Books - Legacy of the Aldenatta by John Ringo

The sequel to Into the Looking Glass. William Weaver, PhD. and SEAL Chief Adams are back and Bill got himself a ship! The former SSBN Nebraska has been converted, using mostly garage mechanics and baling wire, into a warp ship ready to go "out there." But as everyone knows, the people who really are going to bear the brunt are the poor Security guys, Force Recon Marines who are kept in the dark and fed manure all day. That is until they land on an alien planet, get partially wiped out and then load back up again. Ranging in topics from the best gun to kill armored space monsters to particle physics to cosmology to health and beauty tips, Vorpal Blade is a return to the "good old days" of SF when the science problems were intractable and the beasts were ugly. The monkeys are out in the space lanes and ready to rock. As soon as they get another roll of duct tape.

\ A Bad Neighborhood\ "Always Faithful." That was the IMC motto, and the Marines of Bravo Company, Bronze Battalion, of the Empress' Own Regiment, lived by it...even if they did occasionally wonder why they bothered. After all, Prince Roger MacClintock, Tertiary Heir to the Throne of Man, was a real piece of work. A spoiled rotten, arrogant, whiny, terminally handsome, thoroughly useless young pain in the butt. But that was before the Royal Brat and his body guards were marooned on Marduk by an assassination attempt. Before they found themselves facing 120° heat in jungles where it rained five or six hours a day...during the dry season. Before they had to march half way around the entire planet, through damnbeasts, Capetoads, killerpillars, and atul-grak. Before they encountered treacherous local potentates, barbarian migrations, and an ocean full of sea serpents that could swallow a topsail schooner whole. Under the right circumstances, even the most spoiled brat can grow up fast, and it turns out that under his petulant, spoiled exterior, Prince Roger is a true MacClintock, a scion of the warrior dynasty which created the Empire of Man a thousand years before. The Marines assigned to guard him have discovered a new belief in him — and in their motto — and they're determined that they will get him off of Marduk aIive. Of course, the planet has other ideas...

Of all the hosts of Eurotas the Troias were the most fell. For they were born of Winter.Between the Solar Array Pumped Laser and Troy, the two trillion ton nickel-iron battlestation created by eccentric billionaire Tyler Vernon, Earth has managed to recapture the Sol system from their Horvath conquerors and begin entering the galactic millieu.But when the Rangora Empire rapidly crushes humanity's only ally it becomes clear the war is just beginning. At the heart of nickel iron and starlight are the people, Marines, Navy and civilians, who make Troy a living, breathing, engine of war. Survivors of apocalypse, they know the cost of failure.If this Troy falls, no one will be left to write the epic.Citadel continues the saga begun in Live Free or Die, following the paths of several characters during the first years of The Spiral Arm Wars culminating in the First Battle of E Eridani.

Sequel to Ghost, Kildar, Choosers of the Slain and Unto the Breach.Heart-sick over the deaths of so many of his Keldara followers, and one in particular, former SEAL Mike Harmon, hero of Ghost, Kildar and Choosers of the Slain, decides to sit this one out. WMDs headed for the US no longer matter to the Kildar. But when his best friend and intel specialist both are seriously wounded in an ambush aimed at him, the Kildar gets his gameface back on. Mike has always said that he's not a nice guy, and he's about to prove it to a boatload of terrorists and Colombian drug dealers. Set in the Bahamas and Florida Keys, A Deeper Blue is a fast moving thriller that never slows down from the first page. With the return of some old faces, the action-packed novel proves, once again, the adage that sometimes it takes some very bad people to do good things.

I really wanted to like this book. Imagine a society with no real hunger, poverty or war where the bottom suddenly drops out and people find themselves in a world for which they have no relevant skills. It sounds fascinating!Sadly, that is not the book that was delivered. The entire book seems to have been written by a hormonal and socially-awkward teenage boy. The female characters, especially, are one-dimensional and more objects of male sexual desire than anything else. Well, that and as a venue to talk about (ewww) menstruation or, "the curse," as they all quaintly call it. Their daily jargon and dialog seems to have been lifted from some late-1990s limited vocabulary, even though we are to believe this is thousands of years in the future.Between the detailed descriptions of female physiques (I wonder how many times I have read "pert, high breasts" or some derivation thereof) and the detailed descriptions of weapons and warfare, there isn't much to actually engage the mind or imagination.It's too bad, because this is potentially gripping subject matter -- and very relevant today. What *would* happen if even our paltry-by-comparison technology disappeared? How might people react to such loss? Unfortunately, there are no multifaceted characters to hold our attention. Boo.I give it one star for the imagining I did before I actually read it.

