 Gentle Reader:
You hold in your hands a novel (the start of a series) with an odd genesis.
From the beginning of January, 2004, until early March, I turned out
three novels and a couple of novelettes in a burst of creativity that
was, for me, unprecedented. And then…it all stopped.
There
were various reasons for this, but one of them was that I had an Idea
for a story that wouldn’t let me go. And I also didn’t want to write
it. Why? Because I knew that the Idea was very non-PC and very
non-PG-13, which, by and large, my stories to date had been.
The
problem was that the Idea had me locked up. All I could do was run the
scenario, over and over again, getting it more detailed as time went by.
This
continued until August when I finally decided that the only way to kill
the beast that had me trapped was to write it. I started the book
shortly before Labor Day and, in five days, completed 64,000 words.
I
had never intended to publish the story. I, frankly, thought it was
over the top to the extreme. But I communicate extensively online and
some of my friends and readers wanted to read it. So I showed them a
portion of it.
The response was, by and large,
very VERY enthusiastic. There were a few detractors on precisely the
points that I feared. Science fiction readers, by and large, do not
accept the degree of, not to put to fine a point upon it, sex that
general fiction readers consider germane. And the book had a lot of
sex. Lots. Oodles.
However, the response, other than
those who did not care for the sex, was strong. Strong enough that I
knew that the book had potential.
I initially
started to “shop” it, and got strong response, but my regular
publisher, Jim Baen, heard about it and insisted that I show it to him.
Then, after he got done reading it, twice, he said: “I’ve got to have
this, Johnny!”
You now are holding the referred to
novel. It is not PC. It is not PG-13. It is not understated. It is a
raw, bawdy, kinky, violent, over-the-top story of an ex-SEAL who is
approaching life, love and the pursuit of bad-guys with
no-holds-barred. James Bond without the bedroom door closing. Dirk Pitt
meets Harold Robbins. Jean Auel writes a Mack Bolan book. With details.
Kinky, kinky details.
Since I had not previously
been known for this sort of writing, I felt it germane to emplace a
warning. Herewith: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. Ghost has no brakes and no limits. The sex is as explosive as the nukes. You’ve been warned.
John Ringo
Chattanooga, TN
June 2005
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