Troy Rising Series - John Ringo

[m***@sky.com]

This starts with "Live Free or Die", which is entertaining, if you can tolerate what looks like pointless right-wing wish-fulfillment. Tyler Vernon gets a lucky break by finding something he can sell to an alien civilisation who make contact with Earth, then leverages that advantage as adeptly as any silicon valley startup billionaire, and we get an interesting tour around heavy industry in the asteroid belt. "Citadel" is more of a worker's eye view of heavy industry and battles around earth, with hazing and unsubtle banter portrayed as a way for people in dangerous situations to check how new co-workers deal with stress.

At this point I was feeling entertained, but just entertained, and I wondered if the third book would see him running out of new ideas, so I was very impressed when I read "The Hot Gate", which has a message partly fore-shadowed from the start. The message is that a space-faring civilisation demands that its spacefarers give reality priority over appearance, pay scrupulous attention to details and work processes, and recognise that calculation must replace a gut feeling tuned for life on earth. The message is that these attitudes may appear no more than the cultural prejudices of the industrialised west, but that it is a mistake to treat them as simply one possible cultural approach out of a diverse variety of ways of seeing the world, because they are necessary to any space-faring civilisation. (Ringo does choose a plot which makes such an approach especially favoured, and this I now recognise as fore-shadowed by something in the first book).

It looks like these three books were published close together around 2011 (inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience) so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a fourth, although there are dangling plot lines. That's a shame, because as well as being entertaining they do have an interesting message.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by m***@sky.com
It looks like these three books were published close together around
2011 (inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience) so I
guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a fourth, although there are
dangling plot lines. That's a shame, because as well as being
entertaining they do have an interesting message.

I enjoyed them and was also expecting another.

There were a few things that bothered me, like Vernon's anticipating death:
with unlimited funds and alien medtech he should have been essentially
immortal.

I find Schlock Mercenary to be pretty entertaining, though I wait for the
books rather than reading it online, so I'm sure I'm way behind. I don't
think we see the main races from the Ringo books in SM, but I could be
wrong. Certainly we see a lot of AIs.

[David DeLaney]

Post by m***@sky.com
(inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience)

If you like space opera you should make it part of your experience, post-haste.

(The books you reviewed are supposed to be one possible prequel to the
setting, a good deal before the comic's action starts.)

Dave, ominous hummm

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by m***@sky.com
(inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience)

If you like space opera you should make it part of your experience, post-haste.
(The books you reviewed are supposed to be one possible prequel to the
setting, a good deal before the comic's action starts.)
Dave, ominous hummm
--

Space Opera?

I wouldn't call it that. Very few fleet actions, and the main protags are
ground pounders. Milsf, certainly.

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by m***@sky.com
(inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience)

If you like space opera you should make it part of your experience, post-haste.
(The books you reviewed are supposed to be one possible prequel to the
setting, a good deal before the comic's action starts.)
Dave, ominous hummm

So, are the novels' loose ends things that the comic
deals with?

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by David DeLaney

Post by m***@sky.com
(inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience)

If you like space opera you should make it part of your experience, post-haste.
(The books you reviewed are supposed to be one possible prequel to the
setting, a good deal before the comic's action starts.)
Dave, ominous hummm

So, are the novels' loose ends things that the comic
deals with?

Not really. The comic is set hundreds (if not longer) of years after
the books. Frankly if you didn't read the author's note that he was
setting them in the Schlock universe I never would have known when I
read them.

[Mike Van Pelt]

Post by m***@sky.com
(inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience)

You should remedy that.

It's a comic, with (generally) a punch line at the end of each
day's strip, but managing to keep a good story going to boot.

The artwork in the very early strips is not that good, and
it tended much more to "silly" humor earlier on, but it's
very solid now. (And I enjoyed the silly humor, too, truth
be told.)

