looks like a solid opening to the new series, Familiar characters and setting with new protagonist, The book is good. The problem is that Ringo has created a rich universe which he already isn't filling, and now he's massively expanding it, What's the point He wasn't writing enough to fill it when he wrote this book, and he's written zero books in this universe since this one.
So even though I'm giving itstars, . . don't bother. Okay soto.stars. I liked most of this book but the author has made the German SS the good guys Totally weird and very offense to anyone that knows anything about some of the horrors that the SS commented against their own people during WWII.
This author is known for his backward thinking when it comes to woman Misogyny and other far right wing views, Even tho I am not a fan of this authors views on these topics and I cringe every time I see them in his book but I still like hes writing style and how he puts a story together.
He writes a good space story and this book was very close tominus the love he has for the SS.
I wish there was more action in this book but I think this one was just a setup book and the main action will be in the next book.
I may continue with this series even with the things I dislike about the author, I've just reread the entire series, from A Hymm Before Battle and all related, and then this book, And you really should read them all as picking this up at this point would be rough, . .
And while this is indeed a good book, I really hate the ending or lack of one, It really kind of feels like it's a/book and ends well before it should, Maybe if the next book were already ready, I'd have been okay, but since note, I really felt I was left hanging and not in a good way.
Still, this book was great in the it took most/all the story lines from all the earlier books and brought them together into a sensible whole.
General Mike ONeal is popular with the troops and at home after liberating first Earth then planet after planet from the Posleen.
The Darhels fear him and now that the war is almost over, they strike, General ONeal is set up and captured, his troop are killed in an ambush, A kangaroo Court with drummed up charges is held and he is found guilty,
His transport to prison is intercepted by a Bane Sidhe strike team lead by his daughter Cally, who he thinks dead.
They bring Mike to earth without showing Cally,
The news of what happened leads to mutiny on the Moonbase and Fleet and they are just about to start fighting when neither side can fire their weapons.
The human mentats tell of a new enemy, more fierce and technological advanced than the Posleen,
The Darhels and the alliance depends on humans to fight their wars, and there is only one leader that can save their bacon this time, General Mike
ONeal.
But after what they did to him, his family and humanity its not going to be easy to get him to help.
This time there will be change, a lot of change, with Mike ONeal in charge of the war,
The Hedren Tyranny has invaded and they have mental powers they use for war, Michele and the other mentats have been trained in the Way that forbid violence but now they have to face the Dark side.
John Ringo is fantastic at portraing life in the military even when they are not fighting and making it interesting to the reader.
Even appointing officers and NCOs interests as much as a battle almost,
But there is more going on in this book, it hints of bigger powers behind the scene and the ending is a total cliffhanger.
Now I have to wait for the resolution Probablymore books, I was a bit disappointed by John Ringos homepage, there was no information on the series there, not even on this book.
Eye of the Storm Free Online Book was a hard book to put down, John Ringo at his best, a superb military science fiction.
I recommend it.
A welcome addition to his Legacy of the Aldenata Series, Introduces a new enemy and promises much more interesting things to come hints at the Posleen as potential allies!, Unfortunately was publishedyears ago and no followup yet! He's written a lot and sometimes I just wish he'd reduce the number of "universes" he's producing books in Another in Ringo's multifaceted accounts of war, and one not half bad as a piece of entertainment.
One thing you will learn from reading the military SF of US conservatives is that the universe is filled with alien monsters whose only apparent ambition is to travel to the Earth and conquer it.
Back in thes the evil aliens not only wanted to conquer the Earth, but then have sex with helpless Earth females.
Ringo's aliens don't want to do that, so there has been a change since the previous century,
The story: thanks to the valiant efforts of the USA Starship Troopers whoops, I mean the ACS armoured something something led by the redoutable Lieutenant General Michael O'Neal, the previous crop of alien invaders has been defeated and destroyed more or less, but now, the duplicitous boss aliens who employed the human troops to destroy the other bad aliens has betrayed the human troops by killing them all, just in case the humans prove to be a threat to the boss aliens, and start to demand their monstrously large backpay.
Yet, just at this moment with the ACS destroyed, ANOTHER bunch of new aliens, even worse than the previous bunch of bad aliens encounters humanity there must be a q out there in space, and guess whatno "take me to your leader" crap.
These new aliens spend their entire life conquering and ruling others, exterminating all that are not useful to themselves, Wow.
That is pretty much the story, told in more detail and a sprinkling or more of humour,
I did enjoy the novel, it had just enough tongue in cheek selfreferential humour to alleviate the tiresome 'might is right' to be found in Ringo he must live in a scary place.
Looking forward to the sequel sequel sequel sequel sequel sequel sequel, . . NOTE: I received this from Amazon Vine,
So I typically write a plot summary for books, This one was a particular challenge, as A I didn't get very far and B what plot I could derive was very convoluted.
So please bear with me as I attempt to dredge one up from memory and using the cover blurb,
So humans are still battling the Posleen since this is one of many in the Legacy of Aldenata series, this humanPosleen war has been ongoing for awhile.
Lieutenant General Michael O'Neal who is the Marty Stue for this novel I'm guessing he's the primary character in the earlier books ends up on this planet, leading his troops against the Posleen and finds a race of nearhumans.
Apparently the Darhell had imported them to this planet, but given the Darhel are in charge of everything, this could mean bad, bad news, especially since due to military looting laws, the entire Darheel race owes Michael O'Neal a mint.
Other than that, I got nothing,
DNF at page,
I know what you are asking: "Why did you DNF If you don't like this book, then why did you bother reading it in the first place" Well, I have answers, but let me back up and give you some history.
