Having moderately enjoyed John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War a couple of months ago, there was no reason not to grab sequel The Ghost Brigades from the MVPL shelves the first time I noticed it. My two main critiques of this few hundred years in the future starfaring society were that the Colonial Union–the governing agency for all off-Earth humans–treated Earth as little more than a ranch for breeding stock and an absence of a how things got this way explanation.
So I’ll open by saying that in this novel he begins to answer those complaints and does so in a way that adds to the overall series plot. Yes, I used the ‘s’ word–from Scalzi’s blog I see that a third novel, The Last Colony, will be released in May 2007. Friggin’ lead times! But at least Ghost Brigades doesn’t suffer from trilogyitis.
At 300 pages he doesn’t have much room for that kind of bloat, this book is definitely not a pumped up novella. It’s also better written the first, which was pretty decent mind you, but to give a concrete indicator I was a half hour late to work Friday for not wanting to wait until after to finish reading.
OMW followed John Perry, a retirement age American widow, through his first couple of years as an enlistee in the Colonial Defense Forces, with the Special Forces soldiers (nicknamed The Ghost Brigades) playing only a small part. The one surviving soldier from that unit of any significance, Jane Sagan, is a lead character in this story.
To recap: Humanity has spread to the stars and found there are many races competing for the relatively few planets suitable for our kind of life. Competition for them is violent, almost without exception, and there is no United Federation of Planets to intervene or encourage peaceful negotiations. For reasons that aren’t clear, Scalzi has only included one race significantly more technologically advanced than us and the other 600+ races we know of and the Consu (another carryover from OMW) believe advancement towards salvation comes only through battle.
Besides faster than light stardrives (Skip drives), humans have also developed nanotech that enables sophisticated genetic engineering and integrated computing devices. CDF recruits only enlist at age 75 and are immediately given new bodies–into which their consciousness is transferred–better suited to war. BrainPals, integrated computers with high bandwidth encrypted wireless connectivity, and smart blood, nanites that carry more oxygen than normal blood and can be controlled by the BrainPals, are two examples, plus green skin. If a soldier survives the 10 year service term, she’s given yet another body, this one more like the original. Though since not a single character in either book has reached that point and become a colonist I’m not really sure if that’s correct.
Special Forces warriors are a bit different. CDF recruits sign up at their 65th birthday and give a tissue sample which is used to create their future body; consciousnesses can only transfer to a body that has a mind that is equivalent to the original and clones take a bit under two years to grow to physical maturity. But of course not everyone alive at 65 is still there at 75 and so some of the tissue of those who don’t make it is used to grow Special Forces bodies, which develop their own new selves.
Ghost Brigades is the story of Jared Dirac, a ghost warrior grown as an experiment. Charles Boutin, a top Colonial Union scientist, has turned traitor and is helping an inimical, powerful alien race. Before leaving, Boutin developed software which can store–but not run–a consciousness in a computer and left a copy of his on file. The military command decides to grow a Boutin clone and see what happens when the stored copy is transferred to it. Though scans show the transfer succeeded, there are no signs it took control of the body, so Dirac was trained and assigned to Sagan’s squad as if he was a normal soldier.
Meanwhile months go by and Dirac survives a number of battles. Gradually the clone connects with Boutin’s memories and emotions, a little at a time, and is sent to Military Research for study. When he realizes where the other must be, Dirac returns to active duty and is sent with Sagan and the rest of his squad to confront and capture the traitor.
Scalzi himself confronts a number of prejudices and cliches embedded in his creation, which I think makes the book much better. For instance, early on Dirac gets a ride from a “realborn” shuttle pilot who tells him a joke (which is a new concept for the hour-old) and when he retells it to his training mates they don’t see the humor, pointing out that most jokes rely on one of the characters being stupid. Later the warriors confront the fact that they’re essentially slaves, created specifically to be soldiers and not given a choice in the matter, though none goes so far as to refuse to fight.
Scalzi ties off the Dirac/Boutin story nicely, gives Sagan a reward for her success and sets the stage for the next book (according to his blog) to cover the bigger, political picture.
recommended
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