Max's review
The Ghost Brigades
by John Scalzi
Max's review
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
Max's review
rating:
In Old Man's War, Scalzi creates a world where consciousness can be transferred from a "Realborn" human being into a genetically engineered super soldier. The scary Others in that book are not the alien species the human Colonial Union fights, but the soldiers that are created from the genes of the dead without having had a consciousness transferred. The Ghost Brigades are a dark mystery, and in the sequel to his book Scalzi gets to explore the larger idea of what it means to move consciousness from body to body, and some of the philosophical ideas that kind of sci asks. However, the last third of the book gets bogged down in the overarching Evil Genius's plot to overthrow the Colonial Union and much of the character development gets subsumed by necessary plot machinations. The choice Scalzi makes is interesting - to try and explore the mental trappings of what defines human consciousness he fixates on the antagonist's motivations for doing something unspeakably cruel. Howeve...more
