Customer Reviews

Honor of the Clan (Legacy of the Aldenata Series)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

While interesting and a decent enough read, the book was sloppy, and chock-full of errors and inconsistencies. I found myself constantly flipping backwards in the chapters, trying to re-read and clarify what just occurred. Little help. This reads more like a work in progress, in software it would be the Alpha version. Nowhere close to beta or release candidate. Full of bugs and problems. Character name and age screw-ups, time line errors and other mistakes.

Iron Mike is once again a minor character. Cally is in the forefront. What really ticked me off is the final "showdown" - as the reader you're asked to believe that the main characters involved are pathetically stupid and lack all common sense. The entire ending could have been changed if either Cally or Papa O'Niel simply said "Hi Mike, it's me." Simple as that. All the clues were already there - the music, fighting style, hell, even Mike's friends were there - anyone could have had a major impact.

It's a really poorly written, slapped-together final few chapters. Not what is expected of this series. But that's what happens when you job out the work to another writer. If this would have been the first book in the series, it would never have seen a second installment. Where's the action, battles, mayhem? Not here. Come on - this is supposed to be a military SF series. Not a darn socio-political put me to sleep fest!

Also a note on the quality of the book itself. The covers warped badly a couple of days into the book, and some pages started to come loose! It's constructed from cheap materials. Hardcover books used to weigh a ton and have bright white pages, and better quality paper (high clay content-weight, durability.) This is strictly paperback quality paper and 2nd rate hard-cover binding. Shame on the publisher! When you retail a book for almost $30, at least spend a couple of bucks when you print the darn thing!!!

As for the editorial review, diamonds don't spark. Never did, never will. A better analogy would have been "when hammer meets anvil, sparks fly" - although none flew in this yawn a minute tome.

This isn't a bad book. But its not very good either. Largely because somebody(s) failed to pay attention to the details. At the end of Cally's War, Cally O'Neal was captured and tortured, but she couldn't have been held for more than a few days. In this book a few days has turned into a month. At the beginning of Sister Time we're introduced to Cally's daughters, Morgan, 6, and Sinda, ~4. In this book (set a few weeks after Sister Time) Morgan has become a 9 or 10 year old named Megan. Sorry John, but Megan is in one of your Council Wars series. There are internal inconsistencies as well. At the end of the book one of the former DAGers says that the Darhel had had his wife and daughter killed, but earlier in the book the child was a little boy. Also one of the operatives goes from being named Denise (Deni) Reardon to Jenny Reardon, and no its not a cover name.

These are the sort of mistakes I would have expected from Anne McCaffrey, not John Ringo.

Other than that, the story is pretty good. Almost gripping. However, if you are buying the book hoping to see a big family reunion at the end, save your money.

Honor of the Clan (2009) is the fourth SF novel in the Legacy of the Aldenata series, following Sister Time. In the previous volume, Cally drove the Darhel Clan Chief of the Epetar Group into lintatai. Then the Bane Sidhe raided the Institute for the Advancement of Human Welfare. During the battle within the building, the platoon from Direct Action Group mutinied and went over to the Bane Sidhe side.

Michelle battled Erick Winchon in mentat style, but Cally fired a .50 caliber bullet into the psychotic mentat. His shields failed and the attacking forces then burned him into ashes. The Indowy Bane Sidhe -- with the exception of Clan Aelool -- were unhappy with the killings and withdrew their support from the humans. They even took away the slab than provided medical miracles.

In this novel, Papa O'Neal goes on a diplomatic mission to the Indowy. He is accompanied by Father O'Reilly's personal assistant to provide tutoring in diplomatic ways and means. It takes most of the trip to get Papa to cooperate somewhat with the PA.

Cally O'Neal becomes acting Head of the Clan. She is no better suited for that job than her grandfather is to diplomacy. Yet, she perseveres and doesn't make too many mistakes.

Michelle O'Neal is still responding to the consequences following the dissolution of the Epetar Group. Indowy clans on Adenast had pulled their workers from her projects and she has deadlines coming up. She requests a meeting with the leader of the Roolnai Clan.

Major General Mike O'Neal is transferred back to Earth. On the five month long voyage, he ponders the meaning of the orders. They had just ordered his deputy to become the acting commander, but hadn't even mentioned a permanent replacement for his job as division commander.

In this story, a middle manager in the Epetar Group arranges for a message to be sent to several Darhel clans and then allows himself to fall into lintatai. When the message reaches its recipients, the Darhels hire humans to exterminate the Bane Sidhe among their Indowy employees. The surviving Indowy Bane Sidhe flee to Earth.

