Apparently, because I like some military SF (Niven, Niven&Pournelle, Heinlein, etc.). So where do I start? I don’t insist on reading books in publication order, if reading in some other order will make for a better experience.
Paul George is better.
Amazon could greatly improve their “Recommend” function by including a “Never recommend this author, game, product” button. That way you could blacklist any author you don’t like the first time they pop up and never have to deal with them again.
Don’t read Ghost first. Trust me on this.
I would suggest a Hymn Before Battle or Through The Looking Glass.
Both are the first books in two different series.
Yeah, stay away from the Kildar series completely. Really.
Through the Looking Glass starts a great series. So does March Upcountry.
It took me a second to get this. And I’m a big Beatles fan!
From your lips to Amazon’s ears. I like SF and fantasy. However, I am most emphatically not interested in anything that Robert Jordan or Anne Rice ever wrote, and for a while, Amazon kept recommending both of them to me. Every book, in every format. I’d also like to be able to blacklist formats. I don’t have a Blu Ray player, and I don’t have a Wii, and I probably won’t get either of them any time soon, if I get them at all.
As for the actual recommendations, I’m making a list, thank you. That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for, I want to know what to avoid as much as what to pick up.
His Council Wars series is available for free online at the Baen site.
*There Will Be Dragons
Emerald Sea
Against the Tide
East of the Sun, West of the Moon *
Personally, I’m not a huge fan. I read There Will Be Dragons and about half of Emerald Sea and then I lost interest.
If you own an e-reader, or don’t mind reading on your computer screen, you should note that a lot of Ringo’s stuff is available from the Baen Free Library, in Kindle, Nook, PDF, and a bunch of other formats. It’s all free as in beer and free of DRM - and, most important, entirely legal. Baen is John Ringo’s publisher, and their late President (Jim Baen) was a big believer in taking chances and trusting his customers. When one of his authors (Eric Flint) suggested that they put a bunch of their catalog online for free, in hopes of spurring dead-tree sales, Baen went for it. Cool guy.
ETA: Curse you, Little Nemo! Anyway, here’s the link: http://www.baenebooks.com/s-84-john-ringo.aspx?CategoryFilterID=1&ManufacturerFilterID=0&
The Troy Rising series is also pretty good military sci-fi, with some emphasis on actual science. It starts with Live Free or Die.
Second the recommend on March Upcountry, March To The Sea, March To The Stars and We Few.
Be aware that the Troy Rising series is one where Ringo really lets his politics show. Still pretty good, so far (3 books and counting), but you have to make allowances. The Looking Glass and Prince Roger series are much more restrained in political posturing.
I agree, wholeheartedly. To some extent, I’d also say that the Legacy of the Aldenata series has some rightward-leaning politics as well; I think it’s just covered better in-story. So, fair warning to Lynn and anyone else contemplating taking up John Ringo.
What do you have against S&M with teen girls and killing Commies? With Vikings!
Agree that the March Upcountry is a good place to start. That or Hymn Before Battle. Avoid The Hero, Ringo didn’t write it, it is in his world and maybe his plot, but the actual writing is text book terrible.
Also be aware the man went a little crazy after 9/11. Most of his books became a lot grimmer for a while and the book Ghost is straight up neocon porn. All liberals are traitors, Bush was right all along, all women need a strong dominate (American) man to rape them. I have not read the rest of that series and do not intend to.
At one point the hero kills Osoma Bin Laden with his own WMDs, cuts off his head, and saves dozens of naked co-eds from Al Queda. The co-eds vow to be his sex slaves and the President has to hide his identity so Hillary Clinton can’t destroy him if she ever gets in office.
Lynn, be aware that the reason we are steering you away from the Paladin of Shadows books (Ghost, Kildar, Choosers of the Slain, Unto the Breach, A Deeper Blue) isn’t because they’re badly written. It’s because Ringo himself admits that he wrote them to purge some demons he had. Ghost is borderline BDSM porn, and the others are pretty heavily Marty-Stu military porn, along with your regular porn. I personally really like the last 4 books in the series, but they definitely aren’t for everybody.
woah. Not a joke?
Not a joke. The Last Centurion is even worse.
When Ringo is on, or when he is writing with Weber or Taylor he is excellent. It’s his solo stuff that gets spotty.
Major beef with the Prince Roger series - Ringo and Weber have indicated that they have no intention at this time of writing another book in the saga. This is bad because they let the Big Bad get away! That’s like ending Wizard of Oz with the melting of the Wicked Witch.
I’ve enjoyed many of the books, but be sure and read Oh John Ringo No before tackling the Paladin of Shadows series.
Otherwise, drop by Baen’s Free Library and check out some of the stuff there. The first couple of books of most of his series are good, but all of them drop off as they go along. I think Ringo just runs out of ideas and is ready to move on to the next universe.
He is a very engaging writer. I was completely disgusted by the plot and story of Ghost, but I finished it anyway because it was well written and engaging. The Hero, on the other hand, I only finished because it actually explains a lot of what is going on in other books, but the writing is so ham fisted and boring for most of it that I would have been happier with a cliff notes summary.
Can’t you click on “Fix this recommendation” and click “Not interested”? That takes some things off my recommendations list.
Yes, but once you buy something else from that genre, the whole thing starts again. It would be much easier to be able to permanently blacklist an author or a type of product, ie Robert Jordan or any game.