John Scalzi was one of my best literary finds this year, and after reading Old Man’s War in the spring, I picked up the pseudo-sequel The Ghost Brigades. Like the previous novel, this second installment takes place in the far flung future where soldiers are made from the recycled elderly, and the heroes and heroines are embattled with moral dilemmas stemming from their "supposed" lack of humanity.

As with most sophomoric attempts, the uniqueness of Scalzi’s universe was expected and the book had to be carried by plot and character development alone. Fortunately, Old Man’s War left a cluster of interesting characters to push the second novel along with only a few new technological twists to keep the plot fresh.

Based on how good his first two books were, I recently picked up another — The Android’s Dream — and look forward to trying the third novel in this series (The Lost Colony) in the near future.