Series reccomendations

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

The answer was Ghost. Ringo wanted to publish it elsewhere under a pseudonym, but Jim Baen insisted on having a look, and bought it. That seems to have been a wise choice (commercially speaking) as every book in the series has hit the NYT extended best-seller list. Ghost is clearly the weakest book of the batch (and probably Ringo's weakest book, period), with quality of writing improving over the course of the series. That said, Ringo describes these books as "airport novel fantasies" in which he makes no attempt to be accurate, consistent, realistic, or anything else other than telling the story. He once commented (paraphrasing here) that for this particular series "If I need the sun to rise in the South, that's what'll happen."

"Ghost" and its sequels are, IMHO, deeply disturbing books. I've bought and enjoyed everything that Ringo has published through Baen, but these books, with their xenophobic and highly offensive world view, and explicit sado-masochistic sexual scenes I couldn't recommend to anybody.

I honestly can't imagine what the target audience of these books is. I would have thought that almost any reasonable person would find them extremely offensive.

[Penforhire]

I suspect it fits a niche in the psyche of all who find gung-ho war fiction enjoyable, myself included. He borders on these themes in his other works, just not as explicitly as "hey guys, I just found Bin Laden's head." I did not find those aspects out of character in his writing and if you did not get any thrill value from them you may notice his other works similarly tainted. There are scenes in each of them, even my favorite (of his books) Council Wars series, I believe a good editor would have helped him mellow or extend with sophistication rather his blunt "swing for the fences" with Robert E. Howard-like zeal.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"Ghost" and its sequels are, IMHO, deeply disturbing books. I've bought and enjoyed everything that Ringo has published through Baen, but these books, with their xenophobic and highly offensive world view, and explicit sado-masochistic sexual scenes I couldn't recommend to anybody.

I honestly can't imagine what the target audience of these books is. I would have thought that almost any reasonable person would find them extremely offensive.

Actually leaving aside the sexual content (Mr. Ringo admitted somewhere - I think at Baen bar - that basically he worked his psychological kinks in the Paladin of Shadows aka Kildar aka Ghost series) the world view is quite mainstream conservative here in the USA and I am not sure any of the main GOP candidates would disagree with it.

And as it happens Princess of Wands has somewhat similar stuff (though there he kills off famous sf editors and writers including his alter-ego - maybe it was a response to the rec.arts.sf group thread "Why John Ringo is killing sf" )

War on the Rhine - Waffen SS officers rejuvenated and leading Germany war effort in the 21st century against aliens, succesful and a sequel on its way

And then let us not talk about Tom Kratman independent works - the Legion series (A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex featuring the countess of Greenpeace, the duke of Medecins sans Frontier and so on as essentially hereditary ultra-depraved slave masters of future Earth under the aegis of the hereditary UN secretary general) and more recently Caliphate in which he shows among other things how if a President has popular opinion behind (say after 3-4 nukes exploded in various cities) he can use executive pardon to institute an effective dictatorship by offering pardons to anyone willing to assassinate the opposition in Roman proscriptions style

And also coming up is The Last Centurion of which several snippets have been posted - SARS mutates and kills off a big percentage of humanity, and here in the US a clearly named woman president messes up big time in dealing with it...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Actually leaving aside the sexual content (Mr. Ringo admitted somewhere - I think at Baen bar - that basically he worked his psychological kinks in the Paladin of Shadows aka Kildar aka Ghost series) the world view is quite mainstream conservative here in the USA and I am not sure any of the main GOP candidates would disagree with it.

Livui,

The aspect of these books which I find so offensive is their portrayal of the Islamic faith. I can't imagine anyone condoning that viewpoint, and would certainly hope that it is NOT the "mainstream" view of the Republical Party to consider all Muslims in the way shown in these books.

It is one thing to "demonize" imaginary aliens; it's something else entirely to do the same thing to the 1bn+ believers of a major world religion. I live in an area which has a large Islamic minority population. It would make me feel very uncomfortable for one of my Muslim friends to read these books.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that these represent Mr. Ringo's own personal views. I continue to hold him in great respect as an author, but, as I say, I find these particular books extremely distasteful.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Livui,

The aspect of these books which I find so offensive is their portrayal of the Islamic faith. I can't imagine anyone condoning that viewpoint, and would certainly hope that it is NOT the "mainstream" view of the Republical Party to consider all Muslims in the way shown in these books.

I do not think that the terrorists described in those book are representative of the Islamic faith; there are so many mainstream books with blood thirsty inquisitors, bishops, Christian fundamentalists and I do not think they would be perceived as an attack on the Christian faith either. They are just action packed thrillers with a standard set of kill on sight BAD GUYS, books that I usually avoid, though this series kept me entertained for the first 3 volumes, though volume 4 while considered the best I barely read through and I have not read yet volume 5 since the "kill the muj, bed the girls" got boring after a while.

Several decades ago there would have been (and were in quite a few books) the bad commies, now the bad terrorists, who knows several decades from now who will be THE enemy...

