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The Council Wars #3
Against the Tide
In the distant future, the world was a paradise-and then, in a moment, it was ended by the first war in centuries. People who had known godlike power, to whom hunger and pain were completely unknown, desperately scrabbled to survive. As the United Free States, the bastion of freedom and center of opposition to the tyrants of New Destiny, prepared for the long-feared invasion by the Changed legions of Ropasa, Edmund Talbot realized that bureaucratic ineptitude and overconfidence was setting the USF naval forces of ships and dragons up for a disastrous defeat at sea. His fears came true, and the destruction of the fleet seemingly left the UFS open for a full scale invasion. But Talbot had new concepts and strategies ready to put into effect, along with new technical innovations from his brilliant engineer. He survived an assassination attempt and quickly assembled a formidable land force combining cavalry, longbowmen, Roman style legions, and dragons for airborne assault. The fascist forces of New Destiny thought that their war was all but concluded, and world domination within their grasp. Edmund Talbot was ready to show them just how wrong they were. . . .
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
46 people are currently reading
494 people want to read
About the author
John Ringo
101 books1,831 followersJohn Ringo is a prolific author who has written in a wide variety of genres. His early life included a great deal of travel. He visited 23 foreign countries, and attended fourteen different schools. After graduation Ringo enlisted in the US military for four years, after which he studied marine biology.
In 1999 he wrote and published his first novel "A Hymn Before Battle", which proved successful. Since 2000 Ringo has been a full time author.
He has written science fiction, military fiction, and fantasy.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
In 1999 he wrote and published his first novel "A Hymn Before Battle", which proved successful. Since 2000 Ringo has been a full time author.
He has written science fiction, military fiction, and fantasy.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
March 13, 2009
Don't judge a book by its cover. While that angel-like character is in the book, she's almost non-important to the plot.
We get a look behind enemy lines in this one, complete with overtones of Ringo's BSDM themes. We also find out a lot more about what it takes to be a council member.
The books is almost worth reading just for the great Navy Seals joke.
We get a look behind enemy lines in this one, complete with overtones of Ringo's BSDM themes. We also find out a lot more about what it takes to be a council member.
The books is almost worth reading just for the great Navy Seals joke.
June 10, 2013
"This series is an imaginative page-turner marred by some not-even-thinly-veiled politics and a weirdly adolescent take on sex. Nevertheless, Ringo has a great grasp on military techniques, culture, and history that makes me forgive him. I still think men would probably enjoy this more than I did, since they wouldn't have to keep overlooking his, I have to say, offensiveness."
December 15, 2007
3rd in series, start with "There Will Be Dragons". Military sci-fi crossed with fantasy. Really good.
Check out scene where Navy Seals deploy on a beach to extract a spy (but they are real sentient seals!).
Check out scene where Navy Seals deploy on a beach to extract a spy (but they are real sentient seals!).
November 7, 2008
More military fantasy goodness. Now they do naval battles. The characters continue to develop in predictable (and unpredictable) ways.
March 1, 2014
What a wild ride!! I wasn't quite ready for this one to be done. I guess that means that I have to buy the next one so I can find out what happens.
December 13, 2017
I'd like to start by saying, generally I really liked this book. It was a fun read and the loss of technology premise is one I enjoy.
That said... Ringo, while a good story teller, is a fairly weak writer. He does the same thing in this series that he does in many others. He introduces a character, tells us they're super badass at X... and then for the rest of the story shows them being BARELY competent at the thing they were supposedly an expert at. Travante(Joel) is an especially extreme example of this because Ringo spent the entire last book having Travante do nothing BUT complain about how he was better at everything than the other characters.
That said... Ringo, while a good story teller, is a fairly weak writer. He does the same thing in this series that he does in many others. He introduces a character, tells us they're super badass at X... and then for the rest of the story shows them being BARELY competent at the thing they were supposedly an expert at. Travante(Joel) is an especially extreme example of this because Ringo spent the entire last book having Travante do nothing BUT complain about how he was better at everything than the other characters.
December 26, 2021
I continue to be fascinated by the world Ring has created, and the parallels between it and the magic of the ancient world that shows up in our own tales of Arthur, Greco-Roman mythology, and so forth, with the firm restrictions on the uses of power by various characters. This story was shaping up to look like a retelling of the Battle of Midway, and while earlier events have clear parallels to that as well, I guess Ringo thought this would have been too obvious, and the story goes in different directions. Which still made for an engaging read.