The web page has a recommended starting point, which is where
the strip had transitioned to its current character.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by m***@sky.com
This starts with "Live Free or Die", which is entertaining, if you can tolerate what looks like pointless right-wing wish-fulfillment. Tyler Vernon gets a lucky break by finding something he can sell to an alien civilisation who make contact with Earth, then leverages that advantage as adeptly as any silicon valley startup billionaire, and we get an interesting tour around heavy industry in the asteroid belt. "Citadel" is more of a worker's eye view of heavy industry and battles around earth, with hazing and unsubtle banter portrayed as a way for people in dangerous situations to check how new co-workers deal with stress.
At this point I was feeling entertained, but just entertained, and I wondered if the third book would see him running out of new ideas, so I was very impressed when I read "The Hot Gate", which has a message partly fore-shadowed from the start. The message is that a space-faring civilisation demands that its spacefarers give reality priority over appearance, pay scrupulous attention to details and work processes, and recognise that calculation must replace a gut feeling tuned for life on earth. The message is that these attitudes may appear no more than the cultural prejudices of the industrialised west, but that it is a mistake to treat them as simply one possible cultural approach out of a diverse variety of ways of seeing the world, because they are necessary to any space-faring civilisation. (Ringo does choose a plot which makes such an approach especially favoured, and this I now recognise as fore-shadowed by something in the first book).
It looks like these three books were published close together around 2011 (inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience) so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a fourth, although there are dangling plot lines. That's a shame, because as well as being entertaining they do have an interesting message.

I need to reread the Troy Rising series. I would like to see more books
in the series also. But Ringo made so much money off the _Ghost_ books
when the Romance crowd picked them up that he apparently never has to
work again.

Lynn

[m***@sky.com]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by m***@sky.com
This starts with "Live Free or Die", which is entertaining, if you can tolerate what looks like pointless right-wing wish-fulfillment. Tyler Vernon gets a lucky break by finding something he can sell to an alien civilisation who make contact with Earth, then leverages that advantage as adeptly as any silicon valley startup billionaire, and we get an interesting tour around heavy industry in the asteroid belt. "Citadel" is more of a worker's eye view of heavy industry and battles around earth, with hazing and unsubtle banter portrayed as a way for people in dangerous situations to check how new co-workers deal with stress.
At this point I was feeling entertained, but just entertained, and I wondered if the third book would see him running out of new ideas, so I was very impressed when I read "The Hot Gate", which has a message partly fore-shadowed from the start. The message is that a space-faring civilisation demands that its spacefarers give reality priority over appearance, pay scrupulous attention to details and work processes, and recognise that calculation must replace a gut feeling tuned for life on earth. The message is that these attitudes may appear no more than the cultural prejudices of the industrialised west, but that it is a mistake to treat them as simply one possible cultural approach out of a diverse variety of ways of seeing the world, because they are necessary to any space-faring civilisation. (Ringo does choose a plot which makes such an approach especially favoured, and this I now recognise as fore-shadowed by something in the first book).
It looks like these three books were published close together around 2011 (inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience) so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a fourth, although there are dangling plot lines. That's a shame, because as well as being entertaining they do have an interesting message.

I need to reread the Troy Rising series. I would like to see more books
in the series also. But Ringo made so much money off the _Ghost_ books
when the Romance crowd picked them up that he apparently never has to
work again.
Lynn

Can you confirm that a series of books generally agreed to be at the very least in very bad taste/ extremely politically incorrect in its portrayal of sexual behaviours has been bought in large numbers in a market where most of the buyers are women? Because I think that's hilarious. I'm happy to have freedom of expression brightening the lives of the author and his readers, but I hope that nobody minds me being amused at the situation.

[Ahasuerus]

Post by m***@sky.com

[snip]
I need to reread the Troy Rising series. I would like to see
more books in the series also. But Ringo made so much money off
the _Ghost_ books when the Romance crowd picked them up that he
apparently never has to work again.

