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67 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Indispensable Man, January 30, 2010
Live Free or Die starts as a First Contact story. An alien race visits our solar system and "builds" a Gate for interstellar travel to and from our system to other Gates in the galaxy. The captain of the ship informs us that alien races, both friendly and hostile, can now travel to and from Earth using the Gate. The action starts during the subsequent five years when first a "friendly" race (the Glatun), engaged in interstellar commerce, arrives using the Gate. They are followed a few years later by a more predatory race, the Horvath, who use trade the same way the Mafia uses a protection racket. They destroy three cities, Mexico City, Shanghai and Cairo, to demonstrate how mean they are and then demand all of the stocks of Earth's heavy precious metals, mainly gold and platinum, as payment for the Horvath "protecting" Earth from hostile aliens.
Enter our hero, Tyler Vernon, who is struggling to survive in New Hampshire amidst the worldwide depression caused by the Horvath stealing Earth's precious metals. Tyler is an entrepreneur and seizes the opportunity when he meets a Glatun free trader at an SF convention. Just asking the question, "What could he sell the Glatun that would be valuable to an advanced alien race?" starts something big for him. How big was determined by a second question, "How could he become the indispensable source for that export item?"
As anyone who has traveled to New Hampshire knows, the motto for the State is "Live Free or Die." It's on every license plate. Tyler and a bunch of his neighbors take that philosophy seriously. What starts out as a commercial venture eventually turns into the war for Terran independence from the Horvath and Tyler Vernon leads the fight as the richest man on Earth from trade with the Glatun. How he manages to drive the Horvath from our solar system while saving Earth is a great start to multi-volume epic story. Don't worry, there is no cliff-hanger at the end to ruin the pleasure of an uplifting novel of human courage and ingenuity.
Ringo is writing SF the old fashioned way on a grand scale. The book harkens back to the best science fiction of the 1950's and 1960's. There is no ambiguity about who are the good guys in this story.
Live Free or Die cannot be pigeon-holed as a space opera. First, the book is about the importance of one indispensable man. Tyler Veron solves the practical economics of humans leap-frogging from NASA era technology to star-travel. If I tell you how it would be a plot spoiler, but it's great. The emphasis on the indomitable human spirit give a realism to this novel. Some things we must do or die trying. Second, Ringo cares about getting the science right, especially in how humans would exploit the raw materials of the inner solar system to build a space-faring civilization.
Historians in academia these days treat the great man theory of history with great distaste. So the fact that Charles Martel led the Frankish forces to victory at the Battle of Tours in 732 to stop the Islamic conquest of Europe is not supposed to be important for today's history students. Similarly, a student should not hold his breath waiting for a lecture on King John III of Poland ("John Sobieski") breaking the Siege of Vienna on September 12,1683 against a huge Turkish army. Sobieski was the acknowledged military genius of his age. He had a career of military victories that were the impetus for his being elected King of Poland. His leadership ended the threat of a Turkish military conquest of Europe.
The lessons we used to obtain from history are now being taught in the pages of science fiction novels.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Future Schlock, February 1, 2010
Live Free or Die (2010) is the first SF novel in the Troy Rising series. It is loosely based on the Schlock Mercenary webcomics by Howard Tayler, but is a prequel to that series.
Like the webcomics, it all started with aliens bringing a gate to other worlds. Earth doesn't even have a way to reach the Gudram Ring, much less use it to explore the galaxy (and beyond). And then the rapacious aliens arrive and extort tribute under the threat of kinetic weapons.
In this novel, Tyler Alexander Vernon is a short man who has a hobby of creating SF webcomics. He worked as an IT manager until his comics started making more money. Then the Gudram Ring appeared and science fiction seemed outdated by current events. His wife got a divorce and he is reduced to dwelling in a cabin in the woods of New Hampshire and working four part-time jobs.
