Ghost

This is an extremely difficult book to review. If you read it, I think you'll know what I mean.

SPOILERS ABOUND. Read at your own peril.

This book is pure "action porn" for guys who like their action with a side dish of rape. It follows the adventures of Mike Harmon, a SEAL who has been medically discharged. Mike is now taking college courses at the University of Georgia, when he's not wiling away the hours stalking female college students (does anyone other than middle-aged male chauvinists still call them "co-eds" as they are referred to consistently in the book?). Yes, his hobby is stalking women. And fantasizing about raping them. Literally fantasizing about raping them. Mike is a bad, bad man, as he consistently reminds every female show more character he meets. Yes, he is, but I'm not sure in the same way that Ringo means.

While stalking one woman on campus, he sees her abducted by a terrorist cell. Mike, being the badass that he is, follows them to a warehouse and takes out the terrorists. He tracks down the aircraft where 50 other kidnapped young women have been stored and hops aboard (does hiding out inside a wheel well count as "onboard"?). They land in Syria and are taken to a secret chemical weapons facility. The women are scheduled to be tortured, raped, and murdered live over the Internet for a global audience. Mike then kills Osama bin Laden and the president of Syria who are visiting the plant, then rescues the women. Read that last sentence again. Mike and a female ROTC student hold off the Syrians until they can be relieved by a SEAL team dropped in by a modified B-2 stealth bomber. The other women manage to call in to Fox News live where one of them -- previously a bleeding-heart liberal -- proclaims her newfound conservative political beliefs. (When you get to that part of the book, read her rant aloud as I did; it's lots of fun.) The US then nukes the site. End part one. Yes, that's only the first third of the book. Some (lesser) author would have been content to make that the focus of the entire book. Not John Ringo.

Part two is Mike in semi-retirement. He's living on a boat down in Florida and picks up two female college students. Mike then introduces them to the joys of BDSM -- explaining it ad nauseum -- and helps them awaken their inner submissive sides. The two quickly become Mike's willing slaves (and bisexual). He chats with their mothers on the phone at length (the first phone call takes up about ten pages or so) where he describes what he plans to do to the two in graphic detail. Both their mothers are also submissives and wish they could join the fun. Mike and his new sex partners have lots of graphic sex. Mike is then called in to intercept a stolen nuke that some terrorists are trying to smuggle into the US. Mike kills all but one of them, who sets off the nuke. Guess blowing up an uninhabited Florida key isn't too big of a deal. Don't worry, Mike and his slaves get away safely.

Part three is Mike visiting various whorehouses in Eastern Europe. While slumming around, he's called in to assist with a old Soviet nuke that has been sold to terrorists. It's been smuggled to Bosnia, where Mike follows a hunch and finds where it had been stored. He brutally anally rapes a prostitute in a brothel there (four times, I might add), fulfilling his fantasy expressed frequently in the first two-thirds of the book. Mike then tracks the nuke to Paris and saves the pope, who is going to be assassinated with it (which will also conveniently take out most of the city). Yes, Mike not only kills Osama, but he saves the pope (and a couple million undeserving Frenchmen).

The book is absolutely unbelievable in terms of its basic premises, the course of events, the dialogue, and the characterization. It is filled with racism and sexism on a level I don't think I have seen before, and I've read a fair about of men's adventure novels from the '70s. It is graphic in terms of both sex and violence. The sex is universally very sadistic (and frequently nonconsensual), so it won't be too all readers' taste. The protagonist is a hyperviolent, murderous, unrepentant rapist. Having said all that, there's...something about this book that included just enough wish fulfillment that I couldn't stop reading it. What red-blooded American male doesn't want to read about a SEAL killing Osama, dealing with multiple nukes going off, and getting laid? I just felt guilty as hell the entire time I was reading it.

By the way, for a thorough -- and hilarious review of the first few books from this series, see:

http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html

That reviewer is exactly right: every few pages, you too will say: OH JOHN RINGO NO!

I feel like a bad person for admitting this, but I plan to read the next sequel.

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers show less

The first in the series, and one of the best. It establishes the character of Mike Harmon very well, and the three stories in the book are all very fast paced and interesting. Not my normal sort of reading fare, but I enjoyed it a lot.

A modern (and very violent) Doc Savage meets the Marquis de Sade. No kidding, it’s a combination pulp techo-thriller (ex-Navy Seal vs. terrorists) and an S/M sex fantasy. It’s really three short related novels. The first is an action packed thriller, the second is 80% sex fantasy with the 20% thriller kind of stuck on at the end as an afterthought. The third is more like the first but with some time-outs for the protagonist to rape/maul a prostitute.

Some stupid, hormone-infused teenager must have written this book. Because that's the only way I can explain all the hot naked chicks in this story. Why'd they have to be naked? I mean yes, of course I want them to be naked. But is there really any reason for them to be naked? Not really.

This book tells the story of some fucked-up terrorist organization that kidnaps several hot college chicks. They strip the girls naked, and chain them to a few rows of benches in a hot, sweaty room.

The terrorists make a video, showing the hot chained up girls. Telling the United States government to go fuck themselves. "We gots all yer womens, motherfuckers. Suck a dick! Yeah! Fuck America!"

Enter Michael 'The Ghost' Harmon. He's a retired special forces show more guy, who gets his nickname 'The Ghost' because he's a sneaky motherfucker. You'll never see him coming.

Ghost witnesses one of the kidnappings, and trails the van all the way to the terrorist hideout. He hangs out in the vents of the warehouse, biding his time, just like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. "So this is what a TV dinner feels like..."

It's the Ghost against probably 50 or more bad guys. He takes them out one by one. Saves the naked girls, and gets a sloppy blowjob for a reward.

It's a very simple story. Not very much depth to it. Like I said, It's like a fucking pimpled-faced teenager wrote it. It's just trashy fun, with no substance. And I loved it. show less

This is not even the worst book I've read in my life but possibly the most juvenile. Bizarrely, I think it could appeal to both teenage boys and middle-aged housewives. It's ostensibly about a navy ranger seal frogman super secret agent soldier who singlehandedly saves the world from exploding bombs multiple times but half the book is just descriptions of S&M sex. Including rape. By the hero. Who then buys the sex slave. I'm not offended, it's just words and I've read worse but it's just plain stupid. There's literally a moment when one of the 50 naked college students who the hero is rescuing says that she has seen the error of her liberal views and will now give blowjobs to conservatives because she now understands she needs powerful show more men to protect her from terrorists. show less

One of my favorite books of all time. If you love watching action movies where the stars seem to get into ridiculous situations, but miraculously survive, you'll love this series. It's bdsm scenes are also a hell of a lot more healthy and safe than 50 shades.

This book contains three short stories of one main character. The first story was my favorite over the other two. This book is a guys book all the way, male dominated humor with pretty young coeds and don't forget lots of gratuitous action.