Meanwhile, Tir Dol Ron instructs his chief of dirty tricks to do something about the DAG troops who mutinied against his orders. Johnny Earl Bill Stuart discusses the mission with his cousin Bobby and they select a course of action. The first dependents of the DAG troops are assassinated in their safe houses shortly thereafter.

When Cally becomes aware of the assassinations, she practically glows with icy anger. Bane Sidhe operatives are tasked with finding out who are doing the killings and then Cally sends out her own assassins to terminate the killers. They have a good idea who is behind the killings, but want to be certain. So they take temporary prisoners.

This tale continues the conflict between humans and the Darhel. Some humans are trying to avoid open fighting since galactic affairs need something like the Darhel to keep the economy stable. On the other hand, the Bane Sidhe assumes that they can fix the economy after they eliminate the predators.

This story is another cover to cover conflict, from personal quarrels to small unit battles. Maybe someone can become bored with this book, but many readers will have trouble putting it down. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Ringo & Cochrane fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of covert operations, galactic politics, and a touch of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

John Ringo is one of my top 5 all time favorite authors, Robert Heinlein being number 1. Normally I would go thru a book like this in two days or so, but this one took me 7. I couldn't seem to stay interested in the story and I didn't find myself caught up in the book as I usually am and the characters seemed "flat". I won't say this is a bad book, just not one of the better ones. It is still worth buying and reading. I haven't changed my basic opinion of either of these authors and look forward to their future books. Thanks for keeping up the traditions.

It all started with "Hymm Before Battle" and Ringo kept up the quality for the four books. But then, the series started going downhill, especially with "Hero" and "Watch on the Rhine". But with "Sister Time" and "Honor of the Clan" the author is getting back up to snuff now. We all eagerly await the next one in the Posleen/Darheel saga.

Go John Ringo!

Another excellent addition to the series! John again shows his ability weave complex characters (Human and Alien) into even more complex plots. I wouldn't recommend this book as the first to read in the series (go buy the others first) but it certainly is an excellent next installment. We just need them coming out faster! Somebody shorten his chain, he's can still move away from the keyboard!

I've read all of the books in the Posleen/Aldenata series and this one is at the bottom of my list. It isn't awful, but it isn't great, either. I found it to be rather confusing. I spent way too much time thinking, "Wait. What?" and flipping back to previous pages to see if I missed something.

I view this book as a rickety bridge that must be crossed in order to get to the next installment of the story. It moved the story along a bit and set things up for the next one and that's all. If you're reading the series, then read this one, too. If you aren't reading the series, for Pete's sake, don't start on this one.

Hated the ending, too, but that doesn't make this a bad book or affect my rating of it. It's just that I personally hated to see it happen.

Like the rest of the books in the Legacy of the Aldenata, this has both political intrigue and military action. Sometimes the political intrigue is somewhat hard to follow, unless you pay attention.

All in all, another great book by John Ringo, marred in my opinion only by the slight downer of an ending. However, it is certainly not the last in the series.

Oh, and as one reviewer alluded to, if you are a ultra left wing liberal, then perhaps John Ringo's books are not for you. Doesn't make the writing any less excellent, it just makes them not appeal to a certain subset, as evidenced by the extreme bias of one reviewer.

I have read the previous books in this series. The last two of of them have definitely been off the "reservation" in terms of lack of plot, meaningless obscure references, poor writing and BORING. It reads as if an SF writer just sat down and threw random words at the the page. I am 64. I have been reading SF since I was 8. This book is in my top 5 of all time worst SF books. To think that I paid hardover prices for this waste of paper makes me rethink my buying criteria. There is nothing redeeming or even slightly interesting is this helter-skelter type of writing. Please don't buy this book and the next one unless you have insomnia. It is the sure cure!

This is the tenth book by publication order, and ninth or tenth in chronological sequence, in the Posleen invasion/Legacy of Aldenata series. Within the series it's also third in a trilogy of novels featuring spy and assassin Cally O'Neal.

The series began when the Galactic Federation contacted earth with awful news and a terrible choice. An aggressive species called the Posleen, to whom all other creatures are merely food, is rampaging through the galaxy, and Earth is in their path. If humans will act as mercenaries against them, the Galactic Federation will provide weapons and technical help. Accepting the deal will make humans cannon fodder. Refusing would leave humans as Posleen fodder.

The series is called "Legacy of Aldenata" because the galactic situation results from disastrous meddling in the genes of most intelligent species by a now-vanished race called the Aldenata. The Aldenata tried to programme everyone as vegetarian pacifists, unable to kill. The only intelligent species in the galaxy who escaped this restriction and can therefore fight wars are Posleen and humans - which is why the galactics need human mercenaries.

