The Ghost Brigades

The Ghost Brigades is a novel by American science fiction writer John Scalzi and the sequel to Old Man's War. In Scalzi's future world, the human Colonial Defense Force, to expand into alien colonies, reclones the genes of the dead and raises them into a special elite force known as the Ghost Brigades. These soldiers are young, strong, and extremely fast, yet they lack ordinary people's upbringing and emotional burdens; they are born to fight. The story's other protagonist is Jared Dirac, an unusual soldier in the Ghost Brigades. He was created specifically to serve as a carrier for the memories of the traitor and scientist Charles Boutin, so that humanity could learn from Boutin's memories why he betrayed them and identify the hidden threat. But the memory transfer goes wrong, and Dirac develops an independent self-awareness while carrying Boutin's memories. As the war intensifies, Boutin's memories gradually awaken within him, and the two consciousnesses clash continuously. Dirac wants to know who his original was and why he betrayed, and he also begins to ask, Who am I really, and why do I exist? Against the backdrop of interstellar war, the novel combines cloning, consciousness transfer, and free will, centering on the idea that what matters about consciousness is choice, and tells how a clone soldier seeks and defends his own right to choose beyond the identity assigned to him.