Gust Front

John Ringo

Riverdale: Baen, 2001. ISBN: 0-7434-3525-7. Pp. 721

I have to admit to starting this book with some uncertainty. I had liked Ringo's first novel, A Hymn Before Battle, well enough but it did begin very slowly and while the second half of the book was quite explosive (sometimes literally so!), the buildup was ponderous, and the prose was a bit flat for my tastes. Still, the premise was intriguing: on one hand, we have seen so many alien invasions, it's a wonder people still write about them; but on the other, the combination of weird aliens and superior combat descriptions made for an excellent military sci-fi novel. So I just had to try the sequel.

Boy, am I glad I did. Although still occasionally shaky in the narrative and although about a quarter of the book is still fluff, the second entry in the Posleen War series is definitely a superior piece of work. Ringo can write combat fiction with the best of them, and his rare flashes of dry humor can get me chuckling in the midst of abominable carnage. I have never been in a war but for some reason Ringo's take on soldiers, their behavior, their boredom, their cowardice, their brilliance, their bloodthirstiness, their squeamishness, their brutality, their heroism, their gentleness, and their stupidity, all ring true (pun intended). It is very rare to see a sci-fi novel where soldiers are portrayed like real people, with all their foibles that make me shake my head and all their courage and dignity that make me tear up. It is a worthy homage to the fighting men and women, and I am sure Kipling would approve.

As the title might suggest, this novel concerns itself with the first wave of the Posleen invasion to hit Earth. Naturally, it arrives earlier than anyone expected and in more strength than anyone anticipated. They land in America, Africa, and Asia (sparing Europe and Latin America for some reason), but the bulk of the narrative is about the war in the United States (Virginia and Washington, DC). Although we still get the obligatory preparations for war with enough detail to wonder why someone did not put Ringo to prepare the defense of New Orleans from Katrina, the calm before the storm serves the admirable purpose of introducing us to some fascinating characters—like the gun-totting nerd Little Tom Sunday, the indomitable mortar specialist Keren and the dangerous, yet vulnerable, Elgars—and fleshing out some of the ones we have already seen, like Mike (who actually plays a peripheral role until the very end of the book, and even then spends most of his time off-page even though his actions save the day) or like Sergeant Pappas.

The incident with the Sergeant, by the way, is why some of the more extreme feminists dislike Ringo's writings (and, if reports about confrontations at conventions are any indication, him personally as well). Ringo is no fluff-head who thinks that just having a vagina automatically qualifies anyone for anything or justifies any random opinion one might have. Some of the popular sci-fi (mostly fantasy) for women tends to depict female warriors in spectacularly bizarre ways which simply do not appear consistent with what I have seen (or what one should expect) from women in leadership roles, especially when said leadership means leading lots of men into dangerous, and potentially deadly, situations. Ringo's take is that soldier women will be like "men with tits." That is, they would tend to suppress their sexuality as much as possible and will tend to behave like men do in these situations. Ringo's opponents disagree insisting that this view requires such women to bow down to the demands of the oppressive patriarchal hierarchy. Apparently, in their world touchy-feely gets battles won.

Well, the incident with Sergeant Pappas shows why Ringo is right (apart from all those psychological studies that demonstrate that effect, by the way). Teri Nightingale, a freshly minted lieutenant, needs the help of the experienced NCO and since he will be evaluating her performance in command, his good graces as well. Being an attractive woman, she uses some of her charms for victimless flirtation which then turns into a love affair. The problem is that Pappas is a guy, which means his judgment is liable to get somewhat clouded when he has to evaluate his lover. When O'Neal asks him point blank if Nightingale is ready for command in the heat of battle, Pappas stakes his reputation that she is. The problem is that she is not, and when she cracks up during a vital mission, she endangers not just her own company, but the entire ACS operation, which means the entire battle of Washington.

Now, one may argue that this is not her fault: anyone can crack under strain and it was Pappas who made the worst mistake. All of this is true. The point is not that women cannot lead or fight, the point is that they have to do so amid men, which means they have to be aware of some things that are biologically hard-wired in us. Like having "attitudes" that would probably horrify any fan of the Vagina Monologues, like caring about an obsolete code of chivalry, like trying to be protective, and, yes, having sexual thoughts. All of this would tend to undermine morale. After all, gone are the days of the ancient Greeks and their homosexuality in the army (or was that just Plato's wet dream?) At any rate, the reality is that a woman in command would behave more or less like a man in command. And when a woman uses her natural gifts to influence a man's judgment, then, well, flirtation is no longer victimless. Man, I wish we had this impact on women. I would not be above flirting either.

This does not mean that there are no strong women in Ringo's novel. Far from it, actually. There's the chief of the fire brigade at Fredericksburg, then there's Sharon O'Neal (Mike's wife) who does not particularly care about the old-boy network in the military but serves competently and honorably when the call comes. There's, of course, the foul-mouthed eight-year old Cally (oh whom we shall be hearing much more in the future, no doubt). And there is Elgars who happens to illustrate another problem that the modern military would simply have to overcome. Rape is a potential danger for any woman in combat but it should not come from one's own troops. Elgars is raped and then tossed aside only to manage to survive by joining Keren's retreating group. The heartening part of the story comes when she recognizes the rapist, identifies him publicly (this does take a lot of guts!), and then her comrades rally to her support. (Thankfully, the military does the right thing in the end when we're told that the offender is hanged.) That Elgars would continue in the fight, that she would summon the courage to confront the rapist, and that clearly most soldiers would be horrified by the incident is what one would expect from a strong woman and from honorable men. I hope that the coma that she is left in at the end of the book is just temporary.

Most of the narrative is taken up with tactics and battles (there are even helpful maps in the back of the book although their quality is atrocious). It is mostly brute force killing of the Posleen by the thousands but there's also plenty of ingenuity, especially by the Corps of Engineers and various technically-minded folk (most likely a reflection of Ringo's dad service). I, for one, love reading about engineering feats (especially real-life ones, like the construction of the interstate system or building dams in the West), and I truly got a kick out of the Posleen learning to identify the Corps' insignia and then scurry away in abject fear upon seeing it.

The carnage is incredible (after all, they have to dispatch a couple of million centaurs) but a lot of it reads a bit clinical. I wish there were more of the individual experience rather than mass slaughter but perhaps this will come later. There are signs that Ringo is moving away from the officer's view of the battlefield to the fighting grunt's. I also enjoyed the brief episodes from within the Posleen ranks although I must admit I found their terms and expressions a bit ridiculous. I never understood why authors insist on using exotic titles and such (all spelled in excruciatingly hard to remember tongue-twisters) when the rest of the dialogue is in plain English. I mean, either go all the way and do the alien language thing (with footnotes), which will ensure nobody would read it or translate the titles in things we can recall without having to flip to the glossary in the back of the book (I am thankful they included one). I think most of us will be fine in continuing to think of them as centaurs with crocodile heads rather than proper British gentlemen. It would have been different if they were referring to things we simply have no words for but that is not the case here.

Anyway, at over 700 pages, this novel is quite long (in fact, it's about the length of two standard ones) but thankfully most of it is warranted. Some additional culling here and there would have tightened the narrative a bit, especially in the pre-invasion sequences, but since we do get multiple viewpoints and the story follows numerous people throughout the first hours of the invasion, the resulting length is not only to be expected but actually welcomed as well. In the end, this is a satisfying sequel that improves on the good things from the first book and minimizes some of the bad. In other words, I am now going out to buy the next novel in the series which I will continue to call The Posleen War instead of the official and much less informative Legacy of Aldenata.

July 15, 2006