Can you confirm that a series of books generally agreed to be at
the very least in very bad taste/ extremely politically incorrect
in its portrayal of sexual behaviours has been bought in large
numbers in a market where most of the buyers are women? Because I
think that's hilarious. I'm happy to have freedom of expression
brightening the lives of the author and his readers, but I hope
that nobody minds me being amused at the situation.

To the best of my knowledge, John Ringo's _Ghost_ and sequels have
been published by Baen and Baen alone --
see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?11694 , WorldCat, etc. If
the claim is that Baen-published editions were popular with readers
who typically read romance novels, then I am not sure how it can
be verified.

P.S. I have seen various claims re: different series' gender
breakdown, but I don't recall seeing any hard numbers. For example,
John Norman once stated that "supposedly some sixty percent of the
Gorean readers are women", but I don't know what data he was basing
it on
(http://curtisagency.com/blog/2011/10/an-in-depth-interview-with-john-norman.html)

[D B Davis]

Post by Ahasuerus

Post by m***@sky.com

[snip]
I need to reread the Troy Rising series. I would like to see
more books in the series also. But Ringo made so much money off
the _Ghost_ books when the Romance crowd picked them up that he
apparently never has to work again.

Can you confirm that a series of books generally agreed to be at
the very least in very bad taste/ extremely politically incorrect
in its portrayal of sexual behaviours has been bought in large
numbers in a market where most of the buyers are women? Because I
think that's hilarious. I'm happy to have freedom of expression
brightening the lives of the author and his readers, but I hope
that nobody minds me being amused at the situation.

To the best of my knowledge, John Ringo's _Ghost_ and sequels have
been published by Baen and Baen alone --
see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?11694 , WorldCat, etc. If
the claim is that Baen-published editions were popular with readers
who typically read romance novels, then I am not sure how it can
be verified.
P.S. I have seen various claims re: different series' gender
breakdown, but I don't recall seeing any hard numbers. For example,
John Norman once stated that "supposedly some sixty percent of the
Gorean readers are women", but I don't know what data he was basing
it on
(http://curtisagency.com/blog/2011/10/an-in-depth-interview-with-john-norman.html)

The notion that females may rank as Gor's biggest fans no longer
surprises me in the least, ever since Goodreads' reviews of
_I Will Fear No Evil_ (RAH) came to my attention. Female avatars seem to
give the Heinlein 4-5 stars while male avatars mostly give it 1-2 stars.
Terry's right on the money. "It's not for people like you and me."

✍

Thank you,

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by m***@sky.com

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by m***@sky.com
This starts with "Live Free or Die", which is entertaining, if you can tolerate what looks like pointless right-wing wish-fulfillment. Tyler Vernon gets a lucky break by finding something he can sell to an alien civilisation who make contact with Earth, then leverages that advantage as adeptly as any silicon valley startup billionaire, and we get an interesting tour around heavy industry in the asteroid belt. "Citadel" is more of a worker's eye view of heavy industry and battles around earth, with hazing and unsubtle banter portrayed as a way for people in dangerous situations to check how new co-workers deal with stress.
At this point I was feeling entertained, but just entertained, and I wondered if the third book would see him running out of new ideas, so I was very impressed when I read "The Hot Gate", which has a message partly fore-shadowed from the start. The message is that a space-faring civilisation demands that its spacefarers give reality priority over appearance, pay scrupulous attention to details and work processes, and recognise that calculation must replace a gut feeling tuned for life on earth. The message is that these attitudes may appear no more than the cultural prejudices of the industrialised west, but that it is a mistake to treat them as simply one possible cultural approach out of a diverse variety of ways of seeing the world, because they are necessary to any space-faring civilisation. (Ringo does choose a plot which makes such an approach especially favoured, and this I now recognise as fore-shadowed by something in the first book).
It looks like these three books were published close together around 2011 (inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience) so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a fourth, although there are dangling plot lines. That's a shame, because as well as being entertaining they do have an interesting message.

