Rating: 
Summary: A Respectable Freshman Effort
Review: In the very near future, humanity receives good news and bad news. The good news is that Earth has finally been contacted by a superior alien society - and they're friendly. The bad news is, the friendlies are on the losing end of an interstellar war with an implacable enemy - and Earth is directly in the line of fire!How would mankind adjust to the double shock of knowing that "we are not alone" and the fact that the Earth will soon be ground zero in a seemingly hopeless battle? More specifically, how would the military men and women on the front lines deal with such daunting responsibility? This is the premise of freshman author John Ringo's novel A Hymn before Battle - the first in a proposed trilogy to be published by Baen Books. Ringo, an Army veteran and admitted fan of such suspense writers as W.E.B. Griffin and Tom Clancy, plunges us into the world of the grunts - the men and women of our armed forces who do all the dirty work, and who must live (or die) with the consequences of incompetent command. This book is tech-heavy and combat-detailed - fellow veterans and fans of the military SF which is Baen's stock-in-trade should love this book. Foul-mouthed, tough and quirky, Ringo's good guys are forced to deal with alien technologies they'd never dreamed of, face foes that make previous human adversaries look like prom dates, and work around short-sighted bureaucrats pursuing personal agendas. In the background, Earth's new allies (a motley collection of intelligent species) are enigmatic and conniving - and it remains to be seen if humanity can trust them in the long run! Despite a few warts, A Hymn before Battle is a fine first effort and John Ringo a good fit with Baen's stable of writers. With additional experience (and under the tutelage of accomplished SF author David Weber, with whom he is currently writing another trilogy), John Ringo will very likely rise to the top of his game.
Rating: 
Summary: Beginning Author
Review: While this is Mr. Ringo's first effort, it is in no way a poor one. While the author does tend to jump around between [seemingly] unconnected characters and plot lines, the book possesses an overall fun disposition. As many of the other reviewers have noted, the plot line to "Hymn" is not the most original. It does however maintain it's individuality in it's handling and it's characters. Mr. Ringo does an excellent job breathing fresh life into old veins. Aside from purely literary criticism, there are few faults. For example, the employment of a 50 caliber sniper rifle in the book is misleading, as are some of the other military "facts". Finally, Mr. Ringo's bias against military officers is plainly visible in the book. He repeatedly reiterates how incompletent senior officers are while praising virutally every enlisted man. Lastly, if you're only reading this for combat, you're reading the wrong book. The book spends a small time in actual combat, mostly dealing with preparations for the series. The next book, "Gust Front" is much more focused on action. Overall, the book is wonderful and I have reread it more times than I care to count. No matter the blemishes, Mr. Ringo writes an exciting and engaging novel designed to please Military SF fans. Good job Mr. Ringo!
Rating: 
Summary: In the beginning there was . . .
Review: This book is the beginning of a series which has the potential of making a truly remarkable universe. Although it has been criticised for not being well executed (literary) it makes up for those failings by being consistently paced. Many of the sub-plots are wrapped up in later books of this series, giving the satisfaction fo seeing minor characters & plots wrapped into the whole. John Ringo does seem to have a common problem, that of modeling the main character on himself and his experiences. As he progresses in his writing the character moves away from being an alter ego and developes into a solid creation. Definitely a 'keeper' that will become a mainstay of the Military SF world. Then again, if you are more into 'feel-good' novels where all the stories are Pollyana clean and tied up like Star Trek episodes will be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Great Military Sci-fi with developed believable characters
Review: I bought this book based on the fact that author David Weber decided to co-write other books with John Ringo. I loved this novel and was amused by his putting David Weber into the book as a interstellar battle consultant to the military in the first few chapters. The characters were wonderful and you hated to see anyone die. I can't wait to read the next book, and I just saw that book 3 will be released in 2nd quarter 2002, so I won't have to wait too long to continue the series. His thoughts into what warriors must go through and what their last thoughts might be seems authentic. Yet there is an underlying humor that never lets it get too grim to enjoy. The characters are all real and have real feelings. Must have military Sci-fi.....Buy it!