But the Aldenata's meddling has not made every race into nice people. In particular, galactic politics and economics are dominated by a powerful race called the Darhel. The ruthless and evil leaders of the Darhel see humans as a threat to their position. They plan to use humans and Posleen to virtually annihilate each other: they intend to give humanity just enough support to enable us to eventually defeat the Posleen, but the Darhel also plan to sabotage the human war effort if it gets too successful and deliberately ensure that several billion humans get killed and eaten by Posleen.

Although Darhel cannot kill anyone themselves without going permanently catatonic, they can and do hire human assassins to eliminate anyone who openly opposes them, might make human victory over the Posleen too easy, or finds out too much about their plans.

Those humans who have worked out what the Darhel are up to have a quandary: on the one hand, we do need galactic help, however half-hearted, to avoid ending up as lunch for the Posleen: but on the other hand, the Darhel cannot be trusted. So some humans join an underground resistance to Darhel machinations, which has members from almost every other intelligent species and is called the Bane Sidhe.

Books in this series fall into two groups, some which focus on the fight against the Posleen, others on the Bane Sidhe. The O'Neal family are found on both sides of the divide. General Michael O'Neal (Junior) is one of the most successful soldiers in the fight against the Posleen. He believes that his father and daughter were killed by the Posleen many years ago. In this he is wrong.

Michael O'Neal senior faked his own death when he joined the Bane Sidhe, of which he is now head of the main human clan, and went so deeply underground that even his own son does not know he is still alive. Cally O'Neal went underground at the same time as her grandfather and is now the Bane Sidhe's principal field agent and chief assassin.

At the start of this book, which follows on from "Sister Time" Cally has just wrecked a major Darhel corporation, and in the process persuaded an elite unit in earth's armed forces to defect en masse to the Bane Sidhe. The Darhel are not pleased about this, and show their displeasure by employing some of the worst scum on earth to murder members of the families of soldiers in the unit which defected. The result is an escalation of violence.

Pretending that the people opposing them are dangerous terrorists, the Darhel use their influence in the Galactic Federation to recall the foremost veteran of the war against the Posleen, Mike O'Neal, and ask him to deal with the Bane Sidhe - not realising that he is going into battle against his own father and daughter.

Great battle scenes and some interesting if overly baroque plotting in this book. Also some deeply ironic humour, especially just before the battle, when Mike O'Neal and his comrades make a number of jokes about similarities between the battle they are about to go into, and the one at the start of "Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope," not realising that the parallels are even closer than they appreciate.

Like most John Ringo books it is not one for the squeamish (a lot of people get killed), prudish (there's a fair bit of sex), or politically-correct.

To explain how this book fits into the sequence of the eleven published or planned books in the Posleen/Legacy of Aldenata Universe:

The series began with three stories in four volumes following the war against the Posleen, comprising:

1) A Hymn Before Battle (Posleen War)
2) Gust Front
3) When the Devil Dances
4) Hell's Faire (Posleen War)

(The first two of these are stand-alone novels, but "When the Devil Dances" and "Hell's Faire" are one story in two volumes.)

Two more books set at the time of the Posleen invasion, with the main action in Germany and Panama respectively, are

5) Watch on the Rhine
6) Yellow Eyes (Posleen War).

Following the defeat of the Posleen invasion, a group of Posleen who appear to be willing to turn aside from the path of warfare are allowed to escape and seek a new home with the help a peculiar alliance of the Bane Sidhe, certain other aliens, and, wait for it, the Vatican! This off-the-wall but entertaining book revolves around firstly whether the Posleen can learn to see other sentients as friends rather than food, and secondly whether their souls can be saved. Their story is told in

7) The Tuloriad (Posleen War).

This is to some extent a sequel to "Yellow Eyes" in which a heavy cruiser became sentient: her sister ship, who has also become sentient, is one of the major characters in this story.

This book, "Honor of the Clan", is the third in the Cally O'Neal trilogy, which consists of

8) Cally's War
9) Sister Time (The Posleen War)
10) Honor of the Clan

Then a new story arc begins with

11) Eye Of The Storm (Posleen War)
which at first appears to be a continuation of the Cally O'Neal trilogy but then introduces a completely new enemy.

Finally, the chronologically last book in the sequence, set many centuries later, is

12) Hero.

a book which reverses the viewpoint. Humans have eventually taken a terrible vengeance on the Darhel, who are now a downtrodden minority, and the hero of "Hero" is a Darhel.

Provided that you are not squeamish or the least bit prudish, I can recommend "Honor of the Clan" and indeed the whole series.