I need to reread the Troy Rising series. I would like to see more books
in the series also. But Ringo made so much money off the _Ghost_ books
when the Romance crowd picked them up that he apparently never has to
work again.
Lynn

Can you confirm that a series of books generally agreed to be at the very least in very bad taste/ extremely politically incorrect in its portrayal of sexual behaviours has been bought in large numbers in a market where most of the buyers are women? Because I think that's hilarious. I'm happy to have freedom of expression brightening the lives of the author and his readers, but I hope that nobody minds me being amused at the situation.

No.

IIRC, Ringo made a series of posts on facecrack (facebook) about this at
the time about being totally amazed by the sales of _Ghost_. BTW, some
of his fans actually created a tshirt saying "Oh John Ringo no !".
https://twitter.com/hradzka/status/829011283508879361?lang=en

So what is the most successful Romance book in the last ten years ? I
believe that it is _50 Shades of Grey_. 73,661 reviews on Amazon alone.
It is my understanding that Romance is the number one sales category.
So if, _Ghost_ bled over to Romance, would not its sale have multiplied
significantly ? And is there that much difference between _Ghost_ and
_50 Shades of Grey_ ?
https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Grey-Book-Trilogy/dp/0345803485/

Lynn

[Mike Van Pelt]

Post by Lynn McGuire
IIRC, Ringo made a series of posts on facecrack (facebook) about this at
the time about being totally amazed by the sales of _Ghost_. BTW, some
of his fans actually created a tshirt saying "Oh John Ringo no !".

As someone who generally has no truck with "Political Correctness" in
any of its forms, I read the review of the book which had that phrase
in it, and my reaction was to punctuate it differently in my mind:

Oh. John Ringo. No.

The idea of a guy who, because he finds the thought of rape
sexually exciting, but is entirely clear on the morality of
the issue, and thus has a very special hatred of rapists,
is interesting, but the other content, per the review...

No.

Post by Lynn McGuire
So what is the most successful Romance book in the last ten years ? I
believe that it is _50 Shades of Grey_. 73,661 reviews on Amazon alone.

I was going to bring this up. A book which, based on what little
I've been unable to avoid hearing about its content, glorifies
what is essentially rape as somehow "romantic"... GahhHH!!!
Kill it with fire!!!

[Ninapenda Jibini]

Post by Mike Van Pelt

Post by Lynn McGuire
IIRC, Ringo made a series of posts on facecrack (facebook) about
this at the time about being totally amazed by the sales of
_Ghost_. BTW, some of his fans actually created a tshirt saying
"Oh John Ringo no !".

As someone who generally has no truck with "Political
Correctness" in any of its forms, I read the review of the book
which had that phrase in it, and my reaction was to punctuate it
Oh. John Ringo. No.
The idea of a guy who, because he finds the thought of rape
sexually exciting, but is entirely clear on the morality of
the issue, and thus has a very special hatred of rapists,
is interesting, but the other content, per the review...
No.

Post by Lynn McGuire
So what is the most successful Romance book in the last ten
years ? I believe that it is _50 Shades of Grey_. 73,661
reviews on Amazon alone.

I was going to bring this up. A book which, based on what
little I've been unable to avoid hearing about its content,
glorifies what is essentially rape as somehow "romantic"...
GahhHH!!! Kill it with fire!!!

You really don't know much about the romance genre, do you?

It's not for people like you and me.
--
Terry Austin

Proof that Alan Baker is a liar and a fool, and even stupider than
Lynn:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration


"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Mike Van Pelt]

Post by Ninapenda Jibini

Post by Mike Van Pelt
GahhHH!!! Kill it with fire!!!

You really don't know much about the romance genre, do you?

As little as I can possibly manage, lacking a safe formulation
for brain bleach.

Post by Ninapenda Jibini
It's not for people like you and me.

Indubitably.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Post by Mike Van Pelt

Post by Ninapenda Jibini

Post by Mike Van Pelt
GahhHH!!! Kill it with fire!!!