September 22, 2020
Oh if this series stopped after the first book, what an unfulfilled promise it would be... but these sequels are definitely worse than the first book.
Just for example: The bad boys has more than 100 000 troops. Who could make any kind of resistance with success? Some scattered clans in Highland. How many troops they have? 2-300 in each clan :D. Sometimes just ridiculous.
I'll definitely try some other books from the author - must be much better if they keep publishing them...
Just for example: The bad boys has more than 100 000 troops. Who could make any kind of resistance with success? Some scattered clans in Highland. How many troops they have? 2-300 in each clan :D. Sometimes just ridiculous.
I'll definitely try some other books from the author - must be much better if they keep publishing them...
October 6, 2017
Book 1 was good. Book 2 was better. Book 3 is really getting its stride. And a bunch of the stuff that readers complained about in Book 1 is coming into context. This book will read a lot better if the reader is a student of military history - a lot of references. Oh, and the Celts (called the Gael) are in the mix. Great book.
March 14, 2019
A very fun series, if you are not looking for something serious! Interesting characters, if a little black and white, and great military action as you would expect from Ringo. Loved the evolving strategy of dragon carriers!
November 9, 2021
This book has more to do with sea battles. I like sea battles. The UFS Navy (the good guys in this story) really screw up because the people running it are not real navy. They are yachtsmen who were playing battleship commander rather than fighting a real war. That went very badly for a lot of people so Talbot took over. What does he know about naval battles? Only what he has read and very little of that. What he does know is over all tactics and strategy and he uses his knowledge against the forces of evil.
Overall I really like this story. However, the Megan character in the previous book seemed amazing. She seems less amazing in this book. Still pretty good, but strange. Maybe I don't really understand what a woman's feelings go through in her situation, a harem girl raped over and over again for years and eventually falling in love with her rapist.
Any modesty issues? Well... yes. The book is erotic at times. It was reasonable given the plot but more than I am used to. You have been warned.
Once again the book ends well and leaves a big opening for the next book in the series "East of the Sun, West of the Moon".
Overall I really like this story. However, the Megan character in the previous book seemed amazing. She seems less amazing in this book. Still pretty good, but strange. Maybe I don't really understand what a woman's feelings go through in her situation, a harem girl raped over and over again for years and eventually falling in love with her rapist.
Any modesty issues? Well... yes. The book is erotic at times. It was reasonable given the plot but more than I am used to. You have been warned.
Once again the book ends well and leaves a big opening for the next book in the series "East of the Sun, West of the Moon".
September 1, 2017
I think this is a very interesting and unexpected turn for a Ringo series.
January 23, 2018
Good episode in the series, looking forward to the next book.
June 8, 2020
Rereading for the third time.
December 27, 2021
Both historical warfare and leadership lessons. You can see the bones of his later (and much better) series.
September 20, 2022
Excellent continuation of the story that has pulled me into this world.
March 2, 2014
Product Description
In the distant future, the world was a paradise-and then, in a moment, it was ended by the first war in centuries. People who had known godlike power, to whom hunger and pain were completely unknown, desperately scrabbled to survive. As the United Free States, the bastion of freedom and center of opposition to the tyrants of New Destiny, prepared for the long-feared invasion by the Changed legions of Ropasa, Edmund Talbot realized that bureaucratic ineptitude and overconfidence was setting the USF naval forces of ships and dragons up for a disastrous defeat at sea. His fears came true, and the destruction of the fleet seemingly left the UFS open for a full scale invasion. But Talbot had new concepts and strategies ready to put into effect, along with new technical innovations from his brilliant engineer. He survived an assassination attempt and quickly assembled a formidable land force combining cavalry, longbowmen, Roman style legions, and dragons for airborne assault. The fascist forces of New Destiny thought that their war was all but concluded, and world domination within their grasp. Edmund Talbot was ready to show them just how wrong they were. . . .
