The ghost brigades ebook

Their linchpin is a turncoat scientist, Charles Boutin, who unfortunately knows the CDF's biggest military secrets. And to prevail against this alliance, they must find out why Boutin did what he did. Jared Dirac is the only human able to provide answers, being a superhuman hybrid created form Boutin's own DNA.

Jared's brain should therefore be able to access Boutin's electronic memories Then, just as time is running out, Boutin's memories slowly begin to surface within him Fiction Science Fiction. Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget. You can still place a hold on the title, and your hold will be automatically filled as soon as the title is available again.

The OverDrive Read format of this ebook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here. You've reached the maximum number of titles you can currently recommend for purchase.

Your session has expired. Please sign in again so you can continue to borrow titles and access your Loans, Wish list, and Holds pages. If you're still having trouble, follow these steps to sign in. Add a library card to your account to borrow titles, place holds, and add titles to your wish list. Have a card? Add it now to start borrowing from the collection. The library card you previously added can't be used to complete this action.

Please add your card again, or add a different card. If you receive an error message, please contact your library for help. Error loading page.

Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.

Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help. Louis County Library. Search Search Search Browse menu. Sign in. Perhaps twice a winter, I enjoy making a big pot of chili, suitable for snowy nights and bone chilling cold. I spend much of the morning slicing, dicing and simmering. Although I follow the same general recipe every time, on occasion it just doesn't turn out as savory. I don't know if I boiled instead of simmered, uncovered instead of covered, or failed to sneak in extra secret spice.

All the same ingredients and yet it doesn't quite spark. Still decent, mind you--I wouldn't throw it out--but I Perhaps twice a winter, I enjoy making a big pot of chili, suitable for snowy nights and bone chilling cold. Still decent, mind you--I wouldn't throw it out--but I also wouldn't enter it in any competitions. That pretty much sums up The Ghost Brigades. Like that second pot of chili, The Ghost Brigades just doesn't quite have the right composition.

A fascinating and action oriented start tease the reader into adrenalin surge. Unfortunately, long passages of info-dump quickly take over, and not merely in the guise of mission briefing. While the main character has an intriguing set-up as a decanted member of the Ghost Brigade, he fails to develop much of an identity--even other characters describe him as 'passive. I did struggle with what was supposed to an attempt at a more traditional sci-fi exploration of consciousness and soul.

Scalzi's handling seemed awkward and unfinished to me, perhaps because Ghost is more like an action book with a sci-fi setting and theme than an exploration of ethical and philosophical issues.

The Sparrow handled quite similar threads of inter-species encounters and souls with a much better degree of success. Overall, still a decent read--a filling bowl of soup on a cold night. It'll deserve another attempt. View all 8 comments. In order to catch a traitorous military scientist, Charles Boutin, the Colonial Defense Forces transfer a recording of his consciousness into a new body.

Thus, Jared Dirac is born. When Boutin's personality begins surfacing, Jared's life takes a turn for the worse. This wasn't exactly what I was expecting from a sequel to O In order to catch a traitorous military scientist, Charles Boutin, the Colonial Defense Forces transfer a recording of his consciousness into a new body.

This wasn't exactly what I was expecting from a sequel to Old Man's War but it was a damn good read. Like the first book, it was funny in places. Not only that, Ghost Brigades raises interesting philosophical questions like what it means to have a soul, nature vs. Unlike the first book, there was a lot of action. I found Jared's innocence to be charming in the first half of the book, surprising since he was trained almost from birth to be a soldier.

Sagan grew from her first appearance in Old Man's War. I even kind of understood Boutin's point of view, even though I didn't agree with it. The writing was as good as it was in Old Man's War, just from a third person point of view instead of the first person.

It had a more serious tone but still had its funny moments. I thought the plot was better in this one than in Old Man's War. I wasn't sure The Scalz could come up with a plausible threat for the Ghost Brigades but he more than did just that. View all 4 comments. Nov 22, Bharath rated it it was amazing. In the first book, John Scalzi created a new ecosystem of species, systems, rules etc.

This book continues with the same backdrop into a completely new story, and very well at that. I was quite surprised that the main protagonist in Book 1 — John Perry finds no coverage in this one, except for a passing mention. The universe is a very dangerous place. Each race is bent on acquiring colonies to survive and propagate. The CDF learns that three alien races have joined forces to plot the downfall of the human race.

One human — Charles Boutin, has turned traitor and is helping them. Jane Sagan the only real link to Book 1 has an important role in stopping this plot, and realizes that it is critical to find Charles Boutin. After much deliberation, they adopt a risky approach to finding Charles Boutin and learning of his plans.

This involves Jared Dirac, who is very unique and best endowed to know what Charles Boutin has in mind cannot expand this without spoilers. The spectre of warfare looms large through the book, but it in fact accounts for a small portion of the content. If you like military science fiction, this is a great series. On to book 3, hopefully quite soon. I feel for you, but it doesn't make me give you any sympathy stars.