This is, as I mentioned above, an Amazon Vine book, When I first signed up on Amazon Vine, I was so happy to get free books, I pretty much picked ANYTHING, especially if it was "science fiction".
So when I got this and found out AFTER the fact it was part of a series, I was a bit discouraged.
Trying to read more than a couple of pages proved to be a challenge, So I threw it in a corner with the promise to read and review "one day",
Well, last year, Amazon Vine has changed their rules they REALLY want you to review all the items you get and withindays.
While they've made it clear that all "old" items don't fall under this new requirement, it made me more aware then ever that I need to clear out these half dozen Vine books I've requested and never read.
So I added "Finish those Unread Amazon Vine ARCs" with mychallenge to read mostly books from my personal library,
I tried, people, I really did. I know giving up atout ofpages doesn't seem like I gave it much of a chance, but I REALLY did.
Several million times between pageand, I wanted to give up the book, but I didn't, I kept picking it up, even after putting it down or falling asleep while reading it the latter is not necessarily the Eye of the Storm's fault BTW.
But I can't continue anymore, I just can't.
Major Reasons Why I Can't Force Myself to Finish This Book
I really don't think military scifi is my thing.
This is my second third foray into the genre, and I am bored and confused, as I have been with pretty much every other military scifi book.
I'm not following the action, don't care about the characters, and am confused as hell by the plot, This is not the fault of the book or the author it is purely a "me" thing, And even if this book is an Amazon Vine book, I don't think I should have to try to finish the book when it's obvious it is not for me.
It's not particularly well written, Some sentences are atrocious, such as the one below:
"He was holding a girl, One with bright red hair and very pretty blue eyes, The girl tried to kick him in the crotch, Okay, so romance probably wasn't right around the corner, "
Blech! Not only is it incredibly sexist "girl" should only be used if the narrator/speaker is a misogynist or the female is under the age of, but the sentence construction is bland and very choppy, like you might find in middle grade or younger fiction.
I know, I know: military scifi or genre fiction doesn't need to be brilliant literature, I get that, but hear me out, Don't we ridicule Stephenie Meyer for her bland writing in the paranormal YA romance "Twilight" And trust me, she will never win awards for the writing in that quartet.
Why is it OK there to critique her she's writing genre fiction too, but it's not OK to critique John Ringo for eyerolling dull writing
The characters are bland and interchangeable, minus our resident Marty Stu.
I am well acquainted that scifi puts more of an emphasis on plot and surroundings than characters, but that doesn't mean that it can get away with perfectly indistinguishable characters.
Other than Marty Stu and Ridiculous seebelow, I can't recall a single other character from the book, They are all names, nothing else,
What makes it worse is the Eye of the Storm's Marty Stu, Mike O'Neal, Yes, he is a Marty Stu, I know "Mary Sue" gets thrown around a LOT, but I'm trying to be better about the label, When I say he is, he really is,
He's a rebel, who is always right, can backtalk his superiors and never suffer repercussions, and is the Only Good Officer
NOTE: In these kinds of books, as in the ranks of the real enlisted, officers are generally the "bad guys" because they don't "do as much" as the enlisted.
Sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's just a bunch of hot air,
He's anyear old Skoal chewer who could pass for a man a QUARTER of his age,
Yes, this sounds totally plausible no wishfulfillment or fantasy here!
The one other character I can remember isn't because of how wellwritten she is, it's because she doesn't make any sense.
We are introduced at one point to Cally, who isyear old and looks, So yeah, we have that annoying trait where people look a third or a quarter of their age, It's annoying, but that's not the problem with her, The problem is that IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH that we learn her age, we also learn that she has been an agent for "most of those"years HOLD YOUR BRAKES! How is that possible! She was inducted as an agent when she was ONE A baby Are these people Jedi Because unless you say that they are weird Jedi baby snatchers, I am NOT going to believe that a woman who iscan spend "most of those years" as an agent.
Heck, even if it were like the Jedi Order, the individual isn't a REAL Jedi until he/she/it gets to be a Jedi Knight, in his/her/its's most likely.
So that would beyears as an agent, nowhere near the "most of thoseyears" bullsh!t,
It's in the middle of an extensive series, Nowadays, I try to avoid this, but I REALLY hate starting in the middle of a series and spending all my time playing "catch up".
It's notfair of me to say, "I don't like this", when I know there's a bajillion other books I need to read to catch up.
And right now, I'm already invested in enough series, and I really don't want to add anymore to my plate,
Minor Quibbles:
Look back up at my plot summary, Did you noticedifferent spellings of the Dnamed race That wasn't me being an idiot, unable to proofread, No, that was me poking fun at the book, Because every time I read the Dnamed race, it was spelled differently in the text, Now one spelling, I believe, was what another race designated the Dnamed race, But havingdifferent spellings of the same race floating around made it EXTREMELY confusing, Was it an ARC error that got fixed in final publication Or was the editor napping You be the judge!
The disconcerting mentions of PowerPoint and Hoth.
Is there no better presentation software in the future And the future knows Star Wars!
Pet Peeve: If you can describe your ENTIRE alien species with one or two adjectives, you are probably doing it wrong.
I've HATED this in Star Wars I absolutely despise it elsewhere,
So, I'm done, That said, I DO think this is a prime example of "it's not you, it's me", For people who like military scifi, you will probably ADORE this, In that case, PLEASE ignore this review, ignore my opinions and proceed full throttle,
If military scifi isn't your thing, if you have a low tolerance for Marty Stuism, beware!!,