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Originally Posted by ekster
I have one, unfortunately. But I guess I'll still check it out. I rarely say no to books in general. Some of my favourite reads ever were topics and genres that neither I, or anyone who knows me, would ever imagine me liking. And besides, some extra humour is always nice...
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The books aren't humorous per se, but there is a bit of Duke Nuke'em in the protagonist. The action is, as pointed out, so pulpishly close to/over the top I find it hard to imagine anybody taking them seriously enough to be offended. Yet, a lot of people do take them seriously.
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Fans of Ringo's military SF epics (Into the Looking Glass) may at first think Mike Harmon, the hero of this unusual novel, is cut from the same cloth as Mike O'Neal from the Posleen War series (Watch on the Rhine, etc.). Like O'Neal, Harmon is a former Navy SEAL trying to adjust to civilian life who gets sucked back into action by circumstances, in particular by his witnessing the kidnaping of a college coed by jihadists. It becomes clear, though, that Harmon has a darker side, to which, by late in the book, as illustrated by a shocking scene in a Bosnian brothel, Harmon has almost completely surrendered. More techno-thriller than SF, this is a picaresque tale about a modern Barry Lyndon who resists, with equivocal results, baser instincts brought out by extreme stress. It's refreshing to find a successful popular writer who's not afraid to try something different, and the adventurous reader will find Ringo's latest insightful, exciting and outrageously funny. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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At Amazon, it has 148 reviews, very bi-modal - 56 4&5 star, 62 one star:
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Paladin-.../dp/1416520872
This one's typical:
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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.
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The rest of the series, starting with KILDAR pulls back a wee bit and expands the cast to add some sympathetic regulars but the focus does stay on the seductiveness of dark impulses.
(One of the later volumes features a drug dealer that kidnaps and tortures the protagonist's Administrative assistant trying to extract information from her, unaware the lady is a top rank masochist verging on a death wish. She is also smart and feeds him just enough misinformation to get him to *prolong* the session. The bad guy, of course, gets his just desserts in full measure. It's *that* kind of series.)