About the AuthorJohn Ringo had visited 23 countries and attended 14 schools by the time he graduated high school. This left him with a wonderful appreciation of the oneness of humanity and a permanent aversion to foreign food. A veteran of the 82nd Airborne, he brings first-hand knowledge of military operations to his fiction. His novels for Baen include the four novels in the New York Times best-selling Posleen Invasion series (A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, and Hell's Faire), the two (so far) novels in his new far-future series (There Will be Dragons and Emerald Sea), and three collaborations with New York Times best-selling author David Weber (March Upcountry, March to the Sea and March to the Stars).
March 31, 2015
Finally, the invasion begins! After half a million words comprising the first two books (which are both well worth reading for their own sake), Ringo's post-Fall World is ready to stage a major war.
As ever with Ringo, there's a good solid chunk of story dedicated to the real logistics of waging war at sea.
There is also a raft of interesting new characters and developments in the over-arching plot... However it's here that the book hits a snag. I'm a lover of flawed masterpieces, and here the Council Wars shows its colours in this regard. At roughly halfway through the novel, it appears Ringo discovered that the series was being cut short, and he had only one more book to play with (making for a gran 1,000,000 word epic, rather than whatever literary edifice he'd planned).
As a result, certain events that were apparently paced and planned into the future occur suddenly. The story itself absorbs this shock amazingly well, our heroes despatched mid-battle on a daring raid to etcetera spoiler etcetera. However, there is a palpable sense of characters and sub-plots suddenly curtailed.
The battle goes on regardless, however, and Ringo's handling of the land invasion is as deft as the foregoing sea battle.
...With one exception. Ringo, as he admits himself, on the page, in prose and through the lips of his characters, is utterly unable to grasp relative measurements (Inches vs Centimetres, or in this case, m/ph vs k/ph. The final cavalry charge to throw the enemy back results from a truly heroic ride halfway across the American continent and back, at a rate of over a hundred miles per day. On horseback. The time and distance are a full passage in the book complete with Ringo's own befuddled maths, lampshaded with his usually effective taste for whimsy.
Nevertheless, the book's a good'n and well rounds off the set-up of infantry and navy militaria underpinning the preceding two in the series.
As ever with Ringo, there's a good solid chunk of story dedicated to the real logistics of waging war at sea.
There is also a raft of interesting new characters and developments in the over-arching plot... However it's here that the book hits a snag. I'm a lover of flawed masterpieces, and here the Council Wars shows its colours in this regard. At roughly halfway through the novel, it appears Ringo discovered that the series was being cut short, and he had only one more book to play with (making for a gran 1,000,000 word epic, rather than whatever literary edifice he'd planned).
As a result, certain events that were apparently paced and planned into the future occur suddenly. The story itself absorbs this shock amazingly well, our heroes despatched mid-battle on a daring raid to etcetera spoiler etcetera. However, there is a palpable sense of characters and sub-plots suddenly curtailed.
The battle goes on regardless, however, and Ringo's handling of the land invasion is as deft as the foregoing sea battle.
...With one exception. Ringo, as he admits himself, on the page, in prose and through the lips of his characters, is utterly unable to grasp relative measurements (Inches vs Centimetres, or in this case, m/ph vs k/ph. The final cavalry charge to throw the enemy back results from a truly heroic ride halfway across the American continent and back, at a rate of over a hundred miles per day. On horseback. The time and distance are a full passage in the book complete with Ringo's own befuddled maths, lampshaded with his usually effective taste for whimsy.
Nevertheless, the book's a good'n and well rounds off the set-up of infantry and navy militaria underpinning the preceding two in the series.
November 12, 2012
Lydia Pallas, orphaned and deserted at Boston Harbor, has a vast knowledge of languages because her father traveled the high seas with his little family. After leaving the orphanage, she becomes a translator for the U.S. Navy, making Boston her home. Upon first meeting Alexander Banebridge, she is suspicious of him, then becomes awed and enamored of him. She agrees to be his translator and later learns that he is relentlessly fighting to end the opium trade. They both experience feelings for the other but neither will give in to those feelings, each having decided not to trust again. Camden gives the reader strong, committed characters, descriptions of settings that pull you into the moment with the characters, and suspense galore.
September 27, 2011
Book three in the series is a dramatic improvement from the disappointing Emerald Sea. Ringo takes us back to the main action of the war, where a battle for control of the Atlantic (ahem, “Atlantis”) is brewing. The UFS Navy is in terrible shape, so the Queen sends Edmund (with Herzer in tow) to take over and sort it out before New Destiny tries to invade.
