Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLongshot
I'm not a big fan of Ringo. I have read "A Hymn Before Battle", which was decent SF military fiction. The main character of "Beyond The Looking Glass" comes off as a Mary Sue, which kept me from taking the book all too seriously. I did get a copy of "A Deeper Blue" as a freebie, but with the warnings of the Ghost series, I've been hesitant to read it.
|
I'll admit to having read Ringo.
And the thing is, like a lot of writers, there is Ringo and there is Ringo.
The Ringo of the Posleen series is not the ringo of the Looking Glass Sequels.
Looking Glass itself (Vol 1) I took to be essentially "screwball space opera", a right-at-the-top, no holds barred romp. Wasn't perfect but still a fun enough read. (It was clearly intended as a stand-alone and the last section is a clear last minute addtition to open up the door for Vorpal Blade.)
The sequels, now, got generally more and more serious and the characters less outrageous, up to Claws that Catch, where they went out of the way to amp up the silliness for a good chunk.
No kinky sex. No political proselitizing outside of some rather fun digs at that french (but lets face it; making fun of the french *is* fun, cheap shots or not) and, in fact, the first volume gets a few digs in at the Bush brothers.
If you don't like action SF, fine.
Don't like Space Opera, ditto.
But there is more to Baen than that; just troll the free library for Keith Laumer's Retief, Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer, Tom Goodwin's Cold Equations. They're going out of their way to keep a lot of great writers of the 50's and 60's visible. Hardly a one-note-crew.
If you haven't read Bujold, you're missing great stuff. Anybody who's passed on A CIVIL CAMPAIGN is depriving themselves of one of the greater joys in life; a Science Fiction comedy of manners, folks! Jane Austen would be a fan.
(As for strong women... Brrr! Cordelia Naismith. Team Koudelka. Ekaterin Vorsoisson. There is strength and then there is strength of character. Bujold does the latter.)
Let's not pigeonhole writers or publishers, okay?