Thread by @0starkafterdark

Revisiting my #top10 #scifi special mentions
(I know you're a fan of this one @ViciousRicardan )

JOHN RINGO

Oh John Ringo no!

A phrase coined by David Hines when reviewing Ringo's Paladin of Shadows series - that became a catchphrase and meme, applauded by Ringo himself because he well knew how trashy it was, essentially a hobby pet project he had planned as exorcism rather than publication

There's always something of that shiver of guilty pleasure when reading Ringo's military SF, but it's always fun - that's the pleasurable part

And I've read a number of his series, at least in part. There's his Legacy of the Aldenata series, in which a galactic federation of aliens has good news and bad news for humanity

The good news is that we're not alone and now part of the federation. The bad news is that we're now the cannon fodder and front line for a horde of alien locusts (well, weird carnivorous reptilian centaurs but essentially the same in planetary terms)

Personally, I preferred his other horde of alien space locusts, the Dreen, in his Into the Looking Glass series - much the same in concept, except that it originates with an accident at a Florida particle physics laboratory opening up multiple gates to other parts of the galaxy

Then there's the Council War series in which the super-advanced Earth of the future resembles high fantasy once people start fighting over the switch powering all the technology

There's also The Prince Roger or Empire of Man series where the heir to a space empire and his guarding military company have to fight their way after being stranded on a primitive planet, and zombie apocalypse Black Tide Rising series