Books 3 and 4 in the New York Times best-selling Empire of Man series: March to the Stars and We Few, both New York Times bestsellers.Prince Roger MacClintock was an heir to the galaxy's Throne of Man and a self-obsessed spoiled young brat—that is, until he and the Royal Marines sent to protect him were stranded by an assassination attempt on the wild and dangerous planet of Marduk. After much travail, Roger has developed into a competent and compassionate leader of men. That competence will be tested when Roger and the Marines face an even greater challenge. The Throne of Man has been usurped. With his brother dead and the forces of an interstellar empire arrayed against him, Roger must avenge his family and fight for the just rule of a thousand stars.At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).About The Empire of Man Series:"Will fascinate sophisticated readers (the manual of arms for a four-armed, ten-foot soldier is a thing of beauty) . . . [and] grip straightforward action lovers."—Publishers Weekly"Coauthors Weber and Ringo excel in depicting the lives and times of soldiers both on and off the battlefield."—Library JournalDavid Weber is the science fiction publishing phenomenon of the new millennium, with over 7.8 million copies of his books in print and 17 titles on the New York Times bestseller list. Books in the Honor Harrington and Honoverse series have appeared on fourteen best seller lists, including those of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today. Weber is also the creator of the Oath of Swords fantasy series and the Dahak saga. Weber has also written highly popular collaborations, including his Starfire Series with Steve White, the New York Times bestseller The Shiva Option among others. Weber’s collaboration with alternate history master Eric Flint led to the bestselling 1634: The Baltic War. His planetary adventure novels with military science fiction ace John Ringo includes the blockbusters March to the Stars and We Few. Weber has also emerged as a young adult New York Times best-selling author with his novels, A Beautiful Friendship and Fire Season. Weber makes his home in South Carolina with his wife and children.John Ringo brings fighting to life. He is the creator of the Posleen Wars series, which has become a New York Times best-selling series with over 3.3 million books in print and 10 New York Times bestsellers. The series contains A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, Hell’s Faire and Eye of the Storm. In addition, Ringo has penned the Council War series: There Will be Dragons, Emerald Sea, Against the Tide, and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Adding another dimension to his skills, Ringo created nationally best-selling techno-thriller novels about Mike Harmon (Ghost, Kildar, Choosers of the Slain, Unto the Breach, A Deeper Blue, and, with Ryan Sear, Tiger by the Tail). His techno-thriller The Last Centurion was also a national best seller.

Daniel Leary is a lieutenant in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy with no money and no prospects since he quarreled with his ruthless, politically powerful father. Adele Mundy is a scholar with no money and no prospects since her family was massacred for conspiring against the Government of Cinnabar. Kostroma is a wealthy planet which depends on diplomacy to stay independent in a galaxy whose two great powers, Cinnabar and the Alliance, battle for supremacy. In a few hours, diplomacy is going to fail Kostroma. Daniel, Adele, and the scratch crew they gather aren't much to stand in the way of a powerful invasion fleet, but just possibly they're enough.

Baen now launches an exciting new science fiction adventure series by the New York Times best-selling author: When a 60-kiloton explosion destroyed the University of Central Florida, and much of the surrounding countryside, the authorities first thought that terrorists had somehow obtained a nuclear weapon. But there was no radiation detected, and, when physicist Dr. William Weaver and Navy SEAL Command Master Chief Robert Miller were sent to investigate, they found that in the center of the destruction, where the University¿s physics department used to be, was an interdimensional gateway to . . . somewhere. An experiment in subatomic physics had produced a very unexpected effect. Furthermore, other gateways were appearing all over the world¿and one of them immediately began disgorging demonic visitors intent on annihilating all life on Earth and replacing it with their own. Other, apparently less hostile, aliens emerged from other gateways, and informed Weaver and Miller that the demonic invaders¿the name for them that humans could most easily pronounce was the ¿Dreen¿¿were a deadly blight across the galaxy, occupying planet after planet after wiping out all native life; and now it would be Earth¿s turn, unless Weaver and Miller could find a way to close the gateways. If they failed, the less belligerent aliens would face the regrettable necessity of annihilating the entire Earth to save their own worlds. . . .

