#50: John Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades (Old Man's War #2)

[kareila]

This is a direct sequel to the first book, but less light-hearted, and with a different protagonist. Jared Dirac is a Special Forces soldier with a secret: he was the subject of the first attempt to implant a stored consciousness in a cloned body, the life experiences of a dangerous traitor who faked his own death and vanished. The transfer experiment failed - or did it?

The conflict depicted here addresses questions that were skirted in the previous story, about whether humanity's defense forces are justified in taking such an aggressive stance and keeping civilians completely ignorant about what is going on in the greater galaxy. There are no easy resolutions, only hard choices.