There will be Dragons by John Ringo
The premise of There Will Be Dragons is interesting, the kind of premise that made me want to read the book just to see where John Ringo would go with it. Ringo paints a unique, utopian world with a nearly perfect society. Then, in this perfect world, an apocalypse happens and forces these individuals to live in pre-industrial style. I would consider There Will Be Dragons a science fiction/fantasy hybrid.
This is a broad undertaking for any author, and Ringo does it with gusto. His writing is simple to follow and easy to understand. He is descriptive as he paints his picture for the reader. It is easy to understand the world he is setting up.
It's obvious that Ringo did his homework when writing this novel. The writing is meticulously detailed regarding war and period life, at times making the novel seem more like a textbook or an instruction manual than a novel. ... Read More
Live Free or Die by John Ringo
Humans were alarmed when the first aliens that arrived to introduce themselves to Earth set up a hypergate that immediately connected Earth with all the outside universe. We were no longer alone. At least the Glatun were friendly aliens.
Tyler Vernon, a smart hard-working guy who chops wood for a living, decides to take this opportunity to improve his fortune. He finds a product that our new alien friends love and begins a business empire. Soon he’s the richest man on Earth, and that means he’s got a lot of influence on how things get done. When another alien race, the Horvath, come through the gate, declare themselves Earth’s “protectors” and start demanding tribute, Tyler is the only human who seems ready to take them on.
Live Free or Die, the first in John Ringo’s TROY RISING series, starts strong. Tyler is, at first, a likeable entrepreneur whose clever busines... Read More
Citadel by John Ringo
Citadel is the second in John Ringo’s TROY RISING series. The first book, Live Free or Die, had an interesting plot that was totally derailed by John Ringo’s intrusive and ugly political views which seem closer to neo-Nazism than anything else. So why did I read Citadel? Only because the audiobook publisher sent me a free copy and, out of a sense of completion, I wanted to review it for FanLit. I was prepared to hate it.
Fortunately, Tyler Vernon the Nazi is only a secondary character in Citadel. The plot mostly follows two new recruits who are joining Earth’s space defenses on Troy, the hollowed-out asteroid that Vernon built as a battle station. Dana is a pilot who’s got some mad flying skills. Butch is a welder. Interestingly, to me at least, Butch was trained in my hometown on Florida’s “Space Coast,” so Ringo won me over a little when we sp... Read More
The Hot Gate by John Ringo
The Hot Gate is the third novel in John Ringo’s TROY RISING series. This series started off well with the first half of the first book, Live Free or Die. Then Ringo’s protagonist, Tyler Vernon, turned out to be an outspoken Nazi-sympathizer and TROY RISING plummeted. The second book, Citadel, was better, but still not good enough to recommend. (Please see my reviews for specifics.) I began reading the third book, The Hot Gate, hoping that things would continue to improve, but only because the publisher sent me a free review copy.
Unfortunately, the story regresses in book three. I read most of The Hot Gate, but couldn’t finish it. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this review because chances are that you’re not reading this unless you’re thinking about reading The Hot Gate, which means you probably have... Read More
Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo
I have friends who are “preppers”: people who stockpile supplies and make solid plans for what to do in the event of a natural disaster or complete collapse of society. Under a Graveyard Sky tells the story of the kind of scenario my friends have planned for, and of how the world as we know it could unravel if the Zombie Apocalypse occurred.
Steve Smith and his family are normal people who have taken serious precautions in case the world comes to an end. Some of their preparations make lots of sense, like being able to secure their home against bad weather and other disturbances. So when Steve’s brother, who shares the family outlook on disaster preparedness, alerts them to a potentially world-ending crisis, the family is prepared.
The story of a virus or other plague sweeping across the world and turning people into mindless, savage, flesh-eating... Read More
To Sail a Darkling Sea by John Ringo
To Sail a Darkling Sea is the second installment in the BLACK TIDE RISING series. Ringo continues to tell the story of the Smith family who are the virtual seed of humanity that survives the Zombie apocalypse and starts the fight to save the world from perpetual barbarity.
Trying to re-establish civilization is complex work. For “Commodore” Smith and his family, that becomes increasingly difficult as numbers of people rescued and the implied logistics support begin to increase commensurately. How do you keep more and more boats running with limited repair parts, limited fuel and even fewer trained people who know how to fix them? With no land area to grow crops or harvest them, how do you feed everyone and keep them healthy when fishing is your primary food source? All of these complexities and the challenges of managing personalities become mo... Read More
Islands of Rage & Hope by John Ringo
How is it possible to remain interested in the somewhat plodding description of how mankind slowly tries to save itself after a zombie apocalypse? The first book in the BLACK TIDE RISING series, Under a Graveyard Sky, had the novelty of describing how the world was falling apart and the small, at times very painful steps that were taken to keep some hope alive. The second book, To Sail a Darkling Sea, started to flirt with some of the craziness that would be completely inescapable in a world where order has been lost. Things like pregnancy after four men and one woman have spent four months confined in a small lifeboat and the PTSD like effects of being the person who was willing to kill friends and family when they began to become zombies. All of this was interesting in a bizarre, morbid kind of way. Book thr... Read More
The Valley of Shadows by John Ringo & Mike Massa
My experience with authors who write in another author’s world has been mixed. On the good side you have the work that Janny Wurts did with Raymond Feist in the EMPIRE CYCLE. On the less impressive side you have The Valley of Shadows (2018). This is the fifth installment in the BLACK TIDE RISING series and takes a tangential track describing what happens with Tom Smith, the corporate security guru, Australian Special Forces stud and brother to Steve Smith, the main protagonist in the entire series.
