blog/content/reviews/books/the-ghost-brigades-old-mans-war-2.md

+++
title = "The Ghost Brigades (Old Man's War, #2) - John Scalzi"
date = 2016-04-21
updated = 2021-02-12

[taxonomies]
tags = ["books", "john scalzi", "reviews", "scifi", "old man's war", 
"stars:5", "published:2006"]
+++

[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239399.The_Ghost_Brigades):
The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces,
elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect
soldiers for the CDF's toughest operations. They’re young, they’re fast and
strong, and they’re totally without normal human qualms.

The universe is a dangerous place for humanity—and it's about to become far
more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied
to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military
scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest military secrets. To
prevail, the CDF must find out why Boutin did what he did.

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{{ stars(stars=5) }}

Reading another "Old Man's War" after a long time since the very first is a
weird experience. Mostly because you forgot half of the stuff, and the other
half is buried somewhere in a fuzzy old memory.

And then the names appear in the story. And *then* you remember most of the
stuff.

Thing is, this book does very little connection with the first one. While
"_Old Man's War_" explored the life of a man in a new body in a very long
battle, this book focuses on the other half of the book, Jane Sagan, the
soldier built with the DNA of the man in the new body.

So now we have the battles of Jane Sagan as a CDF soldier. But the book is
really what *people* are: The bodies? Their personality? Their memories?

Unfortunately, it doesn't go as deep as it could in this topic but, on the
other hand, the story is mostly solid, the writing is easy to read and the
story itself have a good pacing.