Actually I am very excited about The Last Centurion and the description of the first female president is not quite flattering (and it is quite explicit at whom it refers to); now it's a long way till Nov 08, but I may vote for her if nominated, depends on what the match will be - does this make me fill bad or uncomfortable (after all in the book from the snippets available she is directly responsible for a large part of the SARS death toll) - no since it's just a book.
Will I enjoy the book - yes, most likely...

[HarryT]

I take your point, Livui; perhaps I'm just being a little over sensitive. All I can say is that reading "Ghost" made me feel very uncomfortable, and there are only a handful of books that have ever done that. I've not read the other books in the series although, since I buy every "Webscription", I have of course got them. I'd really like to say to Mr. Ringo "you've got my money, but I really don't think you're doing yourself any favours by writing books like these."

I'm not terribly well up on "who's who" in American politics; is this "female president" stuff an attack on Mrs. Clinton?

I'm interested that, if I understand you correctly (and please excuse me if I'm not!), you're equating a liking for military fiction with support for the Republican party? I don't think that would apply in this country at all; our armed forces are not particularly associated with either left or right-wing politics.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't think that would apply in this country at all; our armed forces are not particularly associated with either left or right-wing politics.

Hmm, the 'Royal' Air Force, the 'Royal' Navy, Royal regiments swearing their allegiance to the Queen, her heirs and successors.
I suspect our military are a tad right of centre.

[AlexC]

China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council) offer up an interesting mix of steampunk and fantasy with some sci-fi elements. Might make for an interesting e-read. I came away with mixed feelings, but I know that others absolutely love them.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Hmm, the 'Royal' Air Force, the 'Royal' Navy, Royal regiments swearing their allegiance to the Queen, her heirs and successors.
I suspect our military are a tad right of centre.

No, you misunderstand me. I mean that I don't think, in the UK, that "enjoyment" (if that's the right word) of military fiction is especially a "party political" concept. My political views are decidedly left wing, and I enjoy military SF; I don't think that doing so is an any way a "right wing" concept.

[FixB]

Originally Posted by AlexC

China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council) offer up an interesting mix of steampunk and fantasy with some sci-fi elements. Might make for an interesting e-read. I came away with mixed feelings, but I know that others absolutely love them.

I do ! (love them )

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, you misunderstand me. I mean that I don't think, in the UK, that "enjoyment" (if that's the right word) of military fiction is especially a "party political" concept. My political views are decidedly left wing, and I enjoy military SF; I don't think that doing so is an any way a "right wing" concept.

There is a perception here in the US at least that military fiction equates right wing. Because of this many people do not touch a military sf on general principle.

Personally I rarely get bothered by what's in a book, my main criteria are if a book is interesting and if I like (or at least tolerate) the author's writing style.

So for example I like Mr. Ringo's style a lot, so I manged to enjoy the first 3 Ghost books and finish the fourth despite the fact that I dislike thrillers and avoid them.

Or conversely while I enjoy tremendously IM Banks sf books, I never cared about his regular fiction books (muddled through 2 or 3 but not really enjoyed them).

[nekokami]

Hm. I don't dislike military fiction because I'm left-wing, I dislike it because I don't enjoy the subject matter. It's not interesting to me to read about how people strategize to kill each other. (Or how they actually go about it, or how they justify it.) I'm much more interested in reading about how people solve problems using other means. Those are just the stories I find more enjoyable. But it's not a black-and-white issue-- there have been books I've liked despite the military setting, because they were really about solving other kinds of problems, or about finding non-military solutions when a military solution might have been the most obvious.

[carld]

nekokami, I'm in pretty much the same boat. I don't avoid military stories myself, but if the overall story doesn't interest me then the military aspect won't pull me in. And as you say, it's not a black and white thing. I devoured Red Storm Rising, but haven't really found anything else of Clancy's that caught my attention.

[nekokami]

One of my favorite authors is Steven Brust. I've read all his books multiple times, except Dragon, which I'm just slogging through for the second time. Now, Brust's "Taltos" books are about an assassin, which at face value I would think I would like even less than military fiction. Except that they aren't, really. As my mother pointed out after I got her to read them, the main character is really a detective as much as anything else. There's often a body or two somewhere in the story, but the story is usually about trying to figure something out, often something with larger social consequences to the characters.

Dragon, however, has a lot of straight military action. And... it's boring, at least to me. I find, as I'm re-reading, that I'm skipping all the military stuff and just re-reading the "good parts," about how Vlad is trying to solve the problem that has led to the military action. That part is interesting to me. Camp life and battle scenes aren't, especially.

(I'm still trying to get Brust to get these books into digital versions-- he just changed Personal Assistants, and the old P.A. was very interested, but I don't know the new one as well.)

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by nekokami

(I'm still trying to get Brust to get these books into digital versions-- he just changed Personal Assistants, and the old P.A. was very interested, but I don't know the new one as well.)

SF authors with a strong paperback back list are missing a significant revenue stream if they don't authorize e-books. This is a great way to get your existing readers to pay you all over again for the same books (if the price is reasonable). The Pournelle re-releases on Baen are a good example, he reports being surprised at how well they are selling. I bought the entire set, because it is a real pleasure to reread them at my convenience in e-book form (it is no trouble to leave them on the memory card until I am ready for some Pournelle). I would definitely buy Brust e-books, even with DRM (which I try to avoid).