Rating: 
Summary: Not so good
Review: This is a well-written book but in the end, a rather disappointing read for me. There are traces of humor in the book, but Ringo's writing style can be best described as cold. Further, the book is dragged down by the minutia of weapons planning and military strategy. Only one character is fully developed and he knows far too much more than anyone else in the book does. Lt McNeal is just too much smarter than any other character. Virtually every American general, colonel or captain are blind fools compared to the all knowing Michael O'Neal. The evil Posleen are evil indeed but we know far too little about them and their motivations, other than they are really hungry. The few pages that are viewed from the Posleen perspective are so poorly written and confusing that they are worthless. The Galactic allies of Earth are not as benign as they seem, but this plot device is not developed in this volume. I am sure the reader can find more information about the true intentions of the Galactic Federation, in one of the three other volumes of the series, but the book does not hold my interest enough to read any more books in the series. In addition, Ringo is too American centric in his treatment. The whole world is threatened here, but Ringo does not let us see how other nations and peoples of the earth react to this extraterrestrial threat. Other nation's troops take part in the climatic battle in the novel but the few pages detailing interaction with the foreign troops seem an afterthought. Another thing can't anybody just right a single stand alone book anymore must every book be the first in a series. For example, there are already three books in this series, who knows how many more books Ringo can drag out of this tired clichéd story. I am sure that fans of hard-core military sci-fi can find things to enjoy in this novel, however, I cannot find much to enjoy about this work.
Rating:
Summary: Good space warfare book
Review: This is one of the best space warfare books that I've ever read. Lots of gruesome fighting, and good insights into military tactics and strategies. It has interesting characters, including humans and aliens.
Rating: 
Summary: [Sick]
Review: Just because this guy is freinds with David Weber doesn't mean he can write Sci Fi. This book is tedious and I won't be reading any more of the series. It has all the usual plot devices about evil aliens and I'm sick of it, SICK I say! This is just like the Shiva Option, which I feel is equally weak.
Ringo should write contemporary military fic and see how well he does there. My guess is, it would be a whole lot better.
Rating:
Summary: An obvious first try.
Review: This book suffers more than anything from the fact that it is the author's first book. The story jumps around between groups and time, in a somewhat jumbled manner, only to have the focus shift and stay on one primary engagement towards the end. This forgoes almost all of the other story threads until a "summary" at the end. About half way through, some great thing is revealed about the Darhel to a US government official, only to never touch on what is revealed again. Some of the writing is bogged down in military lingo. And I have gotten weary of SF where the leadership can do only wrong. My own world has enough incompetents in it that I don't want to read about more of them. I did not realize until the end that this was the first in a series. So when I finished it, I was thoroughly irritated that so many things were left hanging. There are better examples on how to write series books; perhaps he should pay more attention to Weber. Overall I have to say that this book feels as though it was written straight through; without a lot of outlining or planning.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't measure up
Review: I give the book one star for decent grammer and ability to string together coherent ideas. That's all.
Unfortunately, the characters suffer from one-dimensionality, the pacing is horrible, and the actual plot suffers from boredum induction. The threat, in the book, is dull to the point of extreme - the enemy is, essentially, a mindless mob, goverened by not so clever leaders. They win through superior numbers, nothing more. Battle scenes are similar all through the book - the brave, skilled, highly intelligenct (sometimes) and ultra-high tech armed powered suits of earth kill millions (yes, millions) of them, only to fall through the weight of superior numbers.
The pacing is awful. In the midst of climactic battle sequences, the author will pause to give a dry, two page explanation as to the science behind exactly what is about to happen, when two lines would have sufficed. In addition, detailed scientific descriptions of a kill vie for attention with people being blown to 'goop'.
Without giving spoilers, I can only say that the main character suffers from one-dimensionality to the point of extremity, and the secondary characters are nothing more than cardboard cutouts. The author even steals characters from noted Sci-fi author David Drake. It is BLATANT (how many Joachim Steubens are there in military sci-fi?). I am unsure if Drake gave his permission to do this, but I doubt it - Drake's writing is leagues ahead of this book, as is that of David Weber. Which begs the question as to why Weber endorsed it so well.
