To many a nethead and SF geek alike John Scalzi is the stuff of myth, a man who managed to get a book deal off the Internet (Via Whatever) and have it turn in decent sales. Also he tapes bacon to cats. Earlier in the year, when the title was again released for free on the Internet, I reviewed his first novel, Old Man’s War, here.

Now, I like my literary SF as much as the next geek but, to be perfectly honest, with the amount of commuting I do I sometimes just want a rollicking good read and lashings of action. I think it’s actually quite hard to write that type of book credibly, even more so to do it more than once and manage to get in some solid SF tropes in a way that works. I was curious to see if John Scalzi could do the same thing twice.*

The Ghost Brigades is set in the same universe as Old Man’s War. It picks up the story of Jane Sagan – John Perry’s love interest from Old Man’s War – as she leads her squad of soldiers, cloned from dead people, one of the afore mentioned Ghost Brigades, against a series of hostile alien races hell bent on an alliance that would wipe out humanity. Helping the aliens is a human scientist (Boutin) once entrusted with humanity’s all-important genetic technologies and a key factor in humanities expansion into space.

Jared Dirac is a different kind of super soldier, created not from a dead person but from the DNA and memories of the scientist that betrayed humanity. When this attempt to access Boutin’s memories via Jared apparently fails he joins Sagan’s squad, fighting side by side with the Ghost Brigades as his memories slowly begin to resurface and the knowledge of what Boutin really has planned.

I sometimes feel Scalzi is done a disservice by the constant references to Heinlein, that he is noticeably riffing off the master of military SF is not in question - indeed Scalzi is quite open about this. No, the problem to me is that it gives reviewers and readers an excuse to gloss over some of the more interesting ideas that Scalzi slips in the back door. In fact I have just done much the same thing by opening the review by saying I like a rollicking good read and lashings of action, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with action SF. And fans of action SF will find a heap of stuff to love about this book, it’s just that isn’t all there is to The Ghost Brigades.

At the core Scalzi has deftly weaved a story about personal identity in amongst all the killer aliens, genetically enhanced super soldiers and explosive set pieces. Yet he doesn’t stop there, as Boutin’s memories begin to surface and Jared tries to work out who he actually is - Boutin or Jared - Scalzi take political ethics for a spin around the block, keeping the reader on their toes. It’s a neat trick betting on the reader’s knowledge of Heinlein’s work and military SF’s tropes to make the reader as confused as Jared as to who’re the good guys and who’re the bad.

Sure, I could sit here and take pops at Scalzi, pointing out where his work falls short of other more hard core or literary SF writers but you know what: he wouldn’t give a shit and neither will most of the people that read The Ghost Brigades. Why? Because its not meant to be hard SF or literary SF, its meant to be a rollicking good read with lashings of action and if it makes you think a bit about personal identity, well: that’s just gravy. Above all these it’s meant to be fun and in that Scalzi really has succeeded.

4/5
* Also proving I’m a slave to Doctorow’s theory of marketing I marched out and obtained a paperback copy this time.