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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ship who Sang, danced, and kicked Posleen Butt, 25 May 2009
This military SF page-turner is a little like what you might get if you combine Anne McCaffrey's "The Ship who sang" series and C.S. Forester's book "Death to the French" in the context of the invasion of Earth by a hostile race called the Posleen. Although this was one of the more recently written novels in John Ringo's Posleen invasion universe, also known as the "Legacy of the Aldenata" series, it is one of the earlier books by chronological sequence. It tells the story of the defence of the Panama Canal region by Panamanian and US forces, including a heavy cruiser which becomes sentient, against the Posleen invasion.
The series began around the turn of the Millennium, when the galactic federation contacted Earth with some awful news and a terrible choice. An aggressive species called the Posleen, to whom all other creatures are merely food, is rampaging through the galaxy, and Earth is in their path. If humans will act as mercenaries against them, the galactic federation will provide weapons and technical assistance. Accepting the deal means humans will be cannon fodder. Refusing would mean that when they arrive we will be Posleen fodder.
The series is sometimes called "Legacy of Aldenata" because the galactic situation is the result of meddling in the genes of most intelligent species by a now-vanished race called the Aldenata. The Aldenata turned most of the peoples of the galaxy into vegetarians, unable to kill. The only sentient species in the galaxy who apparently escaped this meddling and can therefore fight wars are Posleen and humans - which is why the galactic federation want us as mercenaries.
But the Aldenata's meddling has not made every race into nice people. In particular, galactic politics and economics are dominated by a powerful race called the Darhel. The principal Darhel character in this book openly states that the Aldenata's forcible genetic conversion of his people from warrior carnivores to vegetarian pacifists has compelled them to live a lie and made them hate what they have become.
The ruthless and evil leaders of the Darhel see humans as a threat to their position. Their plan is to use humans and Posleen to virtually annihilate each other: they intend to give humanity just enough support to enable us to eventually defeat the Posleen, but the Darhel also set out to sabotage the human war effort and reduce it to the minimum level required for the costliest, most narrow victory possible. They aim to deliberately ensure that several billion humans get killed and eaten by Posleen in the process. Although the Darhel cannot kill anyone themselves without going permanently catatonic, they can and do hire human assassins to eliminate anyone who openly opposes them, might make the human resistance to the Posleen too successful, or finds out too much about their plans.
At the start of the book, shortly before the invasion, the US has realised that the consequences for their ability to feed their people if the Posleen get control of the Panama canal will be dire, so they despatch what forces they can spare to help the Panamanians defend themselves and the canal. But the heroes and heroines of the book, American and Panamanian (and one or two galactics) have no idea of the lengths to which their supposed Darhel allies, working with corrupt elements of the Panamanian government, the United Nations, and the American State Department, will go to sabotage the human war effort.
Fortunately many of the Panamanian people, and the US soldiers and sailors fighting with them, have much more courage and resourcefulness than the Darhel and their treacherous co-conspirators realise. And the biggest obstacle to a Posleen victory in Panama is something which no rational person would have expected. One of three old battlewagons allocated to support the Panamanians, the heavy cruiser USS Des Moines, really does have a mind of her own ...
This novel fits into the sequence of eleven published or planned books in the Posleen/Legacy of Aldenata Universe as follows:
The series began with three stories in four volumes following the war against the Posleen invasion, particularly from a US perspective. The four books of that quartet are:
1) A Hymn Before Battle
2) Gust Front
3) When the Devil Dances
4) Hell's Faire
(The first two of these books are stand-alone novels, but "When the Devil Dances" and "Hell's Faire," are essentially one story in two volumes.)
This is the second of two books by John Ringo and Tom Kratman set at the same time as "Gust Front" but in other theatres of war, which are
5) Watch on the Rhine (Germany), and
6) Yellow Eyes (Panama).
Then there is the Cally O'Neal quartet, set a couple of decades after the Posleen invasion of Earth. This describes the resistance to the Darhel, let by a covert organisation called the Bane Sidhe, particularly from the viewpoint of the spy and assassin Cally O'Neal. These four books are
7) Cally's War
8) Sister Time
9) Honor of the Clan
10) Eye of the Storm (forthcoming)
Finally, the chronologically last book in the sequence, set many centuries later, is
11) Hero.
a book which reverses the viewpoint. About a thousand years after the events of the first ten books in the series, humans have finally taken a terrible vengeance on the Darhel. "Hero" is set some centuries after the uprising and pogrom against the Darhel, and members of that species have become a despised minority which is trying to slowly earn back a position of being accepted and trusted by the other races of the galaxy. "Hero" actually has a Darhel in the title role.
Provided that you are not squeamish or the least bit prudish, I can recommend "Yellow Eyes" and indeed the whole series.
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