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Emerald Sea | Rating | |
| B | |||
| John Ringo | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Council Wars | There Will Be Dragons, Emerald Sea, Against the Tide, East of the Sun, West of the Moon | ||
The war between council members has been going on for a few years, now, and the lines of battle have been drawn. New Destiny, which wants to remake humanity to a more purposeful, driven existence, controls "Ropasa" - Europe - and the opposing Freedom Coalition owns North America. Due to obscure protocols in the godlike computer Mother, they can't directly affect their opponents on their home territory unless they go there themselves. And so an impasse has been reached, with no clear end in sight. Except, perhaps, a bad one: New Destiny is assembling an invasion fleet to cross the ocean. The Coalition's efforts to build a fleet are well behind their enemies. They need something to hold off New Destiny, or at least help when the fight comes. Preferably, both. Thus they send Edmund Talbot, Herzer Herrick, and a ship full of dragon riders to convincer the mer to join the Coalition. But the mer just want to sit the whole war out. Worse, New Destiny has gotten word of their plans, and sends their own delegation to keep the mer neutral - and take action if they don't.
Ringo has a pretty good sense of humor, and he lets it show in spots. I was gleefully amused at how a character critiqued an account of Raven Mill's defense against New Destiny. I'm pretty sure he's taking critics' words about There Will Be Dragons and spitting them right back out. And there is a small lop rabbit with an attitude that comes right out of the comics - literally.
Unlike the last book, there's not really much need for a leadup to the main plot. We still get one, though it's not too eggregiously long. Given the book's thikness - about six hundred pages - I actually appreciated how Ringo spent a hundred of them reuniting readers with the characters and world.
But the book also evolves a little slowly. Two-thirds of it is simply getting to the mer and talking with them once they arrive, along with learning about dragons and how to ride them. But there's no real conflict for that entire period.
Until the New Destiny ambassadors arrive, and Ringo makes another error. One even less comprehensible. For New Destiny needs only for the mer to remain neutral, and their disinformation convinces the leader in amazingly few pages. Surely the debate could have gone on longer, increasing the tension page by page and the Freedom Coalition's victory becomes less and less sure. After all that setup, I think the readers kind of deserved it. Worse, when New Destiny wins, they immediately... attack? What? The only thing that could do is to drive the mer right back to Edmund! It's a strategic blunder of the first rank, and I see no reason whatsoever for the bad guys to make it.
Once past that point, though, things take a major turn for the better. The fight is as engrossing as the characters, if not more. Which is no surprise, as Ringo writes excellent military fiction. The location for most of the battles - underwater - makes this unique among the genre, though, or at least very unusual. It was fascinating to read a battle between men and mer-folk and dragon versus orcas and ixchitl.
Two-thirds of this book is tolerable, even good. The last bit is wonderful. It makes for a good sequel to There Will Be Dragons, and ends with a clear lead for the next book to pick up on. There's even a seperate "short" story at the end for readers to enjoy. Those who have read the previous book in the series won't, I don't think, be disappointed in this one. Those who haven't read it should definitely check it out. Then read this one. If you like your fantasy with a pseudo-scientific bent to it, you won't be disappointed, either.
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