The Ghost Brigades returns to the universe of Scalzi's novel Old Man's War. In the first book, Scalzi introduced readers to John Perry and Earth's rejuvenated soldiers, the Colonial Defense Forces. This time around, he takes us into the world of The Ghost Brigades, the special forces of the CDF. Jane Sagan must track down a traitor, and what better way to find a traitor than to copy his consciousness into a freshly-baked Ghost Brigade soldier? But the transfer doesn't work ... at least, not right away.

I enjoyed the first book, but I thought this one was even stronger. As with the first book, we follow a new recruit (Jared Dirac, the altered clone of traitor Charles Boutin) through his indoctrination in the Ghost Brigades. Once again, there plenty of shiny "Wow!" moments as we learn about these supersoldiers. The pace never flagged, and the conflicts kept me engaged throughout. The external battles meshed quite well with Jared's internal struggle to discover and maintain his own identity.

Scalzi explores the universe he's created in a bit more depth this time around. We see the next phase of CDF modifications, and we actually meet a member from one of the hostile races -- the captured alien scientist was one of my favorite characters. Scalzi also touches on some of the diplomatic issues, hinting at larger conflicts which will hopefully be explored in book three.

I'll definitely be picking up The Last Colony the next time I place an order.