KCR: A Hymn Before Battle, Posleen War #1 by John Ringo

Cover via AmazonA Hymn Before Battle is basically a setup for the subsequent novels, paving the way for the Earth to be invaded by the Posleen horde, by giving you some action now, and majority of the situational background. For that, it mostly delivers, though some plot points where never tied up (but you'll need to read subsequent books to realize that).

The setup: Earth was visited by friendly aliens, who brings good news and bad news. Good news: high, we're the good guys, who bring you great technology and other advances in all areas. Bad news: you are about to get invaded by people who will LITERALLY eat you, called the Posleen. Earth was hurried organized, and technology shared to build various fortresses, called up ever last bit of reserve manpower available, even seniors who can be rejuvenated with the latest Galtech (the alien technology). Why don't the aliens fight? One race is the scientist race and don't even know how. The other is the manufacturing race and is not capable of violence. The third, the most aggressive, is the merchant and administrator race and will literally DIE after going berserk if it tries to commit violence. Thus, all the fighting must be done by... humans.

Unfortunately, some of the aliens don't exactly WANT the humans to succeed as the humans are just too darn GOOD at what it does. Humans can do EVERYTHING, and are extremely adaptable. If too many humans survived, the other aliens will be living under human rule in a couple decades. So the nasty allies (with allies like these, who needs enemies?) are ordering assassinations of humans who asked too many questions.

In the meanwhile, a group of long range scouts is sent to infiltrate a planet already occupied by the enemy, and see if they can find some interesting intelligence, if possible.

The characters are a bit thin, and due to amount of 'setup' the actual plot is rather abbreviated, and as later books show, not fully resolved. The ethical implications of all this sudden influx of technology was not discussed due to the exigencies of upcoming war, and you KNOW Earth is going to get ****ed.

If you like your action mixed with a little politics and a LOT of dark humor, give this a try. The later books are even better, when the invasion actually starts.

Rating: get it

KCR: Live Free or Die (scifi, novel)

Cover of Live Free Or Die (Troy Rising)Live Free or Die is first book in John Ringo's new series called "Troy Rising", and the premise is simple. Some friendly aliens just jumped into the system and dropped off a jumpgate. ANYBODY can be coming through, they warned, and the gate will defend itself. Good luck. The first aliens were friendly. However, then the nasties came through, and nuked a few cities. Without sufficient tech to fight, Earth surrendered and paid tribute every year to the new overlords.

Then a guy came up with an idea... With a bit of trial and error, he found a resource that will make him the richest man on the planet, but he's not using his fortune for gain... but to create science and buy alien tech to create a battlestation called Troy, that will allow Earth to be free of the alien overlords, and be free.

Well, somebody's got to do it...

John Ringo have a knack of setting up utterly hilarious situations that'll have you ROFL, like the US declaring war on its citizen for a common breakfast item, or being the only hacker that figured out something that's truly alien. Again, this not-so-genius turned out to be the geek of all geeks, and his ideas may just be crazy enough to be able to defend Earth...

If you like Ringo's writing style (no ground action this time), you should give this book a try.

Rating: try it!

KCR: Unto the Breach, Paladin of Shadows #4 (novel, terrorism, hero)

Image via Wikipedia

Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber

Unto the Breach, volume 4 of the "Kildar" series (i.e. Paladin of the Shadows), is yet another jingoistic adventure where the hero outfights and outf***s everybody, but dealing with bazillion issues about the team, relationships, foreign policy, and even something as simple as staying alive. John Ringo managed to deliver a taut tale of good men doing bad things to bad people.

The Setup:  a special request through both the US President and Russian President... a Russian WMD scientist was forced by Chechen rebels to betray his country. His daughter was kidnapped and he was forced to smuggle out several samples of deadly smallpox. Mike "Jenkins" was asked to assemble a force to get it back... whereever it is, and destroy it, AND rescue the scientist, AND his daughter. And just in case he fails, there will be a B-1 bomber overhead if the WMD got away. Then the Chechen rebel army got the news and went after them...

This time the character of Kildar finally got some depth and the 'setup' in the previous books were put to good use. While there are still some sex, there are much more fighting this time, and the end fight, while a bit cliche'ed, is still excellent. Addition of several characters (the helicopter pilots) and death of several characters (sorry, no spoiler!) means the world evolves, and more secrets of the Keldara are revealed.

Lots of fun, definitely read it if you like the series. Again, for mature audiences only.

