The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

The novel “The Ghost Brigades” by John Scalzi was published for the first time in 2006. It’s the second novel in the “Old Man’s War” series, set in the same fictional universe of “Old Man’s War“.

The soldiers of the Special Forces, the elite corps of the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) who defend the Earth and the other human colonies from hostile aliens, are created in vitro using the DNA of the recruits who died before starting their service and for this reason are called Ghost Brigades.

When an alliance of three alien species against human beings are discover and the scientist Charles Boutin betrays his species, it’s necessary to take strong countermeasures. One of his inventions allows to record in a stable manner the contents of a human mind. The scientist has used it on himself to transfer his mind into a clone but he had to leave the recording before fleeing.

To try to find Charles Boutin it’s decided to create another clone but of the type enhanced to become a soldier. However, for some reason the mind of Boutin does not seem to have been properly recorded into the brain of the host body. Jared Dirac seems to be a soldier like all the others in the Ghost Brigades but they keep an eye on him in case Boutin’s memories were to emerge.

“The Ghost Brigades” isn’t the sequel to “Old Man’s War” and almost all the characters are different from to the first novel. The Ghost Brigades were already introduced in “Old Man’s War”, in the second novel they’re the protagonists and John Scalzi explains how their soldiers live and fight.

“The Ghost Brigades” contains all the information needed to understand the story but it’s certainly useful to have already read “Old Man’s War” to understand through the progressive discovery of its protagonist John Perry how the CDF work, how the BrainPal system works and more. All this plus the fact that it’s really a good novel and the two novels in many ways complement each other providing the reader with a broader view of that fictional universe.

John Scalzi had recognized in Robert A. Heinlein one of his sources of inspiration and “Old Man’s War” seemed quite militaristic, although it’s far from “Starship Troopers”. In “The Ghost Brigades” the tone is very different, primarily because the Special Forces are those which among other things do the dirtiest work on behalf of the CDF.

The regular soldiers of the CDF are elderly who usually have their own strong sense of ethics and morality. The Ghost Brigade soldiers are trained literaly from their birth to fight so they have no inhibitions that can stop them when they’re ordered to carry out acts that normal human beings would find monstrous.

The soldiers of the Ghost Brigades fight for the defense of humanity but how much are they really human? Their interactions with the “normal” soldiers are limited and difficult precisely because they lack all the experience gained before entering the CDF. Even their bodies are heavily modified to be better suited to their tasks.

This also raises the issue of free will. If the soldiers of the Ghost Brigades are born such and they’re taught from their birth that their job is to fight what distinguishes them from slaves? Initially, they know only the information supplied by their BrainPal.

Jared Dirac’s unique situation allows him to come into contact with people of various species that stimulate him to question the actions of the CDF. The answers to the questions he asks are far from easy and are not final. In “The Ghost Brigades” John Scalzi provides us until the end with new information about this fictional universe with several surprises that make the reader discover new levels of complexity. That also includes new shades of grey in terms of ethics and morality.

Despite the presence of those ethical and moral elements, “The Ghost Brigades” is in many ways an action novel and the pace of the narrative is generally quite fast. Of the characters, only Jared Dirac and a few others are actually developed. The novel is narrated in the third person from the point of view of various characters: that’s useful to follow the facets of the plot but makes it difficult to develop the many characters in the story. John Scalzi’s choice of is to write novels under 400 pages so you can’t have everything.

Those are small flaws that in my opinion don’t take away much to the quality of “The Ghost Brigades”. In some ways I found this novel even better than “Old Man’s War” so I recommend reading it as well.

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