Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

3 reviews

singalana's review against another edition

adventurous challenging lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I read The Old Man’s War (the first book in this series) last year, I think. I don’t remember how many stars I gave it, but my main criticism then was that the main character seemed to be too perfect, and everything was too easy for him. I can happily report that this book has a different main character, and things are not too easy for him. 

We follow Jared Dirac, a “super soldier” created from the DNA of a scientist who has turned into a traitor to the human race. The higher-ups hope that Jared will be the key to finding out why the scientist betrayed them and how to stop him. This book has space warfare (but not spaceship battles, so if you’re looking for that kind of book, this ain’t it), some political intrigue and interesting moral discussions about cloning, choices and what makes a person an individual. The book executed all this well, balancing the different aspects of the book without being too heavy on any of them.

My one criticism is that Scalzi’s protagonists all seem to come from a similar mould (I’ve read three of his books so far), and if you don’t like that character type, you’re out of luck. But the plot kept me engaged, and I liked the discussion this book was having. The ending made me a little bit emotional, so I have to give this book bonus points for that too. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Torture, Vomit, Child death, Gun violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Colonisation, Death, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Abandonment, Animal death, Gun violence, Sexual content, and Cursing

skylar_river's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Violence, Gun violence, Blood, Colonisation, and Death

angelbabe_cj's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

As the second book of the Old Man's War series I was pleased with how well this book prompted my 'read it in a day and the details are fuzzy' memory of the first book without being overly info-dumpy. 
I enjoyed getting to know the few recurring characters better (they generally only appeared as minor characters in OMW#1). And the new aspects of the universe were completely fascinating and allowed the necessary details and new information to be wrapped up in the character building experience. 

There were plenty of twists and turns along the way of this plot, with some background details clearly building for later parts of the series. Some twists were somewhat predictable, others took me by surprise. Overall a compelling read and I'm putting the next one on my TBR.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Gun violence, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Gore, and Cannibalism

Minor: Torture

The context of the book and whole series is extra-terrestrial warfare so most graphic and moderate warnings come up in that context. Their severity is mostly about how regularly they come up/how much detail there is. Specific things: Cannibalism -

Technically not cannibalism, but humans are being used (by aliens) for food. Descriptions of the preparation of such is moderately detailed and was personally distressing.

Child Death:

No description of death (at least not the repeatedly mentioned one) happens. SPOILER in fact the child is not dead, but they are repeatedly assumed to be so and this distresses a point of view character for large portions of the book.

Medical Trauma: Few to none of the medical procedures performed are considered traumatic by the characters they happen to, but they may be traumatic sounding to readers or mentioned as such by other characters.