Ghost - John Ringo

Baen, Copyright 2005, 502 pages

ISBN: 978-1-4165-2087-0

Read: August 2011 (at age 33)

First time read

If you haven’t read it

Ok, first *massive spoilers*, go read the review here.  It’s an epic review.  Now you know what you’re getting into.  If it seems even remotely appealing, then ok, go nuts.  This book certainly isn’t for everyone.  Oh, and call it a hard R or X-rated.

From the back cover:

Former SEAL Mike Harmon, team name “Ghost,” discharged with partial disabilities, was having trouble fitting in on a very liberal college campus.  But when he observed the kidnapping of a coed, it was time for others to be troubled.

Because underneath his usually placid exterior, Mike Harmon was a bundle of barely controlled fury.  Highly motivated, highly trained fury.  And when terrorists have him the opportunity, he became… himself. 

A series of at the time rational decisions led him, via a raft of tortured terrorist bodies, to a facility in Syria, a “logistics warehouse” called Aleppo Four.  And in the dank basements of that “warehouse” the true, horrible nature of the kidnappers’ plans were revealed:  if the Great Satan would not withdraw over the deaths of aid workers and soldiers, then let them see what could happen to their lovely daughters.  The only fly in the ointment being one banged up former SEAL.

Now Ghost is as free to do his will as the wolf running beneath the moon.  Freed of military regulations, freed of military justice.  And morals and ethics were never his strong suit.

Sometimes it takes a very bad man to do a good job.  In that case, they've got the right SEAL for the job.

Reactions below the break

One gripe:

It was a porn book, with a fair bit of guns and bombs-type action in each of the scenes.  It was really quite terrible.

One rave:

It was a porn book, with a fair bit of guns and bombs-type action in each of the scenes.  It was so terrible that it wrapped around to kind of epic.

Overall

Can a book be so bad that it it’s good?  That was the feeling that I got from this book.  It was a very guilty pleasure, but it was still a pleasure.

Based on the review linked above, I figured that John Ringo had written Duke Nukem.  I’m not sure that I’m all wrong, but I figured that Duke Nukem would be an action novel with a bunch of naked women.  Instead, I got a porn novel (hmm, let’s see: MF, FF, MFF, non-consent, teen, voyeur, dom/sub and I probably missed some categories), with a bunch of action sequences.  Oh, and you also get a huge amount of bad, bad politics.

There’s a lot of wish fulfillment here, and it was fun.  Guilty fun.

Rating:  3 

Characters: 

The women characters had all the depth of porn stars  Hair colour, bust size, maybe a bit of description of legs or butt.  Why would you need anything else?  The men weren’t much different – they usually got a little paragraph about their background, hopes, and dreams before they got shot.  The main character was... interesting.  He’s one of those guys who always needs to prove that he’s the toughest guy around.  He’s misogynistic, and a complete asshole.  He figures that liberals are almost as much the enemy as the terrorists.  Women are by default liberal, and if they happen to be reporters, then watch out.  He says whatever’s on his mind, regardless of good taste (and the girls don’t seem to mind… remember, they’re porn stars).  He’s terrible.  And he kicks serious (and somewhat unbelievable amounts of) ass, and gets girls whenever he wants. 

I didn’t like him much, but – the whole action hero thing is fun to watch.

Plot: 

The book was written as a series of vignettes, only loosely related to each other, and all involved some sort of porn-y scene.

Part 1 – rescue 50 naked co-eds from the terrorists, who want to rape and torture them to death just because.  Kill Osama bin Laden, and a bunch of other terrorists, prove WMD’s exist.  Get a lot of eyefuls on screen, and a few blow jobs off camera.

Part 2 – On a boat playing dominance games with two co-eds.  And intercept a nuclear weapon. 

Part 3 – Stop another nuclear attack, oh, and rape an underage prostitute along the way.

So, um.. yeah.

Premise: 

Pretty contrived.  Everything was pretty much set up exactly to let our hero shine.

Setting: 

The setting was basically now.  It was pretty well-described, as seen through the eyes of an asshole. 

Readability: 

Very readable.  Not difficult writing at all.  Lots of “Oh John Ringo No!” moments, which tended to knock me out of the narrative.  Then I’d hitch up my suspenders of disbelief, and continue, just to see how much worse it could get.

  

Other reactions:

Hradzka's Journal - the same one linked earlier

You don’t need any more than this one.