Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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131 of 149 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
this book is ... different, October 19, 2005
I found myself voting "helpful" for reviews with one star and reviews with five stars. I'm definitely conflicted over this book.
As the author says in his own review on this site, the book reads well. The stories are pretty carefully plotted, although the third one kind of skips around a little too much.
And how many nukes does one guy just happen to stumble across? In that respect it reminds me of the murder mystery genre, where amatuer sleuths just happen to trip over bodies every time they go on vacation. Suspension of disbelief is integral to the idea. These are "tall tales", not psuedo-realism.
And yes, there is lots of sex. Very dark sex, too. And it gets darker from story to story.
And yes, there is lots of violence. Very dark violence, too. It also gets darker from story to story.
Not only is the book not "politically correct", but it is an over-the-top right wing fairy tale. The hero is always right, the Bush-like president is noble and wise, all liberals and the French are weak and stupid, and all the positively portrayed characters make comments about how they are now going to vote Republican for life. The book is also relentless about showing the bad side of Islam: the villians in all three stories are Muslim terrorists. There is not a single sympathetic portrayal of a Muslim in any of the stories.
But ... well that's what this book is about. It is not about plot realism, political moderation, or cultural understanding. It is about darkness: rage, sexual dominance, the seductive joy of killing your enemies, and most of all it is about the relationship of the wolves to the sheep.
It is well executed, but very disturbing. I'm not surprised the author had to be talked into publishing it. It reads more like a private exorcism of personal demons than something intended for public consumption.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great disappointment, February 9, 2007
Let me start by saying that I'm a big fan of John Ringo. I've read everything he's published, except for the rest of this series. Unfortunately, his skills in scifi don't seem to transfer to other genres. This seems like a throwback to bad, old military fiction from before Tom Clancy and others popularized the use of characters, plot, political intrigue, and facts. Save your money and, more importantly, your time.
The main problem is the total lack of realism in just about every area. The main character, Mike "Ghost" Harmon, is repeatedly drawn into adventures because he happens to stumble upon them. Once makes a story -- three times is just lazy, contrived writing. If Ringo had stopped at the first novella, I'd have given a rating of 3 or 4 (a quick, empty, mostly entertaining read). The actual tactics are laughable. Another reviewers' comparisons to Rambo were spot on. Mike typically takes out at least a dozen enemies by himself, and he makes a stand against hundreds with almost no help. He repeatedly fights to his last, spends time in the hospital, and goes back to absurdity. The politics, while expectedly conservative, are simplistic and ham-handed.
Others have complained about the sex, and I will too. There's no mention of it in the blurbs and liner notes, but it takes up 1/3 to 1/2 of the book. It adds nothing to the plot and seems to just be filler. The only small addition it makes is to try and show that Mike is a bad man doing dangerous things that allow good people to live in peace. It's spelled out simplistically in the first novella, and there's no need to a hundred pages of elaboration. It's heavily BDSM, but if you're looking for titillation, you're better off picking something at random from alt.sex.stories or some website.
Ringo does each element much better in other books. "Road to Damascus" is very political and conservative, but it is integrated into the story. "Against the Tide" is darkly sexual (harems, rape, etc), but it works within the plot. The superhero warrior taking on overwhelming odds is logical when wrapped in the ACS of the Polseen series. For special ops stories, I'd recommend Clancy's Rainbow Six or Marcinko's Rogue Warrior series.
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
If you find this book "insightful" then..., September 25, 2007
This book is not about a conflicted protagonist who wrestles with his dark side. It is (at best) pulp fiction a la Don Pendleton's "The Executioner" -- but without the romance. At worst the publisher deliberately avoided mention on the back cover of the book that it is porn rather than a "techno-thriller."
To summarize, Ringo's "hero" defeats three groups of stereotyped terrorist plots while stopping along the way to school two young college freshmen co-eds in the ways of three-way bondage and to beat, rape and sodomize a teen girl, then buy her (as in, purchase her from another person for cash), and offer an offhand, half-hearted apology for his behavior.
Fortunately our hero advises the co-eds to call their mothers before they let themselves get tied up and the young teen is a foreign slave girl with the worldly wisdom to realize that a tip of 300 American dollars for services rendered really takes the edge off of any pain (either physical or psychological) that rape, sodomy, and a good knocking about might bring on.
The previous paragraph is not a joke. Or, if it is, the punch line is that Ringo actually wrote this book and Baen chose to publish it.
I am a 12-year U.S. Marine with a BS in Psych, an MS in Organizational Management, and working toward a doctorate in the field of leadership. I am neither a prude nor an idiot -- and I advise the following with confidence: If you find yourself sympathizing with Ringo's "Ghost" or you think that rape is an understandable way to relieve stress, then you should seek counseling immediately.
Seriously. And ESPECIALLY if you are a member of the U.S. armed forces.
Sometimes good people do bad things and sometimes the good guys have to muddle through some pretty murky gray area when it comes to right and wrong. Unfortunately, Ringo does not explore these issues.
He could have.
He is a tremendously talented writer.
But this time, he chose to write some really bad porn.
Which is fine -- as long as it is labeled that way and we remember to be worried any time we are tempted by an author to think, "Oh, well, I guess he had some pretty good reasons for raping that teen aged girl."
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