Customer Reviews

Choosers of the Slain (Ghost, Book 3)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

And i got to say, that the tradition and style of John Ringo's writing kept me up all night reading the book on my computer.

Choosers of the Slain is a continuing book about Mike Jenkins and his "life" and his effects on people who enter it as well as those that affect him. In Ghost, After retiring from the service Mike starts to use his college benefits and performs a daring rescue of American women held hostage, he gets his reward on the death of several "bad" people and lives a life of luxury and travels the world where he ends up in Georgia. "Kildar" begins with him purchasing a valley filled with farms and tenants. The tenants are special in that they are a people different from the local population, i don't want to give too much away, but after training these people and doing a few local missions, "Choosers of the Slain" begins with more plots and intrique. From senators and pimps the action doesn't slow down.

Ghost, i purchased on a whim, my first e-book purchase. My second was Kildar, and now i bought this one as well. I can't wait to read the next installment, as there seems to be plenty of potential story lines John can go to from here.

Such is the basic worldview of Mike Harmon, former SEAL and accidental medieval warlord. A lot of us in the uglier parts of the US military are there to channel our demons into something for the betterment of society. When your sole talent and love is plotting the deaths of your fellow men in as messy and artistic a way as possible, yet you're socialized enough as a human being to know it's "wrong", you might as well go where you're hunting for the betterment of mankind. I read this one right on the heels of Ringo's We Few, and saw elements of the conflicted Prince Roger in Mike. I know what it's like to want to kill someone so bad I could taste it, yet knowing it's just not cool to do so. Finding an outlet for those energies now that my active infantry days are drawing to a close would be nice. Too bad there's no valley of the Kildara out there for the rest of us old soldiers.

While it's a novel that deals with the ugly truth of the international sex trade, it's true that Mike has his own kinks and falls into situations where he gets to exercise them. My wife, a conniseur of such fiction, rates one scene in particular rather highly.

The trigger pulling portions aren't bad, but often soft on some of the details. SPR's aren't really explained for what they are, and I think there's too much use of the H&K MP-5, then again I'm not an admirer of any 9mm SMG for beyond room use.

The disclaimer in the front of the book, often overlooked, actually contains one of the funniest lines in the book.

Complex characters and fun reading for those who think America is at war with a ruthless enemy and wish someone would use some force in dealing with it!

This was an even better read than Kildar. I will definitely be recommending this series. Good action all around.

I think John Ringo has a hit here, just as he did with his other series. I enjoy the books and feel that John Ringo doeas a great amount of research during the writing process.

This book is the sequel to "Kildar", and features a central character first introduced in "Ghost". I do not recommend reading it without at least first reading "Kildar".

The series is a contempory military/sexual fantasy. A retired US SEAL who has become a feudal lord in the mountains of Georgia (the country) has trained his retainers as a military special ops force. They get hired to track down a particular girl through the sex-slave industry of Eastern Europe. Along the way they discover some explosive secrets and end up facing Albanian thugs, Russian ex-commandos, and rogue US Senators.

There are many graphic scenes of prostitution, rape, torture, and bondage, as well as bloody street battles and assaults on fortified buildings. It is even more graphic than anything in the previous books. And unfortunately, the writing and the plotting are not as good as in the previous books.

"Ghost" was a series of novellas and did not really have to pull off any complicated plotting. "Kildar" was well-focused on a specific task -- Mike Harmon/Jenkins taking the Kildera farmers and turning them into the "Mountain Tigers" special ops force. But "Choosers Of The Slain" attempts to integrate an overly-complicated political thriller plot with an overly-complicated special ops plot and manages to do neither especially well. Instead we end up with something that might be described as Tom Clancey with morally ambiguous kinky sex.

Mike is still the most interesting aspect of the novel. He is a wolf who wants to be a sheepdog -- a guy who hates the sex slavers but keeps a hareem of prostitutes, a guy who likes to beat on women but also wants to protect their honor. He sees the conflict and is bothered by it, but tells himself that if he wasn't doing it someone else would be.

But everyone else in the novel gives him far too much of a free pass, the Keldera are too perfectly good and competent, the opponents are too unambiguously evil and incompetent, and his support at the highest levels of the US executive branch is too noble and unstinting. In other words, it reads like a fantasy in which the entire universe exists to be a support mechanism for Mike.

"Ghost" was audacious, "Kildar" was well-crafted, but "Choosers Of The Slain" descends into self-indulgence. If the next book is like this one, I'm unlikely to continue to be interested in the series.

Choosers of the Slain is a decent book and a slightly new departure for the Paladin of Shadows series, as Mike takes to tracking a stolen womam through the western European white slave trade with the aid of a squad of his Keldara retrainers. The core store is sound and like the second book, it is a single story rather then three short stories the way the first book was. As with the other two books in the series, there are some fairly graphic sex scenes - a bit too much for my personal tastes as it happens - and lots of guns, violence, and women. Overall I enjoyed the book a great deal, but I do have to say that it wasn't as good as either the first or second book of the series.

Yes, this book is brain candy. Potato chips for the mind. So what? Not every book has to be freakin' "War and Peace". Mr. Ringo gives us the ultimate adolescent fantasy -- a super-warrior with a harem, his own band of warriors, all the weapons & gadgets he wants, Presidential support, his own brewery, and millions of dollars. (Having read what I just wrote, I feel a strong urge to shout, "Dude! Chicks and money and guns! And beer!Awesome!" I'll try to restrain myself. Heh.)
While the sex scenes are a bit overdone, the novel itself is quite enjoyable. I read it while stuck in an 8-hour plane ride; and I must say it was very entertaining. If you want a fast-paced, action-filled story that'll keep your interest, this book is for you.

What's to say, really. It's sorta Tarl Cabot meets Jack Ryan. Without the pages of goofy internal dialogue or the Russian order of battle.

Great action with the added flair of the D&S. This book had more action and suspense than the 2nd book, and the depiction of the Eastern slave trade was fascinating, and sad.