What do I have to do? Kill people?

[elfs]

Spotted on a book review site:

Ghost

John Ringo departs from his usual SciFi-MilFic for a straight action adventure set in modern day with more than a bit of kink. Richard Marcinko has this to say about this book, John Ringo's done it again! Ghost is a complete adrenaline rush, filled with nonstop, kick ass action and hair-raising suspense. Plus the added feature of explicit sex scenes involving B&D/S&M.

To be honest, it's about as shocking to todays mainstream literature as Ian Flemings sex scenes in the 1960's James Bond books. It's nothing that Elf Sternberg didn't do over a decade ago. Mr. Sternberg is a self-published internet author however, while John Ringo is a NY Times best selling author.

Comments

[kengr]

Get published by a "real" publisher?

[kavri.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I had no idea who John Ringo is.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

It's possible to read a considerable chunk of Ghost using Baen's website, where they make samples, and even whole books, available on the internet for free.

If you think your character's are anything at all like John Ringo's, they're not. Ghost is hard-right wish-fulfilment, with a lead character who has a suppressed (but possibly pretty extreme) BDSM kink.

It's a bunch of American hot naked co-ed college-babes as prisoners, c;iched Middle-Eastern terrorists doing a rape/torture/snuff thing as terrorist blackmail on live TV, and the hero cheerfully killing everything that isn't a hot naked co-ed college-babe.

Don't feel disappointed at the lack of attention; feel insulted by the comparison.

Not that I've any particular objection to rescuing hot naked co-erd college babes, but I suspect that one would be quite enough for me.

[kengr]

actually, you can read *all* of Ghost for free. It's one of the Baen books that has a freely copyable CD included in the first print run.

You can get a copy of the CD at http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

Zipped files, zipped ISO (so you can burn your own) or just read the stuff on the CD online.

And it's not that much "right wing wish fulfillment". It's more like the various "action/adventure" books that've been on the market for years (the Destroyer series, the Mack Bolan series, etc). except it's written a lot better than most.

The situation changes a lot with the second book and continues more in that vein thru the 3rd and 4th books. I've read all four... the my copy of the 4th one is an e-ARC.

It's fluff. But decently written and enjoyable if you like that sort of military/spy fiction.

[(Anonymous)]

When the line the hot naked coed uses to the press when she gets off the rescue plane is "I'm voting Republican for the rest of my life," yeah, it's right-wing wish fulfillment.

If you can stomach the politics, the rest of the story is interesting.

[murbin.livejournal.com]

Ringo and Webber let their politics slide into their writing. Hardly anything new. Anne McCaffrey and Robert Heinlein did a fair amount of that.

Star Trek:TOS was a social and political commentary show marketed as a SciFi show to get on the air.

John Ringo is not above poking fun at himself either. One of his largest bits of wish fullfillment came when he destroyed his old high school in one of his books.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Sometimes I think part of getting published (if you really want to go that route, and some people don't) is not how good you are but who you know. A former friend of mine from college just got published as a co-author with none other than John Ringo... it so happens the two live within 50 miles or so of each other and probably met at Dragon*Con or something.

I dunno. Ringo's stories are interesting but his delivery style reminds me a lot of an M-16 on select fire. Very stacatto. (Which makes a hella contrast to Dave Weber's Dickensian ramblings... don't get me wrong, I like Weber, but the man has a political shovel the size of Texas... :)

Frankly, from what I've read of you on here, I much prefer your middle-of-the-road delivery...

As my old drama and film prof once said, essays should be like ladies' skirts. Long enough to cover the subject. Short enough to be interesting. Sexist, from a certain POV, but true nonetheless.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

The 'however' in the last sentance should have come as the first word, not in the middle. The sentance's relationship to its paragraph is unclear and confusing until the 'however' is encountered, so 'however' should be foregrounded.

/pedant

I'd pay good money for a good bound collection of the JE.

[funos.livejournal.com]

"I'd pay good money for a good bound collection of the JE."

I second the motion.

(nice dark red leatherbound with Quen script in gold leaf)

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Elf should have an editor go through it first, to remove inconsistencies. But, yes, I bet there would be enough demand to justify turning it into a PoD book, or even a moderate vanity press run,

Bound version of JE

[(Anonymous)]

For a time, when I had limited computer access, I experimented with printing and three-ring punching the JE stories. I got a chunk of them printed, and punched, before realizing that it was going to be a _set_ of binders, given how I'd formatted them (i.e. very little) for printing. So, I gave up... and soon, I got full-time, good computer access, so it was no longer an issue.