Modder! this book is pocking awesome! --- that's Pinopan for "My goodness, this is indeed an awesome book!" If you're looking for sci-fi with intricate political intrigue and underlying subtext of mankind's search for meaning, you're not very likely to find it on planet Marduk where Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock Heir Tertiary to the Empire of Man (my fingers cramped typing this) crash-lands with his royal bodyguard The Empress's Own Bravo Company -- but stick with Roger and his space marines and you'll discover never-before-seen creative methods for killing hostile alien species...and how to cook them Prince Roger is an absolute delight. He's so adorable I want to grab him by the powered armor and slap some sense into his pretty blonde head. I also love other eccentric characters. No unit of space marines will be complete without a swearing pocking Pinopan! specifically one that goes by the name Poertena

It's Not Over Til The Skinny Lady Sings . . .             Working off of a piece of intelligence from the alien Hexosehr, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to investigate rumors of an ancient and powerful civilization that may have been the creators of the “black box” that drives humanity's only space ship. Any remnant technology would be nice but what the Blade finds is much more than they bargained for. Worse, the ship is infested by an alien species of scorpion-like arachnoids that has the potential to wipe out a world. Worst of all, instead of being Astrogator, Captain William Weaver is now the XO and he is not getting along with the new commander. And the new commander does not get along with Weaver, the ship's female savant-linguist or most of the rest of the original crew. And what is that weird noise the ship makes every time it's in hard maneuvers?               Leave it to the oddball geniuses of the Blade to sort it all out. And the Dreen are not going to like the answers.

I didn't realize this was part of a series when I got it, and thus began in the middle of the action. That didn't turn out to matter - Weber does a great job of catching the reader up so that I could completely follow what was going on.The book reads much like Honor Harrington books. Sure there are different characters and different technology, but if I were to have picked it up without knowing who the author was, I'd have had a really good chance of guessing who the author was. This wasn't a negative for me, but if you like novelty in novels, then this may not be the book for you (Harrington is better as a series, so if you're choosing one, go for the Harrington series).There were nice touches in this - the alien enemy has twelve fingers instead of ten, and thus their math system is all in base twelve, which affects their language, technology, cultural organization, etc. Weber is consistent in applying that logic, and it works. Similarly, he has clearly thought through the implications of the tech he created and world builds around it in interesting ways. The biggest downside is a particular character who inexplicably speaks in archaic (i.e. Shakespearian jargon) and also is both whiny and overly emotional. I ended up skimming through every scene she was in, which made those parts more tolerable, but since she is a fairly major character, meant that I did more skimming than I'd like to do. I almost docked this a star for that character alone, but felt that was probably too harsh a reaction. In the end, I'm glad I picked this up, as it was a pleasant read. But I wasn't so enthusiastic about it that I'd recommend it to anybody, unless they were looking specifically for a series similar to the Honor Harrington series.

Problems, problems, problems! All Mike Harmon ever wanted to be was a SEAL. But after problems in the teams, college student was a decent second best. However, trouble seemed to follow him where he went. Now, after having angered every terrorist on Earth and at least five governments, buying a farm in a third world country was looking pretty good. Of course, nothing was ever simple. With Chechen terrorists knocking on the door and tenant farmers with a truly Byzantine culture, the question was whether he could drag the keldara into the 21st century before the Chechen put them back in the 6th. Kildar answers the question: Where would an international security specialist and former SEAL choose to retire—if he's going to buy the farm, it should be one with beautiful women and the best beer in the world. Valhalla on Earth complete with Vikings.

New York Times best-selling series - Omnibus - March Upcountry and March to the Sea, Books 1 and 2 in the Empire of Man Series.Roger Ramius MacClintock was young, handsome, athletic, an excellent dresser, and third in line for the Throne of Man. It probably wasn't too surprising that someone in his position should react by becoming spoiled, self-centered, and petulant. After all, what else did he have to do with his life?  Then warships of the Empire of Man's worst rivals force his crippled vessel out of space and Roger is shipwrecked on the planet Marduk, whose jungles are full of deadly predators and barbarian hordes with really bad dispositions. Now all Roger has to do is hike halfway around the entire planet, then capture a spaceport from the Bad Guys, somehow commandeer a starship, and then go home to Mother for explanations.  Fortunately, Roger has an ace in the hole: Bravo Company of Bronze Battalion of The Empress' Own Regiment. If anyone can get him off Marduk alive, it's the Bronze Barbarians.About The Empire of Man Series:"Will fascinate sophisticated readers (the manual of arms for a four-armed, 10-foot soldier is a thing of beauty) . . . [and] grip straightforward action lovers."—Publishers Weekly"Coauthors Weber and Ringo excel in depicting the lives and times of soldiers both on and off the battlefield."—Library Journal