Why was this book sucky compared to the first one? We lost our old hero from the last book, John, and it was his wittiness and maturity that made the story way more than just some space war deal. John's humanity made his journey more compelling to read because we could relate to his feelings.

Don't worry, John's not dead. We just had a different person as the hero. Our new hero isn't introduced for a very long time and there is a lot of "stuff" going on to lead into it, including so many characters that they get jumbled up.

There are all of these army-type people who are having long conversations and it's really hard to differentiate them. Plus, it's boring. I understand why we needed to see how our new hero comes to be, but I it should have been a lot shorter so that we could have a protagonist earlier in the story.

Timing is important. There is also waaaaaay too much explaining. It's like a long science lecture in a class you don't really need and the info isn't going to be on the test.

I don't need 10 pages on human consciousness to prep me for the fact that they put some dude's mind into a clone body. Just do it and I'll deal. And, it was like that with everything. I swear that I expected him to explain pi to me at any moment. Men: over-complicating everything while still being patronizing fucks since the dawn of time. There is not much humor compared to the last book, but there were several very sad things.

Even though the first book had sad things, the humor kept it from being depressing. I felt down after reading this one. My prozac can do only so much. But, the biggest let-down was how disappointing the characters were. Although the main guy, Jared, was built in such a way that was no less than amazing, he was the only one. Even Jane from the first book was a one dimensional. The rest of the characters were flat and predictable: military leader dudes, dickwad squad-mate, girl he loves for no reason, evil guy narcissist, philosophical alien.

Sometimes the expected doesn't work out so well. The only thing I loved about this book was the fact that one of the alien races looked like giant chickens. That saved the story for me. View all 5 comments. The Colonial Defense Force is desperate. They've learned that three species are gearing up to fight a war against The Colonial Union. This isn't the most surprising or frightening part.

The worst part is there is one human involved, Charles Boutin. Boutin is a genius CDF military scientist who knows all their secrets and who should be dead.

The CDF is willing to do whatever it takes to learn why Boutin turned even going to the point of making a clone using something Boutin should've never left b The Colonial Defense Force is desperate. The CDF is willing to do whatever it takes to learn why Boutin turned even going to the point of making a clone using something Boutin should've never left behind. What can I say about The Ghost Brigades? First and foremost to me the overall story is incredibly generic. Now to be fair my father loves science fiction and I watched tons of those shows with him growing up.

The point in saying that is that I've seen basically all the space travel sci-fi storylines that exist today and that makes The Ghost Brigades particularly average for me. The Ghost Brigades brings us back to the Old Man's War universe in the heads of multiple point of view characters of the Special Forces rather than returning to the mind of John Perry.

The result is the reader sees and learns all there is to be known about The Ghost Brigade. Unfortunately the human factor and the humor that John Perry brought to Old Man's War is as absent as Perry is in this story. My favorite part of the series so far was Perry as an old man and immediately after he got a new body.

Perhaps it's best to admit the space colonization and fighting doesn't really work for me. Several years after reading Old Man's War , I finally decided to give this second book in the series a read.

But it expands this world in some very interesting ways, and I was impressed by the ethical dilemmas that Scalzi takes up in the pages of this book. Sep 25, Justine rated it really liked it Shelves: read , read.

Second Read 3. It was entertaining and unchallenging to read, and I enjoyed it, but I can also see why I remembered so little about it. I didn't miss John Perry at all as he is a bit of a white bread character. I like Jane, but as much as she was in this I still didn't feel like we really got to know her very well as the focus was really on Jared Dirac-another character I had totall Second Read 3. I like Jane, but as much as she was in this I still didn't feel like we really got to know her very well as the focus was really on Jared Dirac-another character I had totally forgotten about, which is doubly unfortunate as he is the main character.

I'm left confused because I wonder if I should be giving 4 stars to a book that evaporated from memory so completely since I first read it? Still not sure, but this time I do intend to at least finish the series. First Read 4 stars Really good. I liked this one more than Old Man's War, which I liked a lot.

The story here I thought had a bit more depth. It is old school comfortable science fiction. Yay for that. I'll definitely read the next instalment. View 1 comment. Aug 21, Megan Baxter rated it really liked it. Before reading this book, a bunch of people had told me that it wasn't very good, didn't live up to its predecessor, Old Man's War. Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement.

You can read why I came to this decision here. In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook Before reading this book, a bunch of people had told me that it wasn't very good, didn't live up to its predecessor, Old Man's War. In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook Aug 03, Apatt rated it really liked it Shelves: sci-fi. I enjoyed the first book Old Man's War very much, I even rated it 5 stars on my Goodreads review adjusted to 4 later. However, I read it in June and I have just read this second volume three years later.

