Customer Reviews

Von Neumann's War

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is clearly the first in a series. The overall structure has a theme of humans facing extermination by an overwhelmingly numerous alien enemy. Clear similarities to Ringo's Posleen series. Perhaps overly so. It could seem like Ringo is recycling too much of that series. There, however, we at least get some glimpses into the enemy's mindset, no matter how superficial. Here, there is absolutely no such analog. The enemy is depicted as robots, with no insight into even the CPU of a master controller. In terms of character definition, this is even more awkward than David Weber's In Death Ground, where at least the alien controllers/generals revealed some of their reasonings.

The book commences with a contemporary bang. Giving a detailed battlefield description of US troops in Iraq. You might compare this well with the opening scene in Starship Troopers. This chapter sounds like Ringo's touch.

To readers of an engineering bent, VNW offers a fascinating look at how spacecrafts are designed at NASA. Early chapters show the many technical issues that have to be dealt with. Like why you see a star scanner for navigation. Or an Attitude Control System. I used to be at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and this part of the narrative is very authentic. Of course, it's heavily dramatised and sped up. But still, you get the flavour of what actually goes on. I'm guessing that Taylor wrote this section of the book, given his background.

But there is an awkward implausibility. Bots desire iron. In various scenes, they are shown as quickly tearing down buildings to pull out the iron rebars, for example. Now, it's one thing to mine Mars and the moon for this. Bots need an energy source. Usually, in scientific speculations, it might be solar energy. Necessarily slow, because the amount of solar insolation you can collect limits your extraction rate.

However, when they are on Earth, what is this source? And, even assuming that collectively, the bots have sufficient energy, perhaps located at one of their factories or landing points, how is it stored in each bot, in order for it to move and to extract iron? There appears to be nothing like a conventional fuel tank.

Could it be radioactives? They use these for control logic. So could they also be using them for fuel? The plot does not rule out the latter. If so, there is a huge problem. Radioactives are very scarce, on a cosmic scale. The bots desire iron, and that is relatively scarce, compared to hydrogen or even carbon. For example, the bots disdain carbon; it is everywhere on Earth, and far more abundant than iron. Makes sense. But iron is also far more abundant than radioactives. It doesn't compute to expend the latter to get the former. Sure, maybe the bots mined sufficient radioactives on Mars, and took these to Earth to power their operations here. But you're still swapping an expensive item for a cheap one.

Well, what about antimatter? A more powerful energy source than radioactives. But this is even less abundant in nature. It could be manufactured in industrial quantities, with sufficiently advanced technology. However, this might need massive energy input.

Of course, this is science fiction. There could be some heretofore, unknown to our physics, energy source. After all, many great SF plots invoke at least one major physics extrapolation. Say a hyperdrive or time travel. Think of Asimov's Foundation series or Anderson's Time Patrol. But this brings up another problem with VNW. The authors repeatedly eschew unconventional physics. The bots communicate by radio signals, using encoded frequency hopping. While it is strong encoding, the methodology is well known to humans. In part, the authors have done this to let the humans have a rational handle with which to understand and counteract the bots. No Harry Potter magic here. Very commendable self-imposed intellectual discipline. But if the authors continue this internal consistency into the next book, they could have dug themselves into a hole. They might need a plausible and ingenious way to reasonably explain how the bots get their energy. Without pulling in some brand new physics.

You see, those books that I gave as examples intricately wind the physics extrapolation into their plot structures, from the get-go. In the Foundation series, for example, the hyperdrive does not first appear in the second book. It is needed for the very definition of the first book's plot. For the second VNW book, any rabbit from a hat might look strained, a deux ex machina.

Aha, but what about Stirling's Nantucket series? That alien ship in the first book. Is it not deux ex machina? Only to a limited extent. It appears only in the opening scene of the first book. For the rest of the series, there is a rational and consistent unfolding of the plot. No more rabbits. You can do this, carefully, at the start of a book, far more easily than later.

Ok, I like this book. It was a bit slow to start. Think of starting fire with two sticks and it took 120 pages to get fire. Once you sit through the set-up, it's a compelling read that cannot be put down. At a guess, I'd sat John Ringo has been hanging out with a scientist because there is a lot more science in this fiction than is usually the case with his works. I suppose that's the Taylor influence? Anyway, great read and kind of a unique variation on the replicating machine plot. Worth reading. Wait for the soft cover though.

Very interesting spin on one of the staples of the sci-fi genre: the alien invasion. The authors go to some length to give the bots in the book advanced technology but not so advanced that humans would have no chance of winning without some sort of impossible deus ex machina tactic ala "Independence Day".

My criticisms would be that the book falls into a fallacy that many similiar books have done; while US soldiers are able to kill tens of thousands of bots using giant lasers, potato gun grenade launchers and explosive paint ball rounds, a full-scale nuclear strike from Russia and China doesn't seem to slow the bots down at all. And why exactly is the US going it alone in the world and not working with other countries to develop weapons to fight the bots?