You really don't know much about the romance genre, do you?

As little as I can possibly manage, lacking a safe formulation
for brain bleach.

Actual bleach injected with a syringe might actually be prefeable.

Post by Mike Van Pelt

Post by Ninapenda Jibini
It's not for people like you and me.

Indubitably.

The thing to keep in mind is that you and I are the freaks, as shown
by the fact that romance is, by far, the best selling genre.
--
Terry Austin

Proof that Alan Baker is a liar and a fool, and even stupider than
Lynn:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration
(May 2019 total for people arrested for entering the United States
illegally is over 132,000 for just the southwest border.)

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

[David Johnston]

Post by Mike Van Pelt

Post by Lynn McGuire
IIRC, Ringo made a series of posts on facecrack (facebook) about this at
the time about being totally amazed by the sales of _Ghost_. BTW, some
of his fans actually created a tshirt saying "Oh John Ringo no !".

As someone who generally has no truck with "Political Correctness" in
any of its forms, I read the review of the book which had that phrase
Oh. John Ringo. No.
The idea of a guy who, because he finds the thought of rape
sexually exciting, but is entirely clear on the morality of
the issue, and thus has a very special hatred of rapists,
is interesting, but the other content, per the review...
No.

Post by Lynn McGuire
So what is the most successful Romance book in the last ten years ? I
believe that it is _50 Shades of Grey_. 73,661 reviews on Amazon alone.

I was going to bring this up. A book which, based on what little
I've been unable to avoid hearing about its content, glorifies
what is essentially rape as somehow "romantic"... GahhHH!!!
Kill it with fire!!!

Not rape as such. But very definitely abusive boyfriend behaviour.

[-dsr-]

Post by Lynn McGuire
So what is the most successful Romance book in the last ten years ? I
believe that it is _50 Shades of Grey_. 73,661 reviews on Amazon alone.
It is my understanding that Romance is the number one sales category.
So if, _Ghost_ bled over to Romance, would not its sale have multiplied
significantly ? And is there that much difference between _Ghost_ and
_50 Shades of Grey_ ?

Well, yes. _Ghost_ is competently written awfulness; _50 Shades_
is incompetently written awfulness. In addition, Ringo did at least
minimal research into safe BDSM practice, whereas _Grey_ is spectacularly
uninformed.

-dsr-

[Peter Trei]

Post by -dsr-

Post by Lynn McGuire
So what is the most successful Romance book in the last ten years ? I
believe that it is _50 Shades of Grey_. 73,661 reviews on Amazon alone.
It is my understanding that Romance is the number one sales category.
So if, _Ghost_ bled over to Romance, would not its sale have multiplied
significantly ? And is there that much difference between _Ghost_ and
_50 Shades of Grey_ ?

Well, yes. _Ghost_ is competently written awfulness; _50 Shades_
is incompetently written awfulness. In addition, Ringo did at least
minimal research into safe BDSM practice, whereas _Grey_ is spectacularly
uninformed.

I feel compelled to remind people that '50 Shades...' started life as Twilight
fan-fic.

pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by m***@sky.com

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by m***@sky.com
This starts with "Live Free or Die", which is entertaining, if you can tolerate what looks like pointless right-wing wish-fulfillment. Tyler Vernon gets a lucky break by finding something he can sell to an alien civilisation who make contact with Earth, then leverages that advantage as adeptly as any silicon valley startup billionaire, and we get an interesting tour around heavy industry in the asteroid belt. "Citadel" is more of a worker's eye view of heavy industry and battles around earth, with hazing and unsubtle banter portrayed as a way for people in dangerous situations to check how new co-workers deal with stress.
At this point I was feeling entertained, but just entertained, and I wondered if the third book would see him running out of new ideas, so I was very impressed when I read "The Hot Gate", which has a message partly fore-shadowed from the start. The message is that a space-faring civilisation demands that its spacefarers give reality priority over appearance, pay scrupulous attention to details and work processes, and recognise that calculation must replace a gut feeling tuned for life on earth. The message is that these attitudes may appear no more than the cultural prejudices of the industrialised west, but that it is a mistake to treat them as simply one possible cultural approach out of a diverse variety of ways of seeing the world, because they are necessary to any space-faring civilisation. (Ringo does choose a plot which makes such an approach especially favoured, and this I now recognise as fore-shadowed by something in the first book).
It looks like these three books were published close together around 2011 (inspired by Schlock Mercenary, of which I have no experience) so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a fourth, although there are dangling plot lines. That's a shame, because as well as being entertaining they do have an interesting message.