Rating: Read it (esp. if you are a fan of John Ringo)

KCR: Choosers of the Slain, Paladin of Shadows #3 (novel, hero)

Mike "Jenkins", i.e. Kildar is back. This time, he was asked by a powerful senator to investigate the disappearance of a rich constituent's daughter apparently into the International White Slavery Sex Trade (i.e. human trafficking). The action gets serious as Kildar and his new crew goes into action against the Albanian mafia, and ended up discovering a conspiracy involving some footage filmed that should NEVER see the light of day, involving some VERY powerful people.

Kildar (#2) was slow as heck at places, and this one makes up for it in hot and heavy action, and plenty of sex as well. Hey, you can't deal with human traffickers without rescuing a few fair maidens in the process, right? And how do these fair maidens repay their gratitude? Hmmm... Remember, "Jenkins" is not a nice guy, and he gets to exercise some of that bad side... with cause.

Great little adventure novel that still reads like a jingoistic fantasy at times, but that's part of the charm.

Rating: Try it!

KCR: Kildar, Paladin of Shadows #2 (terrorism, hero, novel)

Cover of Kildar (Paladin of Shadows, Book 2)Kildar, part 2 of "Paladin of Shadows" series (i.e. the Kildar series) is sort of jingoistic fantasy that requires a good setup, and John Ringo delivers. It's a bit slow, but it does have a good ending.

The setup: Mike, who has retired from his days of busting terrorists, is wandering through the world, looking for a place (sort of committing suicide by drinking and f***ing) when he stumbled into a valley where he's rescued by a little girl, and ended up buying the valley (he can afford it from the bounty he got from the previous jobs) and organizing the families into a militia to help defend itself, hires his best friends as trainers, and discovers their true origin. At the end, he defeats the local Chechen threat, and wins the hearts and minds of the locals (which sets up for the later books).

Why I count this book as a jingoistic fantasy? Because the American arrives, outspends everybody, outfights everybody, then outf***s everybody too. Every woman wants to be f***ed by him, and every man was awed by him. And every enemy... winds up dead. Isn't that a jingoistic fantasy?

However, as I said before, the setup is good. Most of the book is about how Mike "Jenkins", i.e. Kildar (he got the title when he bought the valley and the retainers) discovering the valley, learned more about the inhabitants, then hiring people to help setting up the village and training them to be militia (and later, to be commandos). They also learned about various strange customs that Kildar needs to perform for the families, including... ****ing the women, no kidding, not to mention a group of girls who ended up in his harem. Yes, I said harem.

There's plenty of sex, and some direct violence (against bad guys, of course).

If you like this sort of "pulp" fiction, definitely give it a try. Just be warned, this book is a setup, so it's a bit slower than the later books.

Rating: read it!

KCR: Watch on the Rhine (war, scifi)

Watch of the Rhine is a novel of the "Posleenverse" (or Legacy of the Aldenata) series where the Posleen Horde invades Earth and wrecks it completely. This novel is about the European threater, where the Germans are forced to reactivate every last soldier and officer it has... including the few surviving members of the SS. The book is about their struggle to contain the Posleen, and failing that, to delay the Posleen so the civilians have a chance to escape. They have to do this while dealing with interior decent and as predicted a traitor in their midst. Also in their midst, a giant SHIVA tank built to kill Posleen "landers" with a motley crew trying to survive against tremendous odds.

As you can imagine, this is a controversial topic... SS is verboten in Germany... until the Posleen war left the Chancellor no choice at all. Most SS soldiers are honest Germans, but there were some truly evil people... but you need evil people to fight wars too... but can you fight a war of annihilation, and keep your humanity?

The book does make you think, about how much evil is there in war, and can you fight evil with more evil?

Rating: worth a read

KCR: Ghost, Paladin of Shadows #1 (terrorism, hero, novel)

Image via WikipediaDespite the series title, this is NOT a fantasy novel, but rather, sort of novel you'd think are more... pulp. And you can guess by the cover. And yes, it does involve OBL. Now that OBL's dead, this book is still a lot of fun to read.

