By J OSBORNE, Editor
I picked up this book, “Princess of Wands” by John Ringo, at either Barnes and Noble or Hastings because I was looking for something easy to read that I could put down without a problem.
Boy, did I get it wrong. Even though the book divides itself into sections, I didn’t want to put it down.
It’s an interesting modern fantasy. Strongly Christian-slanted without bible thumping — as is the protagonist. It’s really a collection of three short stories, one fairly long, one novella, and a short ending story that hints at a second book.
I’ve read Ringo before and he always does believeable military/science fiction action novels. I wasn’t even aware that he was starting another universe/storyline. I have to admit, if someone had told me the premise of the book, I wouldn’t have bought it — but after reading it in one sitting, I can now say that it’s one of my favorite John Ringo books so far.
The book mixes pagan and Christian believers fighting the same foe. It’s a weird premise — but I love it so far. Can’t wait for the next book.
It’s really great. I enjoyed it immensely and am looking forward to the promised sequel.
It is much more tongue-in-cheek than some of John Ringo’s other novels. It has a fantasy feel rather than the more usual “military” or science fiction feel of some of the authors other works. Normally, he writes novels that are filled with death and violence as men and women struggle in war and battle against terrorists, slavers, and genocidal aliens. You know, military adventure fiction. Now this one still has death, violence and struggles against a foe, it’s not filled with them.
So, even though he departs from his comfort zone, Ringo manages to write a page turner. The prose and action are excellent and the stories are peppered with the author’s dry humor.
The lead character is a very unusual SciFi/Fantasy heroine, being an infuriatingly perfect, deeply religious (Christian) woman who deems the man master of the household. Barbara Everette is a 33-year old “soccer mom,” the very patient mother of three ordinary (e.g. occasionally naughty and always demanding) children aged between seven and thirteen, a very devout churchgoer, pillar of the PTA, devoted to her ordinary, lazy and sports-obsessed husband. About her only human flaw is vanity — although completely faithful to a spouse who doesn’t remotely deserve her, Barbara is used to men paying attention to her attractive face and figure and is horrified to find herself becoming very jealous at one point in the book when another attractive woman who dresses much less modestly grabs all the male attention.
The only thing which distinguishes Barbara from a typical if too-good-to-be-true housewife is that her Air Force turned diplomat father has encouraged her to learn various types of self-defense skills, when she was traveling the world with him. She is a crack shot and is so good at unarmed combat that she can often defeat one of the town’s two martial arts instructors. It comes as a rather nasty shock to various bad guys when they suddenly discover that the attractive blonde housewife who looks completely harmless becomes lethally dangerous in combat when she or any innocent person in the vicinity is attacked, and at this point you realize that yes, this is a John Ringo book after all.
It is interesting to see how Ringo makes her strong Christian belief her very strength in her battles against the forces of darkness.
It’s not just the heroine that is different than Ringo’s usual, but the genre, too. Instead of hard SF this is horror/fantasy/magic. This novel is based on the premise that there is a secret US government agency working with the FBI called “Special Circumstances” which is called in to deal with crimes which turn out to have a supernatural element.
Though not for everyone, it is quite dark in places and sometimes extremely violent, I can say without reservation, I enjoyed “Princess of Wands” and can recommend it to those who enjoy fast moving sci/fi/fantasy stories of the battle between good and evil.
The ending very strongly suggests that Ringo was going to write a sequel, and I’m looking forward to it.
“Princess of Wands”
Rating (**** out of *****)
Synopsis: (Courtesy of Publisher’s Weekly) Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans will appreciate Barbara Everett, a Mississippi soccer mom who discovers in Ringo’s latest, which is less a novel than three linked episodes, that there are things undreamed of in the PTA handbook.
In part one, Barbara’s ability to take care of an alien infestation straight out of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Shadow over Innsmouth” brings her to the attention of a shadowy group that assists the FBI involving “special circumstanes” more especially, those with a supernatural link.
They recruit her for a spiritual SWAT team that deals with what secular authorities cannot.
Ringo explores the paradox of using violence against evil: it’s necessary, but it can change the fighter into what she fights if she lacks a strong enough moral compass. Ringo portrays his heroine’s strong Christian faith sympathetically without being preachy.
The second and longest episode, a roman à clef about a necromancer slaying attendees at a science fiction convention, will chiefly delight those in on the joke. In the brief third episode, Barbara confronts an evil that strikes close to home and discovers how puny Darkness’s tools really are compared to those of Light.
Barbara Everette, homemaker living in a small town in Mississippi, had the perfect life. Perfect husband, perfect children, perfect house, perfect Christian Faith.
She cooked and cleaned perfectly and managed all of the chores of the modern suburbanite, toting the kids, running the PTA, teaching kung-fu in the local dojo perfectly.
But perfection has a price and the day came when Barbara snapped.
She simply had to have “one weekend off.” God had to grant her that much.
It said no where that she was a slave.
Waving goodbye to her hapless, totally sports involved, entirely undomestic husband, she set out on the quest for a weekend of peace and maybe some authentic Cajun food.
Detective Sergeant Kelly Lockhart, New Orleans Homicide, had a perfect record on his latest case: not a single suspect.
And there should be at least five or six, given the DNA traces on the many bodies. Furthermore, his sole really outstanding clue, a mysterious fish scale, had disappeared into the recesses of the FBI Crime Lab.
But the old fortune-teller was sending him into the bayou, down in the land of authentic Cajun food, on the track of a mysterious pimp with the admonition to “watch for the Princess.” Or die. Barbara and Kelly were heading to a rendezvous that might be fate and might reveal the hand of God.
There was more cooking in the swamps than jambalaya.
Unknown to either, the mystery of the Bayou Ripper had Special Circumstances.
ISBN No.: 13: 978-1-4165-7386-9
