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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781416521297
ISBN number: 1416521291
Label: Baen
Manufacturer: Baen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 416
Printing Date: September 04, 2007
Publishing house: Baen
Sale Popularity Level: 23710
Studio: Baen
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Product Description:
The sequel to Into the Looking Glass. William Weaver, PhD. and SEAL Chief Adams are back and Bill got himself a ship! The former SSBN Nebraska has been converted, using mostly garage mechanics and baling wire, into a warp ship ready to go 'out there.' But as everyone knows, the people who really are going to bear the brunt are the poor Security guys, Force Recon Marines who are kept in the dark and fed manure all day. That is until they land on an alien planet, get partially wiped out and then load back up again. Ranging in topics from the best gun to kill armored space monsters to particle physics to cosmology to health and beauty tips, Vorpal Blade is a return to the 'good old days' of SF when the science problems were intractable and the beasts were ugly. The monkeys are out in the space lanes and ready to rock. As soon as they get another roll of duct tape.
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Rated by buyers 
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Where the blood and guts go flying, and the Men goes trying. Aliens truly meeting their gods in all so many colorful messy ways! Ringo nails it every time.
Rated by buyers -
As good as it gets? Not quite, but this second volume in John Ringo's "Looking Glass" series is awfully close.
First, the science is actually present in a (gasp!) science fiction novel! Get ready for an awesome dose of particle physics in this book. The quantum universe is also present in large doses, too.
Second, be prepared to laugh and giggle your way through the military forms of humor, and figure out what some of the alien words mean. This book, I'm sure, is meant to a spoof of some of the hard(er)-core military SF.
Finally, there is certainly an adequate plot to follow, along with a sufficient amount of bloody mayhem, to satisfy almost any John Ringo Military SF fan.
I stayed up 'till 2:30 in the morning finishing this book. That's my sure stamp of approval. I give it 5 stars. Read. Enjoy. Laugh. Fun!
Rated by buyers 
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I am only half way through this book, but am ready to close it for good and pack it in. I have no interest in the minute details of space ship operations, physics, etc., but that is about all the authors write. Very little real action and story line is, so far, boring. I grew up on Amazing magazine, etc., Robert Heinlein, Isaac Izamov and other great writers. Usually I very much books by John Ringo, but this is not one of them. so, out it goes to the local public library and into the hands of someone who will read it with great enjoyment. I just kept turning pages and pages, and when I stopped turning, still, the story line had not progressed and characters still rattling on propounding their various physics positions.
Rated by buyers -
First, I'm a fan of Mil-SF and SF in general - over 5,000 books read. This book is "hard Sci-Fi", akin to some of Clarks writings. So, frankly, it is s l o w in many spots. At the end of the book, Ringo preaches that "the very first half of Science Fiction is Science." His extrapolation is that a Science Fiction book should teach and lecture science. Thankfully, only a small percentage of SF writers believe in this - and they usually stick the lecture in a wrap-up chapter. I'd say about 30% of the book involved space marines discussing particle physics, theory and higher math. You can literally skim/gloss over a good chunk of the book. I wish there would have been more action, and less setup for the subsequent book (cryptic "heat bad, cold good" junk tossed in at random spots) - and honestly, a lot less hard science. Put that in the end of the book.
The action is very first rate, the deep space exploration interesting, and the shake-down deep space trip of the Vorpal is darn good. The humour (similar to "Fallen Angels") and SF inside references and jokes make for some fun reading. Space Marines call themselves "Red Shirts" - you'll find caveats to Raiders, FireFly (the absolute worst SF series of all time) and many others. As with the very first book, the title of the book is a nod to Lewis Carroll. This time, Jabberwocky, where the Vorpal Sword is a weapon.
The main character this time around is "Two Gun" - the dual gun totin' space marine (he's on the cover) - my guess is he'll be back in the subsequent novel. Weaver and Miller are back, as are Mimi and Tuffy. But Two Gun gets more ink then all four combined.
Vorpal Blade is not everyone's type of SF. If you eat up MIL-SF (Like David Drake's or David Weber's) or hard SF (Arthur C. Clarke, some Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge) you'll dig this book. If you like space opera, future-SF or speculative SF, this will still do it for you. If you're into CyberPunk, Science Fantasy, New Wave, Post-Futurism, soft SF, etc. - this is not your type of read - You'll put it down half way through. Yes, the exploration aspects are engrossing. The "chilling" speculation is cool. Pun intended. It's obvious the authors know the military life, and again, there is a lot if insight and humour here.
One thing that really got me though: The author concludes that all future Space Marines need to be Physics experts so they can do their job. This is probably one of the most idiotic conclusions I have ever read. That's akin to a flight controller having to manually calculate vector, speed, etc. - for every aircraft in his zone - manually. This is why there are COMPUTERS. A flight controller looks at this thing called RADAR. It does the calculations for you. The suits the Space Marines are using are supposedly some of the most advanced systems anywhere. Yet the onboard computers can't do the basic calculations? They require the user to do it? No way, no how. Run, shoot, "is that a mason - no wait, meson, er Boolean - or was that quark? How do you spell those again? Doesn't one work with bricks and mortar? Or was he on a Star Trek series?" Bang. You're dead.
This is why pilots have a head's up display. This is why they get missile warnings. Radar warnings. Not "object X is approaching at speed Y at vector of Z. You are currently at an altitude of.....BOOM" Totally ridiculous. Yet we are supposed to buy the "fact" that the Space Marines have to do this?!
I live in Tornado Alley. Am I expected to look at the barometer, temperature, pressure zones, wind direction, etc? No. I rely on a COMPUTER. It sets of a weather alarm and those really loud sirens. I would think that this really advanced suit could simply flash an icon and location "Mirror forming" or "bad guy with many sharp arms appearing!" If I had to do all the stuff manually I would hit the correct conclusion about the same time my house is vacuumed into the clouds, shredded, then dropped in several thousand pieces across the countryside.
I'll give it five stars. Just because hard SF is not for everyone, it's no reason to diss the book. I already ordered the subsequent book and pre-ordered the one after that.
Rated by buyers -
Although the science was a bit deep compared to many of the genre, I really enjoy Ringo and feel he is setting up a great series here.
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