A Hymn Before Battle, by John Ringo

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In Ringo’s alternate universe, 2001 is particularly notable as the year in which Earth is first contacted by the Galactic Federation, which comprises a number of technologically advanced but naturally peaceful races: the Darhel, the Indowy, and others. The members of the Federation have been aware of Earth for some time, but have been avoiding any contact; we humans are far too prone to violence for them to feel comfortable around us.

But now it seems that the Federation has a problem–a warlike race called the Posleen is advancing into Federation space, and the races of the Galactic Federation are, quite literally, powerless to do anything about it. Indowy are incapable of killing, and while a Darhel can kill if it feels it must, it’s almost guaranteed to commit suicide in remorse immediately after. They’d like Earth to provide troops to fight the Posleen; if the people of Earth agree to this, the Federation will outfit these troops with advanced technology.

If any further inducement is required, the Posleen will reach Earth in less than ten years…and so the people of Earth have a choice. They can fight the Posleen with the Federation’s help, or without it.

So begins a grim yet fascinating tale, the first in a longer series which now includes four many novels and two spinoff novels. We get to follow along as the U.S. military comes to grips with both the new threat and the potential uses of Federation technology, and finally sends a number of units across space to fight the Posleen on Federation planets. Some of them are outfitted in powered armor that makes the powered suits of Heinlein’s Mobile Infantry look like so much tinfoil. And one of those ACS troopers is a guy named Mike O’Neal. He’s one of the few who really knows what his powered armor is capable of, and how units outfitted with it are best trained and deployed–after all, he helped design it. He’s also a junior officer…will he be allowed to make use of what he knows, or will the idiots in the ranks above him fritter away the ACS troopers through inappropriate tactics?

Of course they will! It’s that kind of story. Will O’Neal be able to save the day? Of course he will. But getting there is half the fun.

Ringo’s an ex-Marine (he was stationed in the Middle East during some of the more interesting periods of late 20th-century history, if I recall correctly), so he knows what combat is like; and more to the point, he knows what soldiers are like. Consequently, this is not a nice book. It’s grim, profane, scatalogical, and all that. But it’s also fascinating. For example, what’s with the Posleen? They don’t seem to have any strategy at all: they just overwhelm everything in their path with sheer numbers. They’ve got incredibly powerful warships–woe betide the Fleet vessel that gets in the way of one–and these warships are perfectly capable of working in atmosphere, yet they never use them for air support. There’s something very strange here.

And there’s something strange about the Galactic Federation as well. Supposedly it’s a union of equal partners…but how come the Darhel do all the ruling and the Indowy do almost all of the work? Are the Darhel as altruistic as they claim to be? And just how long have the Darhel known of the Posleen threat to Earth?

For the record, I read this book (and its sequels) last summer, and I’m only now getting around to reviewing them. Shame on me.

7 thoughts on “A Hymn Before Battle, by John Ringo”

  1. Why does this ring a bell. I remember reading a book only last year, a book some 20 years old itself, exploring the same theme. When I recall it I’ll write again. The aliens come to earth seeking soldiers to fight their battle for them because only the earthmen are warlike enough. The enemy of the aliens and ultimately of earth as well, when they get here, sweep all before them. Said enemy, at close range, can control minds. Except when they try to tap into human minds. That turns out to be so traumatic to the enemy as to render them insane or comatose.

    It was a trilogy and it’s at a local library and the hymn before battle thing gets in there too because the first-contact person is a composer and ends up finding that he can be a soldier-composer better than he can be a pacifist-composer.

    It’ll come to me eventually.

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  3. The one you mention doesn’t ring a bell, though I can think of several books with similar premises. The David Weber/Eric Flint/David Drake/John Ringo axis, together and separately, has done similar tales several times….although the motivation of the aliens often varies considerably.

    I should add, in this book the phrase “A Hymn Before Battle” is purely metaphorical. Although Iron Mike O’Neal does like to make his armored suit play raucous rock tunes out of its external speaker as he goes into battle. (Some fairly obscure ones, too, if I recall correctly.)

    SteveL == Steve Landers, I presume?

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  4. If you think that the first four books of “The Legacy of the Aldenata” series (a.k.a., “The Posleen War”) is fascinating, get a copy of “Watch on the Rhine”, co-authored by John Ringo and Tom Kratman. It deals at length with events occuring after “Gust Front”, and how Germany deals with the upcoming crisis. In “WotR”, the German Chancellor’s only solution is to rejuvenate any surviving World War II soldiers–specifically, the Waffen SS.

    In this book, the war in Europe isn’t won as easily as the first four books of the series would lead one to believe. And ultimately, this comes back to bite the Posleen (and, by extention, the Darhel) in the butt later on.

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  6. Just a note, John Ringo was actually 82nd Airborne rather than a Marine, an “All-American Mortar Maggot” as he puts it. While he lived in the middle-east around the time of some of the more interesting events, he wasn’t actually stationed there. He served in Grenada.

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