I think that Mike Massa must have done a lot of the writing because there is a different feeling to the prose that long-time fans of Read More
More speculative fiction by John Ringo
Posleen War — (2000-2009) With Michael Z Williamson, Julie Cochrane, Tom Kratman. Publisher: With Earth in the path of the rapacious Posleen, the Galactic Federation offers help to the backward humans — for a price. You can protect yourself from your enemies, but God save you from your allies!
Looking Glass — (2005-2008) With Travis S. Taylor. Publisher: Baen now launches an exciting new science fiction adventure series by the New York Times best-selling author: When a 60-kiloton explosion destroyed the University of Central Florida, and much of the surrounding countryside, the authorities first thought that terrorists had somehow obtained a nuclear weapon. But there was no radiation detected, and, when physicist Dr. William Weaver and Navy SEAL Command Master Chief Robert Miller were sent to investigate, they found that in the center of the destruction, where the University¿s physics department used to be, was an interdimensional gateway to… somewhere. An experiment in subatomic physics had produced a very unexpected effect. Furthermore, other gateways were appearing all over the world — and one of them immediately began disgorging demonic visitors intent on annihilating all life on Earth and replacing it with their own. Other, apparently less hostile, aliens emerged from other gateways, and informed Weaver and Miller that the demonic invaders — the name for them that humans could most easily pronounce was the “Dreen” — were a deadly blight across the galaxy, occupying planet after planet after wiping out all native life; and now it would be Earth¿s turn, unless Weaver and Miller could find a way to close the gateways. If they failed, the less belligerent aliens would face the regrettable necessity of annihilating the entire Earth to save their own worlds…
Paladin of Shadows — (2005-2013) With John Helfers. Publisher: Former SEAL Michael Harmon, Team Name “Ghost”, retired for service injuries, is not enjoying college life. But things are about to change, if not for the better. When he sees a kidnapping a series of, at the time logical, decisions leave him shot to ribbons and battling a battalion of Syrian commandos with only the help of three naked co-eds who answer to the names — Bambi, Thumper, and Cotton Tail — A fast-paced, highly-sexual, military-action thriller that ranges from a poison factory in the Mideast to the Florida Keys to Siberia, the novel will keep you guessing what twisted fate will bring next for the man once known as… Ghost. Keep an eye on him or… poof, he’ll be gone.
Special Circumstances — (2006-2012) Publisher: Special: distinguished by some unusual quality… Circumstances: a piece of evidence that indicates the probability or improbability of an event… Barbara Everette, homemaker living in a small town in Mississippi, had the perfect life. Perfect husband, perfect children, perfect house, perfect Christian Faith. She cooked and cleaned perfectly and managed all of the chores of the modern suburbanite, toting the kids, running the PTA, teaching kung-fu in the local dojo… perfectly. But perfection has a price and the day came when Barbara snapped. She simply had to have “one weekend off.” God had to grant her that much. It said no where that she was a slave. Waving goodbye to her hapless, entirely undomestic husband, she set out on the quest for a weekend of peace and maybe some authentic Cajun food. Detective Sergeant Kelly Lockhart, New Orleans Homicide, had a perfect record on his latest case: not a single suspect. And there should be at least five or six, given the DNA traces on the many bodies. Furthermore, his sole really outstanding clue, a mysterious fish scale, had disappeared into the recesses of the FBI Crime Lab. But the old fortune-teller was sending him into the bayou, down in the land of authentic Cajun food, on the track of a mysterious pimp with the admonition to “watch for the Princess.” Or die. Barbara and Kelly were heading to a rendezvous that might be fate and might reveal the hand of God. There was more cooking in the swamps than jambalaya. Unknown to either, the mystery of the Bayou Ripper had Special Circumstances.
Stand-alones:
Von Neumann’s War — (2006) With Travis S. Taylor. Publisher: New series. Mars is changing. Seemingly overnight the once “Red” planet is turning to gray. Something is happening, something unnatural. A team of, literally, rocket scientists figure out a way to send a probe, very fast, to Mars to determine how and why it is changing. However, when the probe is destroyed well short of the formerly red planet, it’s apparent that Mars is being used as a staging ground. The only viable target for that staging ground is Earth. Ranging from rocket design to brilliant paranoids to “in your face” fighting in Iraq, Von Neumann’s War is a fast paced look at what would happen if the earth was attacked by a robot race that, quite accidentally, was bent on destroying civilization.
The Last Centurion — (2008) Publisher: In the second decade of the twenty-first century the world is struck by two catastrophes, a new mini-ice age and, nearly simultaneously, a plague to dwarf all previous experiences. Rising out of the disaster is the character known to history as “Bandit Six” an American Army officer caught up in the struggle to rebuild the world and prevent the fall of his homeland — despite the best efforts of politicians both elected and military. The Last Centurion is a memoir of one possible future, a world that is a darkling mirror of our own. Written “blog-style,” it pulls no punches in its descriptions of junk science, bad strategy and organic farming not to mention all three at once.
By David Weber and John Ringo
Empire of Man — (2001-2005) David Weber and John Ringo. Publisher: David Weber’s Honor Harrington has famously conquered our universe, most recently with the New York Times bestseller Ashes Of Victory. Now David Weber, with the able assistance of his fast-rising military SF cohort John Ringo, has done it again with the creation of a new kind of hero, Prince Roger MacClintock! Roger is a spoiled young princeling hardly worth the space he takes up. Now he must become a man, or the entire galaxy will suffer from arrested adolescence!
(1963- )