Overall it's very entertaining and worth a read. But what happens next? I don't think there is really enough interesting material to keep the series going for two more books as seems likely.

Von Neumann's War (2006) is a standalone SF novel. It takes place in an alternate timeline where Mars probes have failed on a regular basis due to an alien invasion of the planet. Mars has also been losing albedo and turning gray.

In this novel, Roger Reynolds is a believer in off-the-shelf design. For his high school's science fair, Roger designed and constructed a sounding rocket made out of old parts and ordinary materials. He went on to win a first in category at the International Science and Engineering Fair, receiving a scholarship and a job at NASA for his efforts. Later, he joins a defense contractor firm and works on classified projects.

The National Security Council discusses the changes in Mars and decides to send a reconnaissance satellite to check it out. Fortunately, Roger and his friends have prepared a plan for a flyby mission to Mars. He presents this plan to the Director of Advanced Science and Technology at the National Reconnaissance Office shortly after the NSC meeting and the Director passes this information on to the President.

Traci is a waitress and a graduate student in astrophysics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She confirms the Mars albedo change. She gradually learns more about the general background on the problem while on the job at Hooters.

Captain Shane Gries, AUS, was a company commander in Iraq, with Thomas Cady as his First Sergeant. After his combat tour, he was assigned to the Pentagon to evaluate new technology. Naturally, most of the ideas were premature, irrelevant or worthless, but some had definite possibilities.

Megiddo is a renegade scientist and totally paranoid. He is hiding from the government because he knows too much. One of his hobbies is calling in to Ret Ball, The Truth Nationwide Show. Although he has a few bats in his belfry, he is also able to see the obvious and come to a more or less correct conclusion.

In this story, Roger's company is given a huge contract to administer the Neighborhood Watch project. The project mission is to develop, launch and monitor a recon probe to Mars. They start out by inviting everybody that might be useful to a big meeting in Huntsville.

Roger hires Traci into Neighborhood Watch. She might have become a security risk, but she also makes a valuable employee. Besides, she already knows the background and needs little briefing on her duties.

Major Gries also joins Neighborhood Watch. His background is ideal for the job of evaluating and countering the alien capabilities. Of course, he gets Cady assigned as his assistant.

This story includes the recon flyby of Mars and more. The interplay of characters -- from rocket scientists to teenage girls -- is very interesting in itself. The way that ideas emerge from very divergent sources is much closer to reality than the current corporate approach.

Although the book jacket doesn't say anything about mechanicals, the name of the novel obviously refers to Von Neumann devices. One way of exploring space is the use of self-replicating robots. As Von Neumann indicated, such an approach would flood the galaxy with these machines within a few million years. So where are they? Mars, of course!

Apparently this book will not have any sequels. The conclusion leaves little room for further development. Still, the whole scenario is just too good to drop. Anyway, enjoy yourself.

Highly recommended for Ringo & Taylor fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of space vehicle development, alien technology, and clever people.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This book was not up to the standards that I usually expect from John Ringo. THe basic premise of the story showed promise but the characters where a little flat and the action predictable. This is a story that neededs a little more thought put in to it. I like John Ringo but this was not his best work

Approximately two years ago NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Russian Space Agency began to lose contact with probes that had been sent to the planet Mars. A little over one year ago, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute and NASA discover that the color of Mars was changing from red to gray. In a period of less than two years, Mars has been hyper-industrialized. It has been completely developed into a planet-covering grid of giant city-like structures. Recent studies of other planets in our solar system suggest that the outer planets, or their moons, have undergone the same transformations. It did not take long for the real situation to become clear; automated robots (somewhat resembling Starlings) from outside our solar system are transforming entire worlds to meet their goals.

Governments of our world are too late to figure out a way to keep the robots from landing on Earth. When the menace touches down, chaos reigns supreme. Weapons are useless since they seem to eat, or tear apart, metal. Armageddon may actually be near.

***** Much of this book is set in Alabama, around Huntsville. The story has a variety of characters that kept me thoroughly entertained while a complex plot kept me riveted. Traci, a Hooters' waitress and an astrophysics grad working on her master's, is spunky! There are two thirteen-year-old girls that are so smart they can be scary. As for the military, First Sergeant Thomas "Top" Cady is one bad dude! Whatever Captain Shane Gries wanted done, Top is the one who found a way to do it, while killing off as many enemies as possible.

It is not hard to see which parts were written by which author. When it came to the high-tech science stuff, rocket scientist Travis S. Taylor put pen to paper. When it came to making it the plot and story line work and smoothing out any wrinkles (so that the normal people, such as myself could understand what was going on,) brilliant John Ringo's pen is at work. Together, Ringo and Taylor are a force to be reckoned with. Excellent story that I highly recommend! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Book starts slowly to build background for story (which I believe will be followed by additional books to complete it) for half of the book, and passes to fast paced action which is actually very fun to read, although some might find too thick to swallow.
When moving to the book end it climaxes before ending leaving you wanting to know of how the things will eventually end. Hopefully there will more coming soon.

