Books like When the Devil Dances

Military SF and combat. Is it just me or is this like a bad TV sci fi show? Actual quote from page 424After reading A Hymn Before Battle, I knew that Ringo could write great combat scenes and fun, cheesey characters. In Gust Front, the quality of the large scale battle is compromised by too frequent and poorly executed changes in perspective. In When the Devil Dances, Ringo takes the main weakness of the previous book and applies it to the entire book switching back and forth among multiple and unrelated story lines, not just among different vantage points of a large engagement. The effect on combat scenes is disruptive. The worst part of changing to a different story line during a battle is that when Ringo returns to it, large portions have transpired. Why would anybody read this except for the battle scenes? Apparently Ringo has become such an accomplished writer that now his books can carry themselves without the action. With that in mind things get odd while going downhill.Ringo delivers a story line centered on Elgars, a minor character from Gust Front. She now has amnesia so complete she can't speak correctly yet retains her combat skills. The writing of her speech impediment is so incomprehensible that it shouldn't have been written at all. This is an example of an idiotic idea coupled with a corny cliche. These mashups were entertaining and humorous in A Hymn but this is just plain stupid. Later the reasons for Elgar's condition are revealed. It's a SF idea that can be tolerated if it serves a purpose but Elgars doesn't ever do anything significant military wise to justify such a ridiculous premise. Ringo writes unlikely family scenes and delves into girl talk including how to know when it's the right time to have sex for the first time and how to put on make up. It reads like a 12 year old boy made these conversations up. Awful! In addition to taking on feminine topics, things get a little sloppy. O'Neal is now 5'4" instead of 5'2". The consequences of sniping God Kings has changed, or has it? The Elgars group has access to a repair, rejuve, upgrade machine and ignore poor Kelly who has been shot in the leg. Kelly's wound isn't even mentioned again. I guess she walked it off. The extremely disorganized narrative gets more disorganized with chapter breaks in unnecessary places while missing breaks where needed. What seemed like a minor subplot became a major plot and in fact becomes the center of the so-called climax and the end of the book. There is no actual climax just a handy place to end the book. This is a rambling account not a novel.Ringo apologizes for this book's flaws in the afterword of Hell's Faire. At least he realizes there is a problem. The only reason this is 2 stars instead of 1 is because I enjoy the combat scenes when Ringo sticks with them. Hopefully the next book picks up seamlessly from when this ends because obviously it just isn't finished. If there is backstory and explanation I don't know if I can bear to read it.