The Ghost Brigades

Book Review: WARNING! WITH SPOILERS

You've been warned. I mowed through the last of the second book in the series by John Scalzi. It was also very good. Not quite as good as the first, but that one was up in the stratosphere, so we're still talking much better than most.

You got to the point where you really liked John Perry by the time the first book finished, so for those John Perry fans out there, there is no John here.

There is a nod to other science fiction stories. Scalzi has a group of people reading war fiction, and it's really a reading list of influences on his development. Interestingly, we've read most of the same material.

This version really got into how the Special Forces troops were made. It gets into the awakening and integration of the troops as well as their training. The computer brain interface allows them to have consciousness, even as they are first awakened. They talked about how they were able to clone a full grown adult in 16 weeks by accelerated development, which was cool. They talked about consciousness transfer, which was an interesting concept.

The main character is a clone that is made to house the consciousness, stored in a device, by a mad scientist that defected from the humans and was trying to serve his own goals, which unfortunately involved the slaughter of the human race.

He has the memories or personality of the defecting scientist downloaded onto him, but it doesn't take. So he is trained as a Special Forces soldier, only to have some of the memories and emotions of the bad guy come out gradually and incompletely.

They did another space drop in this one, and they had only one really active battle scene, although it focused more one the main character than the blood & guts you come to see.

In the end, the story was more about morals and honor, conceptual ideas, rather than the mechanics of how all this works. You find that the person that is accused of having no morals or sense of humor has the best of both of these. The way he kills the bad guy in the end is a very interesting twist.

There is a third book in the series, which I think I will wait a while to read. Perhaps when it comes out in paperback. I look forward to seeing more good things from John Scalzi in the future.