Good, clean fun in other words. Plenty of action, laughs and horrible puns. For example the SEAL team is made up of humans changed into seal-form. If you enjoyed There Will be Dragons, you will enjoy this.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1167
Good, clean fun in other words. Plenty of action, laughs and horrible puns. For example the SEAL team is made up of humans changed into seal-form. If you enjoyed There Will be Dragons, you will enjoy this.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1167
November 7, 2013
I liked this installment of the series... it's a little broader in scope than the second book, while still acknowledging the long-term nature of the ongoing conflict. We spend more time with the Navy of the new UFS, as Duke Edmund has to go in and clean house after a group of yacht club officer wannabees royally mess things up. As usual, lots of rousing action, and we get to spend time "behind enemy lines" with Megan Travante, seeing what is happening with the bad guys. Quite enjoyable, although I was disappointed at the somewhat abrupt ending to the novel; I would have appreciated a little bit of wrap-up and falling action.
April 30, 2010
I actually liked it better than Emerald Sea, and it has surprised me enough to want to read the next installment.
This time Herzer became less annoying and some "new" characters got to be quite interesting in the end.
Although sometimes the military setting becomes too much in his past books, I had a better time with the descriptions than in past books (may it be because it is better written or I just got used to his style, I really do not know).
Over all I would read again this book out of the 3 I have read so far... I hope I can say the same for the next part.
This time Herzer became less annoying and some "new" characters got to be quite interesting in the end.
Although sometimes the military setting becomes too much in his past books, I had a better time with the descriptions than in past books (may it be because it is better written or I just got used to his style, I really do not know).
Over all I would read again this book out of the 3 I have read so far... I hope I can say the same for the next part.
December 9, 2020
I like this series a lot.
*edited 2020: In this book, the infrastructure being built is the Navy. The New Destiny invasion fleet sails forth and our heroes have to stop them, even after a terrible defeat.
There are lots of things that are ridiculous about this book and this series, but I find them fun to read and fairly light hearted in tone. These are the type of book where you know the good guys will win for sure.
*edited 2020: In this book, the infrastructure being built is the Navy. The New Destiny invasion fleet sails forth and our heroes have to stop them, even after a terrible defeat.
There are lots of things that are ridiculous about this book and this series, but I find them fun to read and fairly light hearted in tone. These are the type of book where you know the good guys will win for sure.
November 5, 2017
This book starts off with our heroes loosing a battle in a major way. Followed up with an in depth examination of the problems they have, how they came to be and how they fix them. We get to see the building of a navy from the shattered remains of the old navy all under a time crunch as the enemy prepares to make a major push for invasion. This provides great tension and they characters are well rounded enough that victory never seems a sure thing which only enhances the experience.
January 8, 2014
After the very slow progress make in book two, things happen in this book, which is good, though there did seem to be a few random characters thrown in there to make this happen. The characters also seem to be turning more two dimensional than actually evolving but then I presume this is because the story is taking precedence over character development. Perhaps this series will end with the next book?
January 26, 2016
If you're not a fan of military Sy-Fy this book is maybe not for you, but if you enjoy history and action packed surprises buy, borrow, or steal a copy of this book. Like the rest of the series this is a fast moving action book with some great characters who are blessed with both physical and mental ability including a huge compendium of historical and militaristic knowledge with some espionage and humor thrown in for good measure.
August 22, 2015
While slightly better than the last book, this book still suffers from the authors over-use of militarism and inconsistent character writing.
The prose starts to feel worn out, and while I still think the author has a great concept here, he only produced an OK series. He is unable to sustain the cool ideas and development that I enjoyed in the first book of the series.
I probably won't read the 4th book in the series.
The prose starts to feel worn out, and while I still think the author has a great concept here, he only produced an OK series. He is unable to sustain the cool ideas and development that I enjoyed in the first book of the series.
I probably won't read the 4th book in the series.
May 23, 2010
Science so advanced it might as well be magic, then it all comes crashing down, and people have to learn to do things the old fashioned way again, while fending off the bad guys.
I love this series, please write more of them.
I love this series, please write more of them.
Want to read
April 9, 2007I think I read this already, but really have no memory of it. So I'm going to reread it someday.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews