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Well, I forgot that a boneheaded thing was boneheaded, which scrambled my recently-loaded markers on my e-reader. As a result, I started reading John Ringo's "Black Tide Rising" zombie-apocalypse books completely by accident - as in, I was trying to scroll to the next page of results, but the reader interpreted it as "open book one" and I went with it.
Book one, Under a Graveyard Sky, was pretty solid by comparison to most zombie fiction. We get a good idea why this family survives and how they start the rescue mission, and precocious teenagers are pretty much de rigeur for the genre. It still strains credibility that the 15yo is an expert sniper and her 13yo sister is a six feet tall melee combat monster hottie who has no problem clearing decks for hours in a hundred pounds of gear, and the fact that damn near every available male falls so hard for the latter that they propose marriage, but those are relatively minor issues here. Four stars.
Book two, To Sail a Darkling Sea, is worse in pretty much every way. The prologue has six survivors on a Navy ship - five men and one woman - and we get treated to the delightful scene of one of the men telling the "split" (ugh!) that she'd better start putting out on her terms before he and the other guys lose their self-control. Believe it or not, that's not the squickiest part of the book. The biggest flaw, I think, is that "make this motley bunch Real Military" becomes the focus, which means the book bogs down in legalese and paperwork and military discipline and finding a way to commission the family members in the Navy and Marines. (The 13yo ends the book as a 2nd Lieutenant.) Three stars as a definite step down.
I'm still reading book three, Islands of Rage & Hope, and Chapter Two brought me to a screeching "WTF?!?" halt. There's a very squicky scene involving the discovery and treatment of a pregnant preteen - which is completely gratuitous because, according to a text search of the ebook, she's never even mentioned again. It's as if the author asked "what's the most unlikely way she could get pregnant in a raft" and dropped it in just because he could. If I'd been a beta reader or editor, I would've recommended cutting that part entirely.
I'm almost scared to find out what book four has in store. Right now, I'm just hoping book three finds a way to redeem itself. (I currently don't see myself rating it above three stars - probably lower. That Chapter Two bit was really vile.)
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