There are few pleasures finer than a novel where the author has enough Big Ideas to create an interesting, compelling, and exciting world. It's even better when the author has enough small ideas to give you characters you can care about. Anyway, that's what I thought about John Scalzi's Old Man's War when I read it last year.
So I have to admit to a little trepidation when I head John was writing a sequel, Ghost Brigades. Would he have enough Big Ideas left to expand on what had come before? Even if it didn't, I figured it would still be lots of fun to spend a little more time in John's world.
Well, Ghost Brigades was a lot of fun. Even better, John still has plenty of Big Ideas left to fill a second book. With any luck, he'll have enough for a third and a fourth. I can't wait.
PS After reading the acknowledgements, I have to add: You're welcome, John!
I guess it's nice to see Joe get the support of the blogger community, but I am way out in left field on this one. I may or may not read the sequel, but I sure am not going to rush out and grab it. The ideas in his book were quite small compared to contemporaries like Stross and Daniels, and the thing that irritated me most is that all the characters had exactly the same voice. They all had the same sense of humor that develops from being an ostracized geek boy in high school.
Still, to each his own. Guess I will go over to instapundit now and see if there is any new information up on the Army of Davids.
doug
I just finished Ghost Brigades a couple nights ago. I actually liked it a lot more than Old Man's War. I'm not sure what Doug means by the "same sense of humor," but the ideas were much bigger in this book than in the first.