Story: Former navy SEAL "Mike" was just going about his business when he witness a girl snatched off the street. He could have left it to local cops, gave a license plate number, and called it quits. But he was cast adrift, going to school when he wish he can be at war. So he trailed the bad guys to a warehouse... where he discovered a nefarious plot... Al Qaeda, lead by none other than OBL himself, has hatched a decidedly evil plot... They will kidnap 50 girls from the US, put them in a base somewhere in Syria, surrounded by commandos and air defenses, and torture and rape them to death, one at a time, on live TV and streaming over the Internet, unless US agrees to withdraw from the Middle East. With no time to contact authorities, he infiltrated the operation, saved a girl, and stowaway on the aircraft and infiltrated the base. Let's just say it's a funny read, and bloody, complete with songs and heavy metal and death.

Don't take this book seriously. It's written as sort of revenge fantasy, and there are plenty of bodies, ridiculous situations that's both serious and laughable, and thus, perfectly entertaining.

People who are easily offended should not read this book.

Rating: Get it!

KCR: Eye of the Storm (novel, scifi)

John Ringo has pretty much concluded his "Legacy of the Aldenata" (i.e. Posleen War) series, so it is time to take it to the next level.

The short of it... Lt. General Michael O'Neal had not much left to live for than to lead his beloved Corp of Armored Combat Suit infantry and kill Posleen. His only family has been long dead. His planet Earth mostly gutted by the Posleen invaders. Then his day got much much worse. The Terran fleet, under control of Darhel, wiped out his ACS corp on trumped up charges of "mutiny", and his staff was shot in front of him for 'attempting to resist'. It is clear that his fate was to suffer a bullet while "attempting to escape" from a kangaroo court with a preordained verdict.

Unfortunate for the Darhel, a new invader has appeared on the horizon... the Hadren Hegemony, wielding combat power and technology matching or exceeding the Terrans, plus Sohon abilities wielded by their psy-combat masters to bend time / space / matter to their will (on a limited scale), has invaded a planet near the capital of the Federation. Without the Terran combat troops, the Federation Capital, the Darhel homeworld, will surely fall.

So for Darhel leader Tir Dol Ron, his task is impossible. He have to somehow convince Lt. General Michael O'Neal, someone with the power to destroy the Darhel without touching any weapons,  to save the Darhel despite everything the Darhel did to him...

---

The problem I have with this scenario is it doesn't make sense. There really is NO reason for Michael O'Neal to agree to save the Darhel. It is no surprise that the book hinges on he does, and he's out to rally the Terran troops stood down since the Posleen War to fight another battle on alien planets, this time with some better technology that is a logical advancement from the Posleen War.

We really need to see inside his head a little more to puzzle out his motivations, because it doesn't make sense, and that kinda ruined the book for me.

The various characters in previous books make an appearance... most of them... Panama (Old Yellow Eyes), Germany (March on the Rhine), and more are all here. And that's another problem: the book really has NO combat until the very end. And even then it's divided into two actions: half of it is on a ship-boarding raid, and the other half is the orbital invasion but we're left with a cliffhanger.

Combat is exciting, when there are some. It's O'Neal's motivation I don't get.

Rating: Try it

KCR: The Tuloriad (scifi, adventure, space)

Image via WikipediaThe Tuloriad by John Ringo and Tom Kratman is perhaps one of the weakest books in the "Posleen series", IMHO. In fact, I wonder why the book's written at all, as it doesn't really fit in any where except to provide filler material for the other books later as teasers of this plotline.

The premise was that Earth was 95% destroyed by the invading Posleen horde. However, the horde was finally destroyed (at the conclusion of "Hell's Faire"). Only a few remnants of Posleen remained on Earth. One band was "rescued" by a slightly insane Indowy, supposed allies of Earthlings, and sent on a journey to rediscover the roots of the Posleen, and a human cruiser was sent to chase after them. The humans and Posleen end up fighting a war over... religion... on the ground, in hand-to-hand combat, with the Posleen (who look like Reptilian centaurs) with swords fighting the Swiss Guard wielding pikes. (yes, that's on the cover).

The setup was really really contrived, and madness doesn't offer a convincing explanation of why the Indowy would do such a thing, or even why the humans would sent a ship after this rogue Posleen ship any way. The setup to the battle is fine, but what lead up to it is not.

If you can get past the absurdness of the premise, then the book is enjoyable as sort of adventure, albeit a very... contrived one.

I mainly got this book to complete the series. I would have skipped it if it wasn't just for the collection.

Rating: Skip it (unless you need to complete the collection)

The Tuloriad (The Legacy of the Aldenata)  (on Amazon)

and just to mention the series...

Hell's Faire (Posleen War Series #4)  (on Amazon)