Customer Reviews

When the Devil Dances (Posleen War Series #3)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the third in the "Suits" series. Here is a series of random observations:

* Great characters, and I like the choices the author made as to which characters to focus on. I'm not sure he's playing entirely fair with us ... at least one main character he 'killed off' will, I'll bet, be resurrected "next week".

* Speaking of resurrections .... naw. Read the book, you'll see it for yourself. Just keep in mind that there are a LOT of different NGO's in this universe, and some of them do indeed work in wondrous ways.

* I was looking for more of the "Suits" in action, with emphasis on hardware and tactics and all that Military SF stuff. Instead I found REAL people instead of characters (generally speaking), and the author worked hardest on developing people so interesting that I cared about what happened to them. Ringo isn't just a Hardware Guy after all. Like Heinlein, he can write a story; like Drake, he can invent interesting situations; like Weber, he can invent complex interstellar societies; and like the very best of writers, his stories take over and hold you spellbound. I would recommend ANYTHING John Ringo writes. Ever.

* This book actually develops the story, instead of just giving us more of what we saw in the previous book. It's refreshing to see a writer who actually seems to be going someplace and writes for other reasons than to fulfill a 3-book contract.

* Sure, the equine antagonists still smell bad and have a disconcerting tendency to slice 'n dice your neighbors, but even they are developing so they seem more real to the reader. When you compare them to Turtledove's invaders, they seem quite interesting even if you wouldn't want them to move in next door.

Or on top of your house, as it were.

* I was ready for this third book to finish the series. I suppose I was hoping Ringo would give us the third of his "March Upcountry" series Real Soon Now. Unfortunately, now I have to wait another six months or more for THAT book and another YEAR for another "Suits" book. Hey, John Ringo! I see you're an honor graduate of the David Weber School of SF Marketting. <G>

* I originally gave this review 4 stars, as if to say "I liked it, but ....". You see, it didn't meet my 'reader expectations'. As I reconsider my position, though, this might be a very good reason to rate it higher than I did. The book gave me MORE than I expected. Sometimes it's A Good Thing to be shaken out of my comfort zone.

So buy the book. Read it. Write your OWN damn review. If you convince me it's a 5-star book, I'll go along with that. But if it's a 5-star rating, how is Ringo going to know that he can do even better on the next one?

Jerry the (I played hooky from the office to read this book!) Geek

Ringo's Posleen books (A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, and now When the Devil Dances) are powerful, near future combat sci-fi. If that's what you like, these deliver a complex plot, detailed characters, and compelling action. I think Gust Front (at least) should be read before WTDD to get a sense of the characters and context.
My only, small, disappointment with WTDD is its cliffhanger ending - but as my review title says, I look forward eagerly to Mr. Ringo's next Posleen book.
I highly recommend this series.
Mr. Ringo is a very accessible author, who discusses a number of subjects (including previous and future books) at the Baen's Bar website. It's surprising and gratifying to receive an author's response to questions about apparent inconsistencies in his books, as well as his writing schedule.

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If you enjoy Military SF Ringo is great.

The first book sucked you in, the second was a little slower but good and you said "Hey it'll pick up again" but then the long awaited final installment arrives and... it just creeps along, still good but a lot of hand waving in my opinion, you almost feel like the story is on hold for some reason.

Still if you liked the first one then your hooked, and well... your hooked! Now we have to wait another year for the next "Final" installment!

The only other criticism is he hasn't let us in on the behind the scenes conspiracy. Who are behind the Posleen? Who are the players in the galatic chess game? Come on John add some meat here!

I dont think he can apply the richness that subplot deserves in that last installment, unless this is going to be another 15 book series ala a certain roman alternate history series (Every one of which was suppoesd to be "Wrapping things up")

Anway, he is still better than 80% of the Military SF Wannabee's so take the plunge and buy all 3 (4,5,6,7?)

Ringo actually knows the difference between tactics and strategy so if you like technically correct and interesting military stuff he's your guy. Don't get me wrong he also has a pretty good handle on military culture and his stuff is anything but a dry read...