The author is apparantly of the opinion that A- people not in the military are useless/corrupt/both. B- Very few officers are anything but idiots. C- Those who are not are ineffectual without their Sergeants. D- US Marines are, bar none, more effective than anything the universe has to offer. E- Woman are meant to be token wives or sex objects - otherwise, they do not enter a story.
Thus ends the review.
Rating:
Summary: A darn good read, with excusable flaws
Review: Aliens that act (mostly) alien, intrigue, bureaucratic SNAFUs, good (although sometimes improbably so) soldiers hung out to dry, missions made moot by circumstance, overwhelming odds, and humanity's back going up against the wall... Yup. It's got all the right stuff, sure 'nuff! Ringo makes the most of his material, and while he makes a few jarring mistakes along the way, and his characterizations are rather weak, it's a darn good read. First, the flaws, to get them out of the way:
Ringo's characters are all almost caricatures. Mixed motivations, angst, realistic reactions to heartbreak and loss; all these are missing. His soldiers, from the clumsy private, to the sergeant who screws up while tinkering with alien technology, to the gruff general in charge, to the unlikely-looking hero are mostly two dimensional, with little room for growth, and little growth made even where there *is* room for it. Likewise, He plays fast and loose with physics, explaining away gross improbabilities with the blithe assertion of "GalTech," or Galactic Technology, a magic wand for making anything happen in any way that seems to fit the story. One particular example would be the anti-matter driven rail gun/rifles used by some specialized troops: Accelerating small lumps of depleted uranium to significant fractions of the speed of light is akin to holding the nozzle of a Saturn V rocket engine in your hands. Why are the troops not being driven all over the countryside by the recoil? GalTech! Magic Wand! I would have been much more impressed by the inclusion of realistic recoil forces, and how they are overcome (or not overcome. Ths wouldn't be the first war where the troops are handed stink-o weapons!) by the troops. Another failing I find hard to swallow is the deux ex machina rescues that pop up repeatedly. Rather than letting good troops simply die when overwhelmed, or letting them save themselves through hard work, good training, superior skills, and a helping of luck, Ringo provides timely 'cavalry over the hill' rescues for them. This usually happens when, in an effort to ratchet up the tension, he writes his heroes into an inescapable corner. Ease off on the oncoming hordes, come up with a nifty solution (the heroes are *supposed* to be resourceful, after all!), or let them die, Mr. Ringo! Whew! Quite a lot to say there, and yet, I rate this four stars. Why..?! This is a war story. Sure, there are a lot of other things going on, but at it's core, this is about nothing less than a fight for species survival. There are hints and more than hints that there are some serious strings being pulled in the background. Deep secrets, age-old plots, racism, and bigotry are all appearing on the scene, and it's not just the humans who are guilty of it. In fact, it appears that humanity is rank amateur in some regards. The aliens, especially the fox-like Darhel, are running an intergalactic version of the company store scam, keeping whole races in economic servitude. They like it that way, and humans are just too... different... to allow into the mix. That is until the Posleen show up, bogeymen from deep space, eating and looting their way across the universe. Cross a plague of locusts with crocodiles and centaurs, and you have a fair idea of the Posleen menace. The Posleen are sufficiently frightening, and the other, more 'civilized' races are really poor at fighting, so the humans are finally introduced to the rest of the universe; on the terms of the Darhel, of course. What results is mix of interplanetary political brawl, desperate combat, and nasty surprises all around. Nobody gets entirely what they want, and the innocents caught in the middle get trampled viciously, but that's war. This is especially so in a war for survival. In an environment like that, people often *do* become caricatures of themselves. Miraculous rescues sometimes *do* happen, and the improbable occurs with great regularity. Ringo understands this entirely well, and despite some roughness with his prose, and repetitive elements that sometimes intrude, he brings it home to you with gripping immediacy. Over all, it's a great tale, and it's flaws are more than covered by its strengths. If you like stories about good heroes, sleazy bureaucrats, conniving corporate types, and unreservedly 'bad' bad guys, pick this up and give it a read!
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