I need to reread the Troy Rising series. I would like to see more books
in the series also. But Ringo made so much money off the _Ghost_ books
when the Romance crowd picked them up that he apparently never has to
work again.
Lynn

Can you confirm that a series of books generally agreed to be at the very least in very bad taste/ extremely politically incorrect in its portrayal of sexual behaviours has been bought in large numbers in a market where most of the buyers are women? Because I think that's hilarious. I'm happy to have freedom of expression brightening the lives of the author and his readers, but I hope that nobody minds me being amused at the situation.

IIRC Ringo at one point saying he wrote 'Ghost' to get the "ickyness"
(my word, not his) out of his system with no intent to ever submit it
for publishing. Somehow it did get submitted and published and he was
both surprised and, again IIRC, scared by how well it sold.

[Ahasuerus]

On Monday, June 10, 2019 at 5:46:44 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
[snip]

Post by Dimensional Traveler
IIRC Ringo at one point saying he wrote 'Ghost' to get the "ickyness"
(my word, not his) out of his system with no intent to ever submit it
for publishing. Somehow it did get submitted and published and he was
both surprised and, again IIRC, scared by how well it sold.

A little googling finds the following LiveJournal comment, apparently
posted by John Ringo in 2008 --
https://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html?thread=760769#t760769 . It
includes a number of relevant statements:

"If YOU think you were thinking 'OH JOHN RINGO NO!', be quite aware
that that is what I was thinking most of the time. Especially in Ghost.
The book was so over the top, my working title was 'The Wanker Piece.'
(Marketing forced me to drop the title. :-) [snip]

I decided early in the book that I was simply going to ignore reality
whenever possible.

[snip]it got voted Best Romance of the Year in 2005, OMFG, I giggled
for WEEKS[snip]

The truth is that many people who choose to be in positions of
conflict are, at some level, what most people would call 'truly evil.'
They are infested by demons if you will. (Strong id if you prefer.)
But they CHOOSE to manifest that side of themselves only when necessary.
They keep it in a box and bring it out when they face others who don't
so choose, who revel in their own evil. It is their Killer, their
Machine, their Stranger. (Billy Joel song.) Cops, military, what have
you. They are 'the rough men' who keep us safe in our beds at night and
many of the very best... are more like Mike than they care for.

For those people, Mike is both a hero and a cautionary tale. Given the
situation, what would you choose?

And, by the way, women tend to love them and men follow them. :->

We are a very screwed up species."

Another relevant comment by James Cochrane from the same thread:

"John isn't exaggerating when he said he called it the "Wanker Piece".
He was griping for days that the story just WOULD NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE,
and was getting in the way of his REAL writing. So he wrote it to get
it out of his head. Then everybody wanted to see it. So, as he headed
out the door to DragonCon, he posted a large chunk of it to Baen's Bar.
I live closer to Dragon, by the time I left, two or so hours later,
there were almost 300 positive comments, including many from females
I'd never seen post before (the section posted included most of the
first book in Ghost [snip])

The look of HORROR on John's face when I told him that was quite
amusing. Then he considered selling it under a pseudonym to some other
publishing house. Then Jim heard about it, and wanted to see it, and
was insulted that John would even THINK about going to another
publisher. And, of course, it HAD to be published under John's own
name, no pseudonyms, uh uh."

