Baen, 2000, $7.99, ISBN: 0-671-31841-1, paperback, 467 pages

You gotta love a breathless endorsement of fellow sci-fi author David Weber stuck on the back of the book. Weber positively gushes over Hymn. Of course, if you look inside the book, you'll find that Weber co-authored four books with Ringo. How 'bout that? Worse, Weber is actually a character in the book. How embarrassing.

Still, while I'm not going to gush over Hymn, I am going to give this first book by Ringo a tentative thumbs up, with reservations about the entire premise. The opening of the book is downright moronic, but the last half will keep your eyes glued to the pages. No doubt if they put part of my review on a re-print, I'm sure they'd put "will keep your eyes glued to the pages" on the back and not the "moronic" part.

As for the opening of the book, in which aliens contact us to help them fight the Posleen horde of centaurs, do you really think that the US government would give ordinary sci-fi authors super-top-secret clearance to Department of Defense planning sessions covering a Posleen invasion of Earth? Neither do I.

Once you get through the crap like that, you have a nice BEM (Bug-Eyed Monster) invasion of Earth story. Of course, a more moronic premise is that the super wimpy Galactic Federation, which lost over 70 systems already to Posleen conquest, don't know how to defend themselves. Enter the humans, a rather violent species, but evidently the geniuses at GF central figured that they needed just such as species before there was no more GF.

The centaurs, which just might be related to John Dalmas' invading centaurs in Soldiers, come in big globes that detach smaller ships and smaller ships. They land, breed, and kill/eat everything on a planet, including eating their own dead. Earth Command expects 240 million Posleen to land five years hence, and then another 240 million Posleen per wave in four more waves over the course of a generation. That's a lot of Posleen...

Once we get to the BEMs, the action heats up the pages, and although you get a share of incompetents, the sheer stupidity of the Posleen mass wave attacks (like Soldiers, I'll point out again) starts to take a toll. And since they eat everything...well, there's no further word on whether Weber survived or was eaten. I'm sure you're as disappointed as I was that this story arc wasn't followed through. Sure you are.

In any case, the action moves to another planet so us humans can get in some licks, get embroiled in unfriendly financial straits from our alien "allies," and learn about a number of things about the Posleen. Actually, the only thing you need to know about the Posleen are that they are incredibly stupid, but they got numbers. It all starts to make for good tension and effective plotting. Earth is under invasion alert, but not in this book.

All in all, I look forward to the sequel, although I have reservations that space-faring conquerors are that dumb, that the best weapons they can provide their ordinary troops are ineffective slug-throwers, and that they have never amended their tactics.

The Posleen Series

Ringo, John: A Hymn Before Battle (Book 1)
Ringo, John: Gust Front (Book 2)
Ringo, John: When the Devil Dances (Book 3)

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