BOOKS: The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi (2006)

Follow-up to Old Man's War, which I talked about here.

It's not exactly a sequel; the novels are set in the same fictional universe, and there is some overlap of characters, but the stories are independent of one another.

One of the challenges of SF series is that there's often a lot of background information that the reader needs to know about that writer's universe, and presenting that information in later novels can lead to clunky blocks of exposition; at its worst, this takes the form of "As you know, Bob..." dialogue, in which characters recite to one another things they already know in order to get the info to the reader. Scalzi does a terrific job of working that background information into the narrative without any of it ever feeling as if it's there solely for the purpose of exposition.

The story this time finds humanity on the verge of war, as three alien races have joined forces and are about to attack. These are races not known for cooperating with one another, so their alliance is rather unexpected, and it turns out to have been instigated by Charles Boutin, a human scientist whose motives for treason are a mystery.

The Colonial Defense Forces have a copy of Boutin's consciousness, and hope that loading it into one of their specially-grown Special Forces soldiers -- the so-called "Ghost Brigades" -- will give them access to Boutin's motives. But when that soldier, Jared Dirac, is awakened, the consciousness transfer appears not to have taken. The CDF assigns Jared to a standard tour of duty, despite the fact that none of his supervisors are entirely sure that he can be trusted, or that Boutin's treasonous mind won't awaken in him without warning.

Eventually, of course, Boutin's memories do begin to pop into Jared's mind, and as he tries to track down the scientist, some serious nature-nurture issues are raised. What happens when two minds share one skull? Can Jared's training as one of humanity's saviours override the traitorous desires that were buried in his mind when he was created?

This is a very smart novel, with lots of involving ideas; the action side of the story is just as good, marked by exciting battles and clever strategies.