Watch on the Rhine (Posleen War Series #7)

The series written by John Ringo (and a few guests) is not your standard aliens invade earth story. I found it intriguing and entertaining and recommend it to any 16 and up. - Derek Peterson

Not great literature but at times it can certainly be fun.

I have done a complete 180 on John Ringo whatever problem I am have with his other books this book is gold. Yes the characters are never complicated but there are times when I prefer a simplistic story to all of this "conflicted villain" nonsense that has become vogue in Scifi in recent years.

At least with Ringo you always know what you are going to get Humans are good and Posleen are bad, humans do whatever it takes to survive even rejuvenated Nazis and Posleen ignore common sense. You also need to remember that any human who talks about retreat or negotiation isn't going to last very long.

Do yourself a favor, don't read this trash. And I do NOT refer to the book's subject matter. It's simply that this is one of the worst-written books I ever came across. The plot and subject matter could have been made interesting. Other sister-books in the series (Hero, Cally's War) are well written and enjoyable to read. This literary abortion is absolutely awful, could have been the literary creation of an IQ-challenged ten-year old.

This is a book with a promising premise that's ruined by the author's agenda.

I came to the book, and John Ringo, cold. I hadn't read anything else by him, thought the cover was interesting, and needed something to read on the plane. The quality of the prose is workmanlike--it didn't impress me, but it didn't get in my way either. That's sufficient if the story itself is good.

The problem is that the book was written to convey a lesson about our current circumstances in the War on Terror that Ringo and Kratman felt they had to communicate. The agenda itself is made explicit in an afterward--you can flip right to it before you read, and if you agree with it, maybe you'll enjoy a nice tale.

The premise is that the Posleen, who are literally flesh-eating aliens, are coming to Earth to extinguish humanity, and humanity has to reach for its darkest extremes to find the will and the tools to survive; enter the SS, resurrected by a rejuvenation therapy and equipped with the best technology that can be developed by crash programs.

Up to this point, it's an interesting idea. How far must and will we go to survive? How do we tolerate the evil we must do, so we can live and try to be good? Is it possible to unleash something like the SS for a limited purpose and then get rid of them when the threat is past?

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from that starting point. Anyone of a less than enthusiastic sentiment towards the SS is lumped into the category of weak-willed betrayers of humanity (again, literally). There are no moral qualms or questions about the necessity or wisdom of resurrecting the SS, just a "with us or agin us" depiction of various fates. The apologetics for the SS are cloying as well--revisionist history about certain divisions, and a desperate attempt to separate the fighting spirit of the SS from the uses to which it was put and the circumstances under which it flourished. Basically, a "they weren't all bad" defense that's a further textual repudiation to those in the novel who might have thought that resurrecting the SS might not be the best idea in the world.

That's the problem with an agenda book. It's a meaty premise that could have explored a lot of interesting angles of the situation. Instead, you get a pedantic lesson where the authors try to equate Islamic terrorists with flesh eating, baby flaying (again, literally) aliens. That they had to go that far to draw the comparison is a subtle reproof to the agenda itself, though I don't think they caught that.

The contempt the authors feel for anyone who disagrees with them is made plain in the afterward, and that includes you if you think that the comparison is maybe a bit hyperbolic. It's also a bit nonsensical--they say that "it is a world war that is putting to the test every notion of individual liberty, freedom of conscience, and the rule of law that the West prizes", then in the next paragraph decry "a narrow, legalistic mindset", as if the rule of law were somehow at odds with the demands of the legal mechanisms that are its body. Also, the bit about freedom of conscience is nice, since everyone in the book who's less than an ardent supporter of the SS is... well, let's let Tom Kratman say what should be done to them: "Can we hang 'em? No drop?" ("Oh, alright" replies Ringo).

John Ringo and Tom Kratman's WATCH ON THE RHINE tells of evil invaders - the Posleen, a space-conquering horde with an insatiable appetite for aliens - and allies of Earth who give earthlings the rejuvenation key to limitless warriors to battle them. Whether this technology is friend or foe will be told in a desperate battle in this fast-paced adventure.