John Ringo treats us to yet another cornucopia of inventive and lethal sci fi weapons systems, high tech, rendered in tender, loving detail. The star of the show is the SheVa gun (shown on the back cover of the hardcopy version), weighing in at 7,000 tons and 100 meters in length. It is fueled by a pebble-bed reactor and unfortunately is so big it has a tendency to crush small villages in the way of its present mission. Its crew calls the infantry that gets in the way "crunchies."

Har har. Read all about it and there's a lot of jarhead humor in here for you. And lots more weapons systems.

The bad guys are aliens, who have mastered interstellar flight but are completely hopeless when it comes to ground battles, where they get waxed over and over again in fights with Americans. Somehow they can handle powered missiles but not ballistic artillery. They overran the rest of the planet without much problem but the good ol' US of A has what it takes to fight a holding action with kill ratios of thousands to one. Problem is there are so many of the enemy it is a losing war of attrition.

If you can get past the implausibility, you have a setup for plenty of heroism, which is what Ringo is clearly after in this story. In this kind of story there is no one central protagonist, so you are never really sure who is going to die and who isn't. The pace is quick and detailed, so it keeps your interest.

The story is leavened with plenty of non-violent scenes, to give the "human" side of events without which we would have nothing but a series of battles. The non-battle events seem disjointed and almost random, which gives the impression that Ringo is anxious to get that part done and back to the joy of mayhem. Either that, or there is a sequel in the making.

It is clear that Ringo has problems with people who can not (do not) draw a distinction between "good nukes" and "bad nukes." Ringo makes sure you know the difference, with pointed comments about how this or that geographic feature is going to be "fertile again, someday" even though it is the site of a nuke explosion. The Chinese, you see, have "bad nukes" which means the Yangtze valley is going to be contaminated for about 10,000 years, but the "good nukes" the good guys use can wipe out the enemy at the expense of losing use of the land they were on for just a few years. (For the record, the science Ringo uses on this point is sound.)

As I said, there are plenty of problems with "Dances" but I'll give it four stars, because when all said and done Ringo tells a good story, making the result better than three stars. The jacket says he is collaborating with David Weber, who is better at this kind of fiction than Ringo is. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

When I read "A Hymn Before Battle", the first book in the series, I thought the substance of the writing was excellent but the style undeveloped. Of course, that was Ringo's first published novel. Having put quite a few words on paper since then, the prose in "When the Devil Dances" reads considerably better.

The things that I liked in "Hymn" have gotten stronger in "Devil"- lots of hardcore military SF action, hard-bitten survivors, and a touch of conspiracy. Some of the things that turned readers off to "Hymn" are still there as well. In particular, Ringo continues to string some subplots along with only minor attention or development. Also, I found the ending of "Devil" irritating- unlike the prior books, which at least told complete stories, this one virtually requires a sequel to let us know what happens next.

Still, I'm glad I pre-ordered and got to read it right away. Anyone who liked "Hymn" will enjoy this book quite a bit. Readers who put "Hymn" down will have no reason to change their minds.

Reading the other reviews I find a repeated criticism of this book as not being long enough, the series being too long, etc., etc. I come to John Ringo via David Weber and going on 60 years of SF background and the library to prove it. This book is every bit as good as those that preceded it in this series and that means VERY, VERY GOOD (if you like this sort of thing). As the series develops the stories keep getting richer and more believable. Here is a saga of interstellar invasion in a setting of galactic society with all sorts (maybe too much) of political incompetence and duplicity. It starts nearly in the present. Anyone who thinks that Ringo is going to compress this into 2 or 3 books is fooling themselves, Especially with his style of gemlike episodes and emphasis on individual military actions. Yes, I too wish there were more books readily available without waiting years for the series to end. But it's worth it to have such good stuff at all!
If Ringo could wrap up the battle for Earth in one more volume and then the battles to take over the galaxy from its evil (and still unknown) overlords in one more I would be very surprised. To stop short of that would REALLY be frustrating and upsetting. I fear for the worst in this respect because of his recent association with David Weber who is well known for leaving nascent series to die on the vine. Practically every book Weber writes cries out for a sequel, a cry which is seldom answered - except in the one Honor Harrington series which is almost too much the other way. I do wish that his publisher would get the word to publish hardcovers first instead of later if at all. Both Weber and Ringo are now "big boys" and deserve full scale publication.

