When The Devil Dances

I finished When the Devil Dances by John Ringo today. And I have to admit, I think I invested a bit too much faith in the cover blurb.

It's the third in the series, so here's the gist of the story so far (trying to avoid spoilers):
Bad Alien Race: Posleen. A race of centauroid lizard things that can eat anything, and like to eat people (regardless of sentience or whatever). Most are really, really dumb, but some are 'God Kings', intelligent Posleen that can direct the 'normals'. They tend to be armed with 1mm railguns (for some sense of scale, these beat Tank), more rarely with 3mm railguns, plasma cannon and high-velocity missiles.
They tend to use the 'swarm' tactic that every Bad Alien Race in a power-armour setting seem to enjoy, but have decent enough anti-air defenses that it is a viable one. (Basically, aircraft in line-of-sight die instantly. Bye!)

The Posleen are attacking the worlds of the Galactic Federation, who have a problem - none of them can fight. Some are genetically hardwired to be cowards, others are unable to willingly take a life, others are able but the trauma renders them catatonic for the rest of their lives. So, they turn to humanity.

They have several carrots - membership in the Galactic Federation, access to funky technology - a big ask - "please do all our fighting for us" - and a big stick. The Posleen are on their way to Earth. Humanity takes the job on.

However, not everything is hunky-dory. The Federation is new to the concept of mass-production, for one. It is also somewhat unfamiliar with the concept of democracy, and has a very rigid heirachical structure. The Federation is also new to the concept of things geared up directly for military conflicts, so humans do a lot of conceptual design work. So supplies are short in coming. In the midst of this is Michael O'Neal, the Main Character, who designs the Armoured Combat Suits. Mmm, power armour. Being the ACS guru, he's way better at using 'em than anyone else.

The first book is the opening to all this, finishing in a campaign to free a Federation world from the Posleen. Things go wrong - of course - and the ACS pull everyone's fat out of the fire - of course. Where would we be without the Mobile Infantry?

The second book deals with the initial Posleen invasion of Earth. We start to see things from the Posleen point of view as they become frustrated with the sneaky human tactics, so unlike anything the Posleen are used to. Well, let's face it, they're used to 'rampage unchecked through our enemies for they cannot fight back'. Some Posleen God Kings do actually start to use their brains, though. Michael O'Neal proves he's still a tactical and strategic guru when it comes to the suits, though.

The third book... well, here's the cover blurb.

After five years of battling the Posleen invaders, human civilisation is down to a handful of highly industrialised valleys where survivors create larger and larger engines of war to oppose the hated invaders.

After five years of battling the Humans the Posleen are tired and angry. Humans don't fight fair. Even the Posleen are ready for a change: Tulostenaloor. Beaten before, he has learned his lessons well.

Now is the time: Two opponents of old squaring off in the battle that will define the course of the galaxy for the next milennia. And when Major Michael O'Neal, commander of the 1st Battalion 555th Mobile Infantry squares off against Tulostenaloor...

            ...It is time to dance with the devil.

Is it really. Except for the fact that the Mobile Infantry are on R&R, and only fight a bit, off-screen, near the start of the book. Yay. What this book is really about is the non-ACS people involved in this. There are people in the subterranean cities (almost all female - someone decided Earth would need a good chance at breeding stock), combat engineers, light infantry scouts, and the rabid Sluggite crew of a giant mobile gun emplacement which they've named Bun-Bun.

That being said, this book is still a whole heap of fun. The Sluggy references get a bit much - Torg, Riff and Zoe are all invoked a few too many times - but there are still some good lines.
"We're on a forty degree slope, sliding forwards in maximum reverse, firing sideways at forty miles per hour. I don't think we're supposed to do any of those!"
"IT'S KNIFE-FIGHTING RANGE! WE'RE BUN-BUN! FIRE THE DAMNED GUN!"
"So what you're telling me is that, as usual, Bun-Bun's been kicking ass and not even bothering to take names?"
(After a panel has blown and sent someone flying across a room to avoid the sparks) "Is it just me, or is this like a bad TV science fiction show?"
"Sorry, I think I was channeling Bruce Campbell there for a second."

Yes, the book is Americanocentric, but not in an insulting, Independence Day kind of way - more in a Footfall-y kind of way, with lashings of extra 'yo!'. Australia gets trashed, though. Australia always gets trashed. *sigh* At least this isn't the WorldWar series, where Melbourne and Sydney get nuked for no good reason - the Posleen are really scary on open ground, and, well, we've got plenty of that over here. And Australia probably still fared better than China did. (China decided on a nuclear scorched-earth policy near the end - it didn't help much and the Yangtze got enough fallout that it'll be pretty icky for the next ten thousand years or so).

So the series is definitely worth a look, even if the third one isn't what the cover blurb promises. But I should know better than that by now, anyway.