich potential offered by the universe he'd created. There was really only one line through the novel and everybody and everything was dedicated to following that single thread to its conclusion. The protagonist (Jared Dirac) has a genetically-modified body that is detailed early on in the story but then is virtually ignored for the rest of the novel. Similarly, there are many characters introduced (his immediate commander, the various top brass folks) who hint at being very interesting and whose past and possible intrigues are not at all pursued. Maybe there is an intention to do so in later novels or these are elaborated upon in the earlier book but then there is no endeavor to recap any of this in "The Ghost Brigades".

Further, the relationship dynamics (conflict between Jared and team mates, interactions between the "normal" people and the "Special Forces") are very simple with easy and final resolutions. It makes for a very comfortable read but a less richly textured story.

Finally, the story wrapped up very conveniently and neatly. Again, I felt, not taking advantage of the universe that has been conceived and is waiting for its potential to be seized upon. I tend to be a "happily ever after" kind of guy (too much Hollywood-style entertainment I suppose), but I realize that there are very few nice, neat certainties in the world, and certainly few situations where everybody's goals all line up so that everybody will be happy at the same time or for the same reason.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and the story immensely. I find Mr. Scalzi's presentation engaging and I loved his exploration into consciousness and trying to grapple with the realities, both technical and moral, presented by being able to transplant consciousness from one body to another and some of the implications of literally creating soldiers (slaves) and convincing them that servitude is a noble life goal. I will definitely be picking up his other offerings. But I will do so expecting a quick, easy read rather than an in-depth, complex narrative.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Decide for yourself...
As soon as I finished "The Old Man's War" I came straight to Amazon and started looking for more books in the series. After reading a couple negative reviews of "The Ghost Brigades" I was almost afraid to purchase it. I hate to read work by authors that I love, and be dissappointed in the work.

This is not one of those books. While this is a continuation of the world presented in "The Old Man's War," it's not really a sequal. Scalzi has created a very vivid, expansive universe. In "The Ghost Brigades" the reader is exposed to another level of that universe.

If you're expecting another adventure of the plucky hero, John Perry, this isn't it. If you enjoy the work of John Scalzi give this title the consideration it deserves.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Outstanding read again!
I would really love to provide a great review of this book, but I feel like anything that I'd say would give away part of the plot and encourage you not to read it, and I certainly don't want that to happen at all.

Let's just say that Scalzi does a tremendous job writing science fiction for people who people who do and don't like science fiction alike. He deftly weaves human nature, xenobiology, and metaphysical concepts into a tremendous narrative that's hard to put down. If you've read his very first book in this universe (Old Man's War), then go read this one already. If you haven't, read that very first (you won't regret it), then get this one.

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