I really enjoyed this entry into the Human-Posleen war series! It might be because I didn't expect Ringo to take a chance writing so little about Mike O'Neal, but his cartoonish superhero alter-ego didn't play much into this volume. So instead we were treated to some background characters, who most likely will play a much greater role in the future books, and will also probably morph into cartoonish superheroes, but who really cares? This isn't serious literature...it's military sci-fi. Have fun and hold on!

When it comes to the militaristic SF there are a few really good authors and without doubt John Ringo is one of them. For an unknown reason you can't buy his books in Poland, however...
"When the devil dances" continues the story of war between Posleen and humans. You can read it alone and if that's the case you'd be surely tempted to read the previous ones...
There's a lot of reviews telling what this book is about so I won't do that. If you're even marginally into militaristic SF go for it and you won't be disappointed.

The aliens are less alien seeming in this book, and more like very extreme examples of human archetypes. The humans are still mostly two-dimensional, but that doesn't manage to damp the enjoyment of reading this rocket sled-ride-to-doom! Looming extinction, back-stabbing 'superiors,' feckless bureaucrats, logistics SNAFUs, good soldiers and bad, and the fabulous GalTech all still mix together to create a fast-paced read.

My complaints from previous books in this series remain: The deux ex machina rescues are back, and the technology still has magic performance. Now, I realize that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but a little explanation of how, for instance, soldiers can wield what are, in essence, heavy-duty mass-driver hoses yet not suffer recoil forces would be interesting. Some fairly obvious tactical screws-up exist, too. For instance, the GalTech Aid (personal computer/secretary/librarian/etc.) can produce an impenetrable reactionless shield, but yet no one bothers to use them as such in combat. What's with that? Instead, they use them as pop-up land mines, with the force field flipping on and off in unrestrained mode to slice the Posleen into gobbets of dripping yellow meat. Now that's a nifty, nasty, and believable innovation, but how come everyone's forgotten to use these same screens in their originally-intended mode?

One especially jarring element is the Rah-Rah cheer leading for the online comic Sluggy Freelance, and in particular, for Bun-bun the homicidal mini-lop rabbit. While I enjoy Sluggy very much, and have been reading it for years, I find the over-the-top evangelical enthusiasm of Ringo for Sluggy to be annoying and distracting.

To the good, many of the stronger points of the previous books are retained. Sympathetic characters still die. Human resourcefulness in the face of overwhelming odds is still the order of the day, and shows up all over the place. There is more focus on the civil effects of living under the threat of extinction, and it's not pretty. Ringo has done a nice job of showing the Law of Unintended Consequences here, where pre-invasion political considerations & shortsightedness come back to haunt humanity. People, who relied upon their politicians to be wise, instead find themselves squarely in the path of danger due to "politics-as-usual." The Posleen are no longer complete cyphers, and show that they *can* learn. This isn't at all good for humanity, and the entire book revolves around what happens when one brilliant and innovative Posleen commander intersects with the defects of human foresight.

There is a widening of scope that moves the focus somewhat away from the principle characters of the first two books, and sharpens the focus on some previous bit-players. New characters are introduced, and hints of schemes within schemes begin to surface. It seems that humanity isn't without allies against the treachery of the Darhel, even though the Darhel appear to be playing a deeper game than has before been shown.

This is a more fully realized story than A Hymn Before Battle, and probably better than Gust Front. Ringo is maturing, and despite some quibbles, shows every sign of being David Drake's equal. If you like stories about good heroes, really 'bad' bad guys, and realistically rendered blood-n-thunder, pick this up and give it a read!

Want a Wild Ride ? Your copies of Hymn before Battle and Gust Front starting to lose pages from being reread? Wait no Longer. John Ringo is Back. And with him the Posleen Invasion. I have a feeling that people either love or hate this genre and particularly Ringo's writing. So if you enjoyed the first two, you're going to eat this up. Be prepared for late night reading with a flashlight, hemorrhoids from hiding in the [bathroom] so you can finish a chapter, cold leftovers instead of meals, and a general disorientation when you are not reading the book that will include a general glazing over of the eyes and a far away look that people will wonder where you are as you certainly are not all there. Run, don't walk to order this book. The only bad thing about this book is that it ends and you want more. Hurry Up John Ringo - I'm ready for MORE !