Vorpal Blade

If you have a nostalgic yen for a space opera with don’t-even-ask technology and lots of big, mean critters to shoot, Ringo and Taylor have you covered. The eggheads and the SEALS, now dubbed Space Marines, from Into the Looking Glass have a few shiny new recruits and an FTL starship cobbled together from some alien tech and a submarine design. It has an impressive bowsprit, so Vorpal Blade is the only possible name. Ringo knows his audience.
March Upcountry, which he co-authored with David Weber, is better. They steal from Xenophon—a step up from Lewis Carroll.

In the second installment of this series, the US converts a submarine into a spaceship, using the warp drive device that was conveniently given to Earth in book 1. Now that the Dreen menace is temporarily halted on Earth, the Vorpal Blade is sent out to search the nearby galaxy for signs of Dreen. This books features lots of physics, practical exploration of the dangers of early space travel, and the usual kick butt action of a John RIngo story. Light, funny, but technical and action packed too. I wish there was a little more exploration of the societal effects of all this new technology, but it isn't that kind of science fiction novel.

After confronting the Dreen invasion in Into the Looking Glass, a submarine converted into a starship launches a search of the nearby systems to make sure the Dreen aren't attacking through conventional space. Reminiscent of Voyage of the Space Beagle by way of Rambo, the book is an excellent nuts-and-bolts military science fiction tale with a slam-bang finish. As with the best of the series books, it can stand alone even as its predecessor was initially conceived as a standalone.

Fun story. A literal 'black box' from the first book gets extended into a warp drive and a reason for a new adventure here. New character - Eric Bergstrasser - I like him, too. William Weaver's still there, Mimi and Tuffy come along and so does Chief Miller (I like his existential doubt near the end - gives a good excuse for him to keep coming, too). Oh, and Miriam. Also an interesting character. I got to not liking her by the fourth book, so it's hard to remember how I saw her in this one. But I think even in this one there started to be some confusion between Mimi and Miriam - as in, instead of Mimi pulling some data out of a hat to solve things Miriam did. So just why was Mimi along?
The story itself is relatively simple - first show more spaceship (a converted sub rechristened the Vorpal Blade) goes out into space and tries to figure out how to handle things out there. Some politics, a lot of interesting cross-service culture clashes (Marines vs SF, sub vs carrier...). Some interesting worlds discovered, though none of them struck me as either wonderful or particularly original. Lots of gung-ho, and Eric "Two-Gun" got to challenge the standard mantra that two-gun mojo is a fool's game. Not bad, not as good as Looking Glass. show less

Ringo does Star Trek. Really.

While a sequal to Thru the Looking Glass, it is really a very different kind of story. Namely a spaceship - in this case a converted submarine - goes exploring the galaxy.

Unlike Star Trek the Captian and XO never leave the ship. Instead the Marines do the dirty work. We see navy life from the top and bottom.

While the body count is high eventually, I was shocked to be in a Ringo book and half way through with no one dying.

Very hard SF, and if you don't like physics mixed into your fiction it isn't for you.

Otherwise good book all around.

The little black box Dr. Bill Weaver received from the Adar in Through the Looking Glass has finally been morphed from a world-destroying anomaly into a spaceship blaged together from "duck" tape, baling wire and an Omaha-class nuclear sub. Under an ex-fighter pilot captain, the now-commissioned Lieutenant Weaver and a company of Space Marines are headed out on their first survey mission in hopes of finding intelligent life or the Dreen.

This feels like an interim novel - lots of filler, lots of math to make sense of the filler, and a few spectacular battles to make up for the math and the filler. And a real overuse of the word maulk. No objection to swearing, but there are pages where it seems to pop up every third word. And what's with show more Tuffy & Mimi? Somehow their rush to be present and save the day/world didn't quite seem as critical as the opening sequence leads one to believe it might be. And of course, no Dreen in sight.... show less

The first book in the series was quite interesting, but this one seemed to have way too much in the way of "fake" science gibberish. It went way past the "if they start talking one more time about" gibberish threshold.

Granted, the action was interesting. When it occurred.