Troy Rising the good, the bad, and the speechifying.
The good, the technology is interesting and the premise is creative. The bad, John Ringo loves him some infodumps. Lots and lots of them. Also he loves useless acronyms. VSA, BDA, SAPL, all are used and all mean the same thing, a big honking beam of light. The speechifying don't bother reading the series if you either 1) don't agree with Ringo's views, or 2) can't ignore the barrage of politics. The first book is worst about this and it mellows considerably by the third. The first book is so unsubtle about Ringo's person views that I came to the realization that Battlefield Earth was less overt about the Author Filibuster. That's a sad statement. Ringo does best when he has a co-author to reign in his proselytizing.
The method of dealing with alien threats is interesting, but the aliens are morons. The creation of Troy is really clever, the main character fades into the background and gets less obnoxious. The first book is just the weak link which is a shame because it's the world building book. Talk about Briar Patching all you like, but book one Tyler Vernon is a dick. A colossal smug dick who credits his rise to mega wealth to hard work and "a little luck" which is the hardest thing in the entire series to swallow. Apparently someone told Ringo this though because by book three Vernon tacitly admits that his rise to wealthy enough to own several planetoids was pure luck.
Whoever the editor was on the first book needs to be fired because it's poisonous to the rest of the series.
Subtly: The book!
Troy Rising the good, the bad, and the speechifying.
The good, the technology is interesting and the premise is creative. The bad, John Ringo loves him some infodumps. Lots and lots of them. Also he loves useless acronyms. VSA, BDA, SAPL, all are used and all mean the same thing, a big honking beam of light. The speechifying don't bother reading the series if you either 1) don't agree with Ringo's views, or 2) can't ignore the barrage of politics. The first book is worst about this and it mellows considerably by the third. The first book is so unsubtle about Ringo's person views that I came to the realization that Battlefield Earth was less overt about the Author Filibuster. That's a sad statement. Ringo does best when he has a co-author to reign in his proselytizing.
The method of dealing with alien threats is interesting, but the aliens are morons. The creation of Troy is really clever, the main character fades into the background and gets less obnoxious. The first book is just the weak link which is a shame because it's the world building book. Talk about Briar Patching all you like, but book one Tyler Vernon is a dick. A colossal smug dick who credits his rise to mega wealth to hard work and "a little luck" which is the hardest thing in the entire series to swallow. Apparently someone told Ringo this though because by book three Vernon tacitly admits that his rise to wealthy enough to own several planetoids was pure luck.
Whoever the editor was on the first book needs to be fired because it's poisonous to the rest of the series.