In this story, Tyler is cutting wood when Mrs. Cranshaw calls again to harass him about her firewood. He promised it by next Sunday, but the old woman wants it earlier. They settle on four in the afternoon on Sunday and then Tyler gets back to work.
While working at Mac's Market, Tyler is asked to work an extra shift on Saturday. He has a convention gig on that day, so he begs off. He meets an Glatun at the convention and discusses trade. They make an appointment for the alien to test some samples and then try the nonpoisonous items.
The Glatun go crazy over maple syrup. It is a strong intoxicant for them and they offer a pickup load of superelectronics for six barrels of the syrup. After the trade, the freighter crew go home and become rich off those six barrels.
Tyler becomes an instant multibillionaire and engages an attorney to buy land with sugar maples as well as distilleries to refine the syrup. Then the Horvath try to force their way into the trade. The President of the USA uses American troops to gather maple syrup for the Horvath. Those involved in this trade within the USA and Canada are very stubborn people and a Maple Syrup rebellion starts over this issue.
This tale soon brings war from the Horvath and then their allies the Rangora. At first, only Earth is subjected to bombardment. Then the war spreads to the Glatun. Tyler uses his billions to build space fortifications.
The author has been compared to Heinlein, but in this story he is beginning to resemble E. E. "Doc" Smith. The space structures are not yet as large as the mobile planets in the Lensman series. But just give him a few more volumes.
Like both Heinlein and Smith, the author has created some believable aliens. Maybe too believable, since the Glatun seem to have the same sort of problems as humans. Moreove, the Horvath act much like the prewar Italian fascists in Ethiopia and the Rangora resemble the Soviets.
The President of the United States in this novel does not have a name. He is a stock character, a collaborationist much like Marshall Petain of the Vichy government. Instead of building shelters and evacuating the cities, he has American armed forces trying to tap sugar maple trees.
This novel concludes with many loose ends. The next installment in this series is Citadel. Read and enjoy!
Highly recommended for Ringo fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of huge space structures, high energy weapons, and despicable aliens.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Guilty Pleasure, May 19, 2010
LFD is a straightforward shoot-em-up, with all the subtlety and nuance of a rock through your window.
I enjoyed the first half, with our hero Tyler Vernon the only person *both* smart enough to figure out what the aliens want *and* ballsy enough to claw his way to a standoff with the bad guys. Exhilarating.
The second half degenerated into a snarled-up knot of engineering acryonyms and perfunctory space battles. No suspense to speak of; the outcome is never in doubt, except for engineering details like how fast to spin molten space rocks to get the effect you want.
Still not a bad yarn as long as you remember another reviewer's advice that Ringo's "doing it all with mirrors" and just let it carry you along. A good airport read.
I'm giving it three stars rather than four because Ringo makes no effort to make the aliens, well, alien in any meaningful sense. They come across to me as humans wearing funny-looking foam headgear. The good aliens are Americans in space and the bad aliens are Soviets in space. (No kidding - he describes the Horvath as "communalist" at least twice). There's at least one first contact between an alien and a human that to my ear reads like a Happy Days scene with Fonzie and Ritchie horsing around in the garage ("toss me that wrench, wouldya?").
The most interesting character in the whole book, humans and aliens included, is an old New England farmer who believes everyone who lives in a city is a "Revenuer" and everybody from south of New Hampshire is a "Reb." I'd like to read more about him!
I don't mind the "culturally insensitive" stuff except that it sticks out like a sore thumb. When done properly, that kind of material becomes a backdrop or context which helps explain where the protagonist is coming from. In LFD it's too often just enumerated statements where Ringo is telling, not showing (black women find it easy to get government jobs; women are stacked; it would be funny if blonde women were made to be always sexually promiscuous; 'minorities' are poor and lazy; the destruction of most cities in the world would have the silver lining of killing most lawyers). For me it just interferes with the storytelling. I'd much rather have those things emerge from the flow of what makes Tyler Vernon tick.
In the end this book is for me a guilty pleasure - fun and fast to consume, but doesn't stick to your ribs.
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