Thursday, January 12, 2006

When The Devil Dances

Yesterday I finished When The Devil Dances, the third book in John Ringo's Posleen War series. (I'd thought that The Watch on The Rhine was next, but I was mistaken.)

Anway, WTDD takes place five years after the Posleen invasion of Earth which happened in Gust Front. All three books are fast moving and exhibit a good sense of humor. For example, there were a couple of references to Army of Darnkness in WTDD. The military aspects of the novels seem to be accurate, which only makes sense as Ringo is a vet of the 82nd Airborne. As a gunnut, I appreciate that for the most part the firearms-related content, of which there's a lot, is generally accurate. There's the occasional blooper, as when Ringo notes that one character's Walther PP is chambered for 7.62mm rounds, when it should say 7.65mm. Close enough for fiction. But one thing I really liked was this little missive from his character Wendy Cummings, given to some new shooters:

The most important thing is that; never, ever point a gun, even an "unloaded" gun, at anything you don't want destroyed. For the purposes of safety, every gun is loaded. Guns aren't evil magic; they're just tools for killing something at a distance. Treat them as useful, but dangerous tools, like a circular saw or a chainsaw, and you'll be fine.


That right there is the essence of firearms safety.

I'm enjoying the Human-Posleen War series a lot. Between it and Eric Flint's 1632, I've been devouring scifi like I haven't done since before I started my first term of law school. So, tonight I'll be ordering Hell's Faire, the next Ringo book, 1633, and The Watch on The Rhine.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Internal Timeline-wise, Watch on the Rhine takes place a little after Gust Front

Anonymous said...

If you like the military SF of John Ringo, you might like David Weber's Honor Harrington series. (Think Horatio Hornblower in space). His "March Upcountry" series is pretty good reading, too. The first book in the HH series is "On Basilisk Station". It and "March Upcountry" are available in the Baen Free Library. I think you'll like both series if you haven't tried them.

Dave Markowitz said...

Thanks, I'll check out his work.