The Ghost Brigades

A disappointing and unremarkable sequel in Scalzi's much lauded Old Man's War series. The Ghost Brigades doesn't take the concepts and universe its predecessor created and elevate or put a spin on them. Rather, it repeats a lot of the same plot beats and thematic focuses. This time, though, we're following a member of the Special Forces as he progresses through basic training, participates in war crimes, and attempts to save humanity from a surprise three versus one gank. Special forces are usually generated using the DNA of deceased volunteers for the army, but our protagonist has the additional wrinkle of being imprinted with the consciousness of a species-traitor at birth, in an attempt by the Special Forces to learn more about his deceit. Of course, all of this is without his consent. He is born and bred to be a warrior, a solider, an expendable that on average will only live a few years before his gruesome fate.

In my estimation, around eighty percent of the writing is either: 1. surface level blocks of exposition attempting to build up some of the world or scientifically explain a concept, or 2. dull, emotionless he-said she-said dialogue between characters that either are essentially interchangeable or have laughably stupid motivations. Sure, this alien prisoner-of-war that's been tortured and sentenced to a slow, painful death, who also happens to belong to a species that finds human a delicious source of protein, would definitely concern himself with providing ethical choices for one of his captors. Once again, Scalzi refuses to provide anything more than the bare essentials of scene setting. It's as if he knows at this stage of career he isn't a strong prose writer, so he avoids at all costs being forced to show it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention Scalzi's very strong, sarcastic, reddit-esque humor that suffuses nearly every conversation. Humor is obviously subjective. I don't fault anyone for finding this style of humor palatable. But I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a major turn-off for me. I couldn't count all of the eye rolls that were forced out of me on all of my fingers and toes combined. His multiple uses of the word 'retard' also really date the book as a product of 2006. In most ways The Ghost Brigades comes across as juvenile, and by that I don't mean 'young-adult'.

The Ghost Brigades is akin to watching the sequel of a B-tier Marvel franchise. If you're able to turn your synapses off completely, shovel popcorn into your hole, and get free tickets, you might have fun few hours. I doubt you'll remember it tomorrow though.