In the midst of recovering from their successful if casualty prone first mission, the crew of the Alliance Space Ship "Vorpal Blade" are suddenly scrambled back into action. All other priorities take second place as word arrives on earth of a gate colony which has fallen to an unidentified alien assault. As the only space ship currently available to the Human-Adar Alliance, the "Vorpal Blade" is dispatched to find out what happened to the colony, rescue any survivors and learn the identity of the attackers. With new complexities added to the universe started in the novel "Into the Looking Glass" and continued in "Vorpal Blade," "Manxome Foe" continues the tradition of non-stop action, valorous if quirky characters and rigorous science drawn from the frontiers of current theory. The odd-ball crew of the "Vorpal Blade" is an unlikely savior of earth, but none dare say they quail at engaging the Manxome Foe.

A space adventure with a strong female character in the tradition of Sassinak and Generation Warriors--by the bestselling author of Mutineers' Moon. The "invincible", planet-wrecking pirates made a big mistake when they raided ex-commando leader Alicia DeVries' quiet home world and murdered her family. The Imperial forces seem helpless against the marauders so Alicia decides to turn pirate herself--by stealing an Imperial ship to carry out her vendetta.

4.5 stars. The Dahak trilogy, which includes Mutineers' Moon, The Armageddon Inheritance and Heirs of Empire is superb military space opera. I believe it belongs on the "must read" list of all fans of the genre. One thing I found that set this apart from typical "military" based science fiction is the development of the main characters and the focus on their relationships and how much they respect and care for each other. I especially liked the growth of the relationship between Colin McIntyre (the main character) and Dahak (the sentient spaceship he commands). Therefore, don't let the military tag turn you off if you don't typically read that sub-genre as this is high quality science fiction. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!

BOOK II IN THE BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR. Sequel to Under a Graveyard Sky. A family of survivors fights back against a zombie plague that has brought down civilization. A World Cloaked in DarknessWith human civilization annihilated by a biological zombie plague, a rag-tag fleet of yachts and freighters known as Wolf Squadron scours the Atlantic, searching for survivors. Within every abandoned liner and carrier lurks a potential horde, safety can never be taken for granted, and death and turning into one of the enemy is only a moment away.The Candle FlickersYet every ship and town holds the flickering hope of survivors. One and two from lifeboats, a dozen from a fishing village, a few hundred wrenched by fury and fire from a ship that once housed thousands...Light a FlameNow Wolf Squadron must take on another massive challenge: clear the assault carrier USS Iwo Jima of infected before the trapped Marines and sailors succumb to starvation. If Wolf Squadron can accomplish that task, an even tougher trial waits: an apocalyptic battle to win a new dawn for humanity. The war for civilization begins as the boats of the Wolf Squadron become a beacon of hope on a Darkling Sea.

Somehow I've managed not to come across this series before - probably largely because I've never much enjoyed any of Drake's works I've tried. And I've always been conflicted about Stirling: I like a lot of his concepts, and the emphasis on battle descriptions is right up my street, but they are almost universally spoiled for me by his taste for nauseating levels of sadism - not to mention the black and white good vs evil he specializes in, though that's less of a concern in this book, where it's difficult to describe any of the parties as "good". I violated my "no more Stirling" rule when I ordered this from the library.Anyway, as others have pointed out, this series is heavily based on Belisarius' historic campaigns, at least as far as I've reached. This first book represents the campaigns in Persia, and taking purely the description of the military campaigning it's interesting. I did find it difficult to enjoy though because of the (admittedly most likely realistic) depiction of the atrocities associated with warfare in a corrupt slave-owning feudal society. Others have also pointed out the similarities with the (later, I think) Drake/Flint Belisarius series; at a high level they are extremely close, but tone (and the fantasy vs. SF tinge) differentiates them. For my money, though neither is stellar stuff (not sure I ever got all the way through the series), if you were only going to read one I'd go for the later one and skip this one. Though that does require tolerance of Flint's often melodramatic prose, at least there's no explicit child rape that I recall.