This book reminds me of The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt because of its exploration of how scientists work. Hercules Text was Jack's first novel and hypothesized how scientists here would react if they started receiving an interstellar transmission of a sort-of scientific encyclopedia galactica. Von Neumann's War lionizes engineers more than scientists and especially engineers living and working in Huntsville, Alabama.

I love the optimism of Von Neumann's War. The phrase "military-industrial complex" would be no epithet in the Huntsville of this fictional universe. Of course there are exceptions among the scientists and engineers who adopt a purer-than-thou attitude towards anyone who works under a top secret clearance. But they just provide a stark relief to the macho can-do guys who brainstorm their way into a world-defense at the local Hooter's Restaurant. (Now that is local color!) If you look closely at the cultural assumptions of the book, it is easy to conclude that it could not have been written by a couple of liberal SF writers in San Francisco. Its setting and its tone are very southern.

I love end-of-the-world scenarios and so I decided to read this book because the idea of machine bots intent on attacking Earth seemed an intriguing idea.

Boy, was I *wrong*! I have read one or two other John Ringo books and so I thought this would be one of his military sci-fi type books. *Wrong*. This book was co-authored with Travis S. Taylor, and I have never read a book by Taylor, so I can only come to the conclusion that Taylor had more of a hand in writing this book than Ringo.

It was pages and pages of scientists coming together to talk about design and build specs for a spy satellite and sending it to Mars to get intel on the aliens. Quite dull, and honestly, unless you are an expert or have an interest in it all the descriptions of rocket launchers, core boosters, and the like, it will confuse you. I found myself re-reading sentences and paragraphs to try to understand what was actually being said because terms that an ordinary lay-person wouldn't know were utilized.

The second half of the book was better once the action picked up and there were no more mind-numbing descriptions about how to build a rocket, but the second half of the book wasn't enough to make up for what I found was a poor effort at the whole "alien invading Earth" scenario.

Other problems I had with the book:

The government is portrayed as hopping right to it and working together without a hitch or problem to combat this alien menace. There was no skepticism or doubts from anyone that Mars changing colors could be anything other than aliens come to invade Earth. Everybody, from the President to the scientists to amateur astronomers all come to the conclusion that it's alien invaders and had little need of convincing otherwise. No one panics and chaos doesn't reign even when the general population at large learns of it (there's a few scenes of two of the scientists teenage daughters and they don't even panic or get fearful, they just go along calm and unruffled!). All POV was told from those in the "know", you don't get a glimpse of what's going on in the streets (how *is* everyone handling this??) Everything goes so smoothly that it was hard for me not to laugh at how unbelievable that was.

Okay, I know one is supposed to suspend disbelief on how things work in the "real" world and not compare to how things work in the "fictional" world, but some of the reactions and behaviors of the characters were so *not* realistic behavior that it distracted me from the story-line. I've read plenty of apocalyptic scenarios. From viruses, nuclear war, alien invaders, comets, asteroids, etc. One common aspect running throughout each book I've read is this: humans will panic and will be skeptical and may even deny there *is* a problem that needs to be solved.

That's the whole fun in reading apocalyptic books! The chaos, uncertainty, fear, and panic that humanity goes through when they realize "Uh oh, this could be the end!". This book had none of that at all.
Oh, another eye-rolling moment for me was the lead scientists all meet at the local Hooter's restaurant to brainstorm their ideas of saving the world. Yah, like that would really happen.

I felt this book didn't take anything seriously, maybe it was meant to be a parody on end-of-the-world books. I mean, guess where they get the idea that it's machine bots invading and not some regular flesh and blood alien? From a cartoon that one of the scientists was watching with her teen daughter that had super-heroes battling machine bots invading from space. So the scientist goes back to her colleagues and says, "You know, it could be Von Neumann probes we're dealing with because I saw it on Cartoon Network!". Everyone is in awe and says, "You know, you're right!". That is how everyone figures out what kind of alien invaders they're dealing with.LOL.

Anyways, this book must have been a satire, it's the only reason I can think of why I wanted to laugh out loud so many times when I read this book. Even if this wasn't a parody on apocalyptic themes, it was still one bad book. If you are looking for some good end-of-the-world-for-humanity scenarios try David Weber's In Death Ground, Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, or Moonfall by Jack McDevitt.

I rate this as five stars with a caveat: It is strongly slanted towards the Geek-American demographic. Still, they manage to cram quite a bit of science in without the annoying "As you know, Bob..." dialog which too many other stories suffer from.

Some have complained about the alien tech seeming to violate the laws of physics as we currently understand them, and generally being incomprehensible to us. I don't see this as a flaw. Someone much more clever than I once described the unlikeliness of "Area 51" tech being leaked out a bit at a time to taking a cheap $5 digital watch of today to the top watchmaker of 1900, and asking him to duplicate it. Same deal here. Of course the technology of the probes is baffling. It's orders of magnitude more advanced than what we've got. So long as it's consistent in how it violates them, it doesn't verge off into working by "FM". (****ing Magic)