[Mike Van Pelt]

Post by Ahasuerus
"John isn't exaggerating when he said he called it the "Wanker Piece".
He was griping for days that the story just WOULD NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE,
and was getting in the way of his REAL writing. So he wrote it to get
it out of his head.

OK, I may pick up some of Ringo's other works at some point, then.
(Or maybe not; MilSF isn't, in general, my main interest.)

Not touching the "Ghost" stuff, though.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Mike Van Pelt

Post by Ahasuerus
"John isn't exaggerating when he said he called it the "Wanker Piece".
He was griping for days that the story just WOULD NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE,
and was getting in the way of his REAL writing. So he wrote it to get
it out of his head.

OK, I may pick up some of Ringo's other works at some point, then.
(Or maybe not; MilSF isn't, in general, my main interest.)
Not touching the "Ghost" stuff, though.

You probably won't like _Cally's War_ then, either. Starts with a
torture/rape scene. By the third volume, all the characters are acting
just plain stupid and several end up dead as a result.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

Post by Ahasuerus
On Monday, June 10, 2019 at 5:46:44 PM UTC-4, Dimensional
Traveler wrote: [snip]

Post by Dimensional Traveler
IIRC Ringo at one point saying he wrote 'Ghost' to get the
"ickyness" (my word, not his) out of his system with no intent
to ever submit it for publishing. Somehow it did get submitted
and published and he was both surprised and, again IIRC, scared
by how well it sold.

A little googling finds the following LiveJournal comment,
apparently posted by John Ringo in 2008 --
https://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html?thread=760769#t760769
"If YOU think you were thinking 'OH JOHN RINGO NO!', be quite
aware that that is what I was thinking most of the time.
Especially in Ghost. The book was so over the top, my working
title was 'The Wanker Piece.' (Marketing forced me to drop the
title. :-) [snip]
I decided early in the book that I was simply going to ignore
reality whenever possible.
[snip]it got voted Best Romance of the Year in 2005, OMFG, I
giggled for WEEKS[snip]
The truth is that many people who choose to be in positions of
conflict are, at some level, what most people would call 'truly
evil.' They are infested by demons if you will. (Strong id if
you prefer.) But they CHOOSE to manifest that side of themselves
only when necessary. They keep it in a box and bring it out when
they face others who don't so choose, who revel in their own
evil. It is their Killer, their Machine, their Stranger. (Billy
Joel song.) Cops, military, what have you. They are 'the rough
men' who keep us safe in our beds at night and many of the very
best... are more like Mike than they care for.
For those people, Mike is both a hero and a cautionary tale.
Given the situation, what would you choose?
And, by the way, women tend to love them and men follow them.
:->
We are a very screwed up species."
"John isn't exaggerating when he said he called it the "Wanker
Piece". He was griping for days that the story just WOULD NOT
LEAVE HIM ALONE, and was getting in the way of his REAL writing.
So he wrote it to get it out of his head. Then everybody wanted
to see it. So, as he headed out the door to DragonCon, he posted
a large chunk of it to Baen's Bar. I live closer to Dragon, by
the time I left, two or so hours later, there were almost 300
positive comments, including many from females I'd never seen
post before (the section posted included most of the first book
in Ghost [snip])
The look of HORROR on John's face when I told him that was quite
amusing. Then he considered selling it under a pseudonym to some
other publishing house. Then Jim heard about it, and wanted to
see it, and was insulted that John would even THINK about going
to another publisher. And, of course, it HAD to be published
under John's own name, no pseudonyms, uh uh."

So it's a recursive, meta-comment on giving reality priority over
appearance?

(None of this surprises me in the romance genre. It, and its
readers, who are legion, are weird.)
--
Terry Austin

Proof that Alan Baker is a liar and a fool, and even stupider than
Lynn:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration


"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.