That said, I'd very much like one of those leather-bound, gold-leaf titles. The only trouble is, any such thing would be incomplete, almost immediately. After all, Elf keeps adding more stories to the set! So, I think that a nice .iso, ready to burn to CD, in an easy-to-browse and search format, might be more practical.

Falbert

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I try not to be a pedant, but there are best-selling authors who have a horribly inept style, and it shows in books written before they were the sort of best-seller who can ignore an editor.

Consider Dan Brown's infamous opening line.

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.

We know that the Museum is the Louvre, and we know the time, because they're given as a chapter sub-title, but that "Renowned curator" is a horribly clunky phrasing. I'd recast it like this:

The museum's renowned curator, Jacques Saunière, staggered through the vaulted archway of the Grand Gallery.

An editor might still want to rearrange that, but it doesn't smite my literary sensibilities like a sockful of wet sand.

Elf doesn't have that effect.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

That Dan Brown sentence isn't dramatic to me. Viewers of the incident either know that a man (perhaps well-dressed, perhaps bleeding, I don't know having never read thet book) staggered in, or they would know that a friend/acquaintance staggered in. In either case, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble to identify him to the precision Brown uses. (Or they might not have noticed at all, but then you wouldn't have a scene.)

The character's role at this point is to be a victim. Other things we need to know about him can be established later.

If you're writing from the point of view of a disinterested third person semiomnicient narrator, the two names are acceptable once, and it's nice to throw in a simile that communicates his state.

Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway. A path of blood spatters through the the Grand Gallery led a gruesome guided tour to his immanent demise.

Y'know, something like that.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

That's another good point, but not the same thing as the ineptitude of the phrasing. Anyway, the opening scene basically has JS as the PoV character, and sets up the situation. There's several moderately huge holes in how the situation has arisen, but it sets up the basic driving force of the plot.

Do I risk spoiling things?

Oh, what the heck. JS is one of only four people who know a secret. He uses the museum's anti-theft system to try to keep out his attacker, but is close enough to the security grille to be mortally wounded by a gunshot, and is told the other three people who know the secret are already dead.

All four have told the same lie to protect the secret, but now JS knows that when he diea the secret will be lost. Somehow, before he dies, he has to leave a message which will guide somebody he can trust to the secret, without revealing the secret to anyone else.

And when you get to the end of the book, you wonder why he couldn't just have left a sealed letter in the hands of his lawyer, containing instructions on who to contact when he dies, and what to tell them.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Self publishing of that type could be expensive, but given Elf's readership it might be worth him looking into it. Then, Elf, you could put a link on your site asking for donations or pre-orders towards publishing.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Put me on the list!

And a nice coffe-table book with illustrations from the series mwould be good too! :)

I have sevral things that were financed and published ony due to fan demand in small print runs.

Then again, I'd probably never read it that way, I'm just so used to reading the JE on a computer it migt not seem right in hardcopy! :)

But I'd buy it, if as an easy way to introduce the series to others. It's a lot easier to be able to hand over something to people in your longe than to say "lets go sit at the computer, and I'll show you. People are also moreinclined to tread that way, becauser they know they will have to return it at sometime.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Apply kneepads to key people at Baen (or impress the people at Baen's Bar) . . . or start your own publishing house.

Either would work.

[kengr]

What's funny is that this series is something that Ringo wrote for his own amusement and didn't think was sellable. He made a few references to it in emails, and folks asked to see some of it. And it snowballed from there.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I have very mixed feelings about Ringo's version of events, because I can understand the urge to write something essentially unpublishable, even to finish it. But that doesn't mean you have to pass it around.

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that your reputation has been slighted in this comparison. So far as I remember, your writing isn't known for the vicious rapes of prostitutes and kidnap victims.

[bikerwalla.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Richard Marcinko's endorsement of this book makes me never want to touch it. I read about ten pages of each of his books.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

So what if Pendor declared war?

And nobody came....

(DARFC)

Editor?

[cadetstar.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'd be willing to proofread and format into a printable format. Heck, I like proofreading and formatting so much (it seems to relax me) I'd do it anyway if I had permission :)

I'd love to see the Journal Entries in a printed format...and they're not any more explicit that some of the stuff Laurell K. Hamilton writes.

-Michael