Gust Front

More pure military porn - from basic training shenanigans to high-level politicking. The actual invasion takes place rather late in the book, but involves some nice setpieces, including some actually touching ones, and it also starts to develop the hinted-at theme of the larger series (namely, the enemy may not be who you think it is.) This is probably even more fun if you're familiar with the regions involved - the terrain issues are very precise and obviously drawn from the author's knowledge of these landscapes.

I'm not going to mention the race and gender issues in these books, except to say they're just about as appalling as you'd expect from pulp military scifi. (They don't get really bad until Cally's War, as I recall, but they're show more bad enough. And don't get me started on the Tom Kratman-cowritten "the Nazis were the best!" spinoffs.) show less

Gust Front is a second tome of Posleen series written by John Ringo. It deals with probing force of Posleen horde attacking the Earth - more precisely United States and the military response to it. This is certainly not a great literature - and it does not pretend to be such. On the other hand, Gust Front is a terrific piece of military science fiction/technothriller written by a soldier. The writing is clean and dry, with long description of military tactics and hardware. The story is presented through a wide array of characters – mostly military types with little characterization or character development. I must admit that I was at loss frequently at who is who – chapters are short and locations and characters are changing with a show more wild pace. The first part of the book deals with preparation to the upcoming invasion – story is slow and concentrates on issues of military units organization and backstabbing among military “Brass” on how the war should be conducted. In a typical way traditionalist believe that might of US Army is enough to crush the invaders even if they sport superior technology. It is a really cool aspect of the story – how the military reacts to the new type of threats and repeats the blunders that occurred each time in the history when more progressive force was attacking one with traditional attitude. Here the military problem is bit ironic – Posleens are masters of Blitzkrieg and Humanity cannot fight a mobile war against them – the proper “modern” response is to fight them using cities as fortresses and attitudes more akin to those presented by generals of World War I.
I felt a little bit tired by the pre invasion part – not too much though. Ringo took a chance to talk a little bit about societal changes imposed by the external threat and I really enjoyed short excursion of the main character cpt. Michel O'Neal to the Florida. Still I have never been to military so the descriptions of problems within military structure left me somewhat confused.
Then the invasion starts and action accelerates to a neck-breaking pace. This part is pure carnage – descriptions of heroic fight, amazing acts of cowardice, sacrifice, stupidity. I have never participated in war and I hope I never have to, but strangely this fictional descriptions feel very real. It is a conflict shown through the eyes of the soldiers – those fully aware that they have to sacrifice their life to protect their homeland. At times touching, at times infuriating. Still – it did not left me indifferent.
I wish there was, perhaps, more character development and more Posleen side of view. Still – characters die like flies, so it feels somewhat fitting.
There are some things that I feel are sub-par – Ringo lays pipe for the future books and hints at secret plots within Federation that on the face of it, supports Humankind. It piques my interest but it never develops in something more than hints. Also, there are some ridiculously unbelievable moments – mainly having to do with 8 year old commando girl Cally. Still, given that in the future she will become master assassin, perhaps it is understandable.
Finally – book is not really ending with a cliffhanger – there will be full scale invasion but main characters stories are for now resolved. I cannot imagine though not picking another tome of Posleen series in the future. I am sucker for military SF. At risk of sounding obvious if you are not into this sort of the things you probably give Gust Front a wide berth. Otherwise “Let their yellow blood run cold...” show less

This book was available free through Baen as an e-book. I read it online, after reading the first in the series. Very violent, graphic, and hard-hitting, most of the book is one giant battle, just like the first one. Ringo knows the military well, and those who have served will recognize the personalities, techniques, and humor...almost to the point where it gets a bit tedious if you've "been there, done that." Ringo doesn't pull his punches on both the military's brilliant courage and ridiculous stupidities. Entertaining, but needlessly confusing at times, this is certainly one of the most realistic imaginary alien war I've ever read. I believe that if today's US Army had to fight an alien invader, this is exactly how it would happen.

This is the second novel in John Ringo’s Earth-Posleen War series. In this novel we find Earth gearing up for the expected arrival of the Posleen in two years. The military forces around the world are calling in and training soldiers as fast as they can while the existing formations are engaged on the other worlds already under attack. Then the Posleen show up, 2 years early. This may be the best book in the series. The drama is high, the characters take on depth and the author comes up with some truly innovative ways of turning thousands of centauroids into goo.

This is the sequel to A Hymn Before Battle, and its a better book to be honest. That's fair enough given Hymn was Ringo's first book. This book spends less time on the politics of incompetent officers (although there is a bit of that), and introduces a little bit more of the political intrigue running in the Federation. The combat sequences are pretty well done too. Overall its good to see Ringo developing as an author and I enjoyed this book.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/John_Ringo/Gust_Front.html

On both far away planets and on Earth, humans continue to battle the invading Posleen. We gradually see a little of the galactic politics behind the invasion, but this is mostly just one long battle on multiple fronts. As always, Ringo favors infantry and armor, but even powered infantry and aircraft are included in this one. Almost non-stop action.

Quite good and well paced, although the president decision was a bit far fetched. Looking forward to the rest of the series.