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62 lines
2.9 KiB
62 lines
2.9 KiB
3 years ago
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title = "Live Free or Die - John Ringo"
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date = 2021-10-22
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["books", "reviews", "john ringo", "scifi", "books:2021",
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"published:2010", "stars:1"]
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[GoodReads
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Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713634-live-free-or-die): When
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aliens trundled a gate to other worlds into the solar system, the world reacted
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with awe, hope and fear. But the first aliens to come through, the Glatun, were
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peaceful traders and the world breathed a sigh of relief. When the Horvath came
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through, they announced their ownership by dropping rocks on three cities and
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gutting them. Since then, they've held Terra as their own personal fiefdom. With
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their control of the orbitals, there's no way to win and earth's governments
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have accepted the status quo.
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<!-- more -->
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{{ stars(stars=1) }}
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You can say there is something wrong with a book when you have two parts in the
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title, one positive and another negative, and you start wishing the protagonist
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would get the later.
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For a story, it starts really well: It's not "humans conquer space", it is "the
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first contact with another species happens on Earth". So, it is interesting how
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human dynamics change when this happens at our door.
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But the thing focus on a single guy, who suddenly discovers something a merchant
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species gets highly interested and that's when the story goes downhill. First,
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the guy gets a bunch of money. Then it corners the something he figures out,
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practically creating a monopoly -- most of the stuff belongs to him, and the few
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others that have that something are really his friends. It gets to the point
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that he starts complaining that nobody else is doing what he is doing. He bought
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everything, left just a few scraps to others and then complains that nobody is
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trying to do what he did. Genius.
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Also, the story age pretty damn bad, specially since, right now, we are facing a
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virus that is killing a lot of people. In the story, there is something like
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that, which can be cured with some care -- basically, people have to use
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disinfectants to kill some parasite, which can be somewhat painful. And then our
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"hero" proposes that the parasite is actually a good thing, 'cause it would
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solve the problems with government pensions and most people that will die are
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those that do not care or are too weak or not smart enough. The fact that he
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says all this with a "Sadly" in front of it makes nothing to save his
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reputation.
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And that's basically why, not even by half of the book, I was choosing that the
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hero would take the later part of the title, even if that meant that all
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humanity would be lost. 'Cause that guy doesn't deserve to be a "hero".
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I see that the book is part of a series, and even if I still have hopes that
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later books will paint him as the villain, I have high doubts that that would
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happen.
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Even if the writing style is good to read and you can churn chunks of the story
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in fast pace, the whole is enough to make you want to punch a fictional person
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in the face. Hard.
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