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Thursday, February 16, 2012
Book 5 of the Superb Empire of Man series by John Ringo and David Weber is Finally in the Works (by Liviu Suciu)
Read all four series books to date HERE.A bit unexpected but quite an exciting tidbit has been reported in various places a few days ago.
John Ringo just had an announcement that he completed - finally, after years of constant bugging - the synopsis for the 5th Prince Roger (Empire of Man) novel which goes now to David Weber for tweaks/approval/etc and hopefully in 2-3 years we will have the book.
So I just reread the first 4 books (March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars, We Few) and I remembered again how much I love this series - the combination of interstellar intrigue and space battles (first 100 pages of March Upcountry, last 100 pages of March to the Stars and all of We Few) and the action on the primitive planet of Marduk with the superb world building, fascinating cultures, crazy battles on land and on sea and dangerous fauna (March Upcountry from page 100 on till last 100 pages of March to the Stars).
I plan to have a review of the series here soon as incidentally I plan to review soon another David Weber series that has been moving again after an 8 years hiatus (Bazhell or War God's Own series where the 4th book, War Maid's Choice is due in July but available now to buy as an e-arc HERE).
But just as a hint why the Empire of Man series is so good, I would mention memorable characters and wrenching moments - in every book at least one "main" character dies and only a few survive from the almost 200 that are marooned on Marduk, while of course in We Few this continues, though also new important characters are introduced in each book.
While We Few ends on a great note and closes the arc of the first 4 novels decisively, as Mr. Ringo put it, our main hero Prince Roger "has promises to keep" from the previous books so it is time to fulfill them and of course there is the little matter of the civil war he inherits...
Anyway the first 4 books are free at the Baen CD place on any newer CD like the one for Mission of Honor and I am really looking forward to the next books whenever they will be out - I kind of doubted for a long time that there will be more and while I sure wanted that, the first 4 books have enough closure to keep me happy but now I am really excited as this series is on par with the best out there.
As Mr. Ringo puts it colorfully (see here):
"-I recently reread the series. When I got done I walked into the living room and growled at Miriam. 'These God Damned writers! How can they just LEAVE it that way! Roger has PROMISES TO KEEP! WHERE THE HELL IS THE SEQUEL!!!!?'"
11:15 AM | 
Posted by
Liviu |
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6 comments:
Huh.
On his own, Ringo's books have a certain...slant that can be fun to read in small doses, but which get pretty tiresome pretty quickly.
Does Webber's presence leaven the "Ringo-ness" of the books? Given your usual preferences in fiction, this was a surprising recommendation.
How goddmaned fast do you read, Liviu? Those four books aren't exactly short.
Wow, miracles do happen
@Blue Gargantua - I am a huge Weber fan and this is the main reason this series has been a huge hit - when We Few came out years ago it was the first Webscriptions I bought so I could read the book or at least parts of it before pub date - this was before earcs and before me getting into ebooks so i remember printing the available pages as they came out.
I like quite a few of Mr. Ringo's novels but I agree with what you say about smaller doses - he writes powerful stuff but too often ideology gets in the way after a while.
Here in this series there is only a little of his usual digs (the bad guys as interstellar politics go are the Saints which are a communist like polity but based on an ecological ideology of keeping/restoring planets to their "natural pristine" state, whose commando arm is called Greenpeace, and their motto is "there is nothing wrong with ecologies except that they occasionally develop sophonts" and a few other nuggets like that that are very Ringo-like)
The books read very Weberian as philosophy/ideology goes, but are very Ringo-like in the "grunts on the ground" part so no mercy for anyone including our heroes and very realistic; a great combination
@Rob Well, I went relatively fast as I know them already by heart - see the above comment about We Few - but I have not reread them in a few years as I thought We Few is the last; they are also very addictive and a fast read especially once the Marduk adventure starts
Liviu:
Nice summary of Ringo's Jingo-ism and the effect on the writing. Like you and the commentators I hope it continues to be tamped down by Weber. The problem is that as I Ringo has become more and more idealogical as time has passed, something I felt was reflected within the books as well.
Still I can hope.
i agree that the recent Ringo books have not been that much on my taste - curious about Queen Wands which seems to be next
i would not mind more Council books (that is the solo Ringo series I like most) and more Space Bubble, but I dropped out of Posleen