The reason is that since reading that first volume I have read so many books that I like much better and a 5 stars rating seems inaccurate.

In all fairness I do not think there is much wrong with Old Man's War apart from some of the jokes falling flat for me. Scalzi has a good sense of humour and he even makes a good living out of his more humorous sci-fi but in Old Man's War , and to a lesser extent this book The Ghost Brigades , some of the jokes just sort of short circuit for me. It seems like he tries too hard with the humour sometimes. That reservation aside though, the Old Man's War series has a great concept and is generally well executed.

Every successful sf author seems to have a popular series to call their own. His very high profile and incessant self-promotion can be very off-putting, and also his body of work tend to be highly commercial.

In all fairness both books are probably very good but I just do not fancy reading them. The Ghost Brigades takes place sometime after the events of Old Man's War , I am not sure how much time has elapsed as this book features almost all new characters, except Jane Sagan. One thing I really like about this book is how Scalzi confounds my expectations by introducing the main protagonist Jared Dirac more than 60 pages into the book, and how his story arc develops in unexpected directions. Scalzi has considerable story telling skills and he seems to make an effort to ensure that the readers understand the scifi elements of his story.

His prose style is mainly utilitarian but nice and clean. The characters are not particularly complex but they tend to be sympathetic and likable. The humour is hit and miss for me but they are not really an issue in this book, at least he is not trying to elicit laughter every few paragraphs the awful Sherlock Holmes joke notwithstanding. On the other hand his depiction of human compassion is really quite effective the feels!

I find The Ghost Brigades to be better written than Old Man's War but it is a little inferior in that the main concept is no longer new and much of the lengthy Special Forces training section is too similar to the regular soldiers training in the previous book.

The sci-fi tech like the Skip Drive is very well explained in pseudo-science terms, and the diversity of sentient alien races is a feast of imagination.

TL;DR: I had a good time reading this book and will probably come back to the series before too long. View all 10 comments. Apr 11, Kevin Kelsey rated it liked it Shelves: read It's an incredible story, but the writing is just terribly clunky. The secondary characters are all basically the same person, and the exposition between them is way too obvious and unrealistic.

It's not delivered in a way that people actually talk to one another. That's my main gripe with it, really. It was also missing the humor that made 'Old Man's War' so much fun. A big part of the reason I had to give it 3 stars is that this story is so good, that it bothered me that much more seeing it handled so poorly. There is a 5 star book in here, absolutely, but this isn't it.

Maybe he'll revisit it in 20 years with a rewrite? The story itself is much better than that of 'Old Man's War', and it really blows open the setting and gives us a lot more detail about the universe these characters inhabit. It also does a good job of setting up some future conflicts that - I'm assuming - we'll be seeing in the next installments. All in all, it was a really fun read, and brought up a few really tough moral questions and dilemmas. I think that Scalzi has become a much better writer since this book, because Redshirts written more recently blew me away reading it a few months ago.

May 07, Rose rated it really liked it Shelves: science-fiction , aliens. While I didn't love it as much as Old Man's War , it was still a really good story. It's set in the same world and there is a crossover of a character or two, but it's very much it's own separate story.

That said, you really have to read the first in order to get a grasp on the science background and the ongoing war between species. The CDF has discovered they had a traitor in their midst but he has escaped and instigated an alliance between three different species with the outcome being they team While I didn't love it as much as Old Man's War , it was still a really good story.

The CDF has discovered they had a traitor in their midst but he has escaped and instigated an alliance between three different species with the outcome being they team up against humans. For some reason, this traitor scanned his brain and left it in a type of buffer. The CDF whipped up a new soldier to see if they could load the brain scan and hopefully find out what the traitor's intentions were.

This new soldier is Jared Dirac and he is the central character of the Ghost Brigades. As per Old Man's War, Scalzi comes at you hard and heavy with science fiction. And not that bullshit science where you shake your head and think 'Didn't one friend of his tell him how awful this was'.

This is the believable kind. The stuff you can picture Michio Kaku trying to explain on a Discovery Channel special. Now that I think about it, maybe Scalzi is writing future science fact - he does look a bit like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.

Jun 27, RJ - Slayer of Trolls rated it really liked it. The sequel to Old Man's War follows the titular Ghost Brigades including Jane Sagan from OMW as Scalzi expands his universe and further explores the moral and ethical implications of tube-grown soldiers and a space military that reports only to itself.

Once you get past the exasperating info dumps in the first quarter of the book the action scenes are a lot of fun. Like in most Scalzi books, dialogue can be irritating at times depending on your personal preference for snark and your italics-to The sequel to Old Man's War follows the titular Ghost Brigades including Jane Sagan from OMW as Scalzi expands his universe and further explores the moral and ethical implications of tube-grown soldiers and a space military that reports only to itself.