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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781416555537
ISBN number: 1416555536
Label: Baen
Manufacturer: Baen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: August 05, 2008
Publishing house: Baen
Sale Popularity Level: 5309
Studio: Baen
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
In the second decade of the twenty-first century the world is struck by two catastrophes, a new mini-ice age and, nearly simultaneously, a plague to dwarf all previous experiences. Rising out of the disaster is the character known to history as “Bandit Six” an American Army officer caught up in the struggle to rebuild the world and prevent the fall of his homeland—despite the best efforts of politicians both elected and military. The Last Centurion is a memoir of one possible future, a world that is a darkling mirror of our own. Written “blog-style,” it pulls no punches in its descriptions of junk science, bad strategy and organic farming not to mention all three at once
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Rated by buyers 
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This book Covers quite a few political as well as socital topics that are very interesting to read about. Ringo keeps you guessing throughout about what will happen subsequent while still keeping things really interesting. His usual sense of humour comes through really well, and the way the book is told through a very first person account just adds a new twist to his great way of telling a story.
Rated by buyers -
There's always a lot of background material, facts, and serious theories in solid science fiction, historical fiction, political thriller, or even fantasy. This one has a little more than usual which appears to offput some of the reviewers while if it was a space choice between pages of background vs. endless dialogue between minor characters, this was the more interesting choice. As a veteran's very first person narrative the relatively terse descriptions of the other characters follows most other veterans' accounts...there's a lot of buried trauma and grief in there generally for the rest of their lives.
What struck me, just having finished Amity Shlaes' outstanding history of the Great Depression, "The Forgotten Man", as well as Adam Tooze's economic history of the Nazis 1933-1945, "Wages of Destruction" that anyone interested in the 20th Century political economy would find fascinating...Ringo's stuff here for the most part has happened, repeatedly, rather than being dark fantasy. Many major countries have gone through deeply dysfunctional leadership and political economy theories that devastated them in the last few centuries alone when we've most clearly recorded them (let alone the Roman regimes.) Norman Cantor's and William McNeil's historical accounts of the impacts of plagues that killed 30-50% of populations frequently or the estimates that 50-80% of the Americas peoples were killed by European diseases show this is more the norm of human history rather than some sort of cycle we've luckily broken free from. Fast moving plagues have always been the hardest on the centers of civilization, towns and cities, while following trade routes often faster than the warnings. Global cooling has happened, i.e. the Little Ice Age from late medieval to late 18th century and major fluctuations that change where you can grow crops or sustain populations, like the Anasazi Ringo mentions where 10-70 year droughts radically shrunk the crop yields the local populations had grown to require. As to Ringo's points about varying effectiveness of responses to disaster, look at various communities hard hit and the variation is amazing...social capital matters a lot (if you think it's Ringo's theories, look at Harvard's Robert Puttnam's research on social capital impacts in "Bowling Alone" (a much more interesting book than it sounds.)
Ringo's craziness about the media for outsiders may sound absurdist. Read the investigative reporters' book on Robert Gray's PR firm in DC, "The Power House", on how a lot of this was worked out for delivering fake news through real news channels for foreign governments (Gray's office helped create the video news release.) Look further back to Edward Bernays or Ivy Lee, the pioneers of modern PR and American-style propaganda through manipulating the ever gullible reporters and editors.
The other thing was how many "Bandit Six" characters have had this kind of challenges and overcome them in the real American military. George Washington, Nathaniel Greene, Benedict Arnold, George Rogers Clark, William Clark (1815), Winfield Scott in Mexico, Sherman's March,
Custer, George Crook (Sioux, Apache), Nelson Miles (Sioux, Apache), John Pershing (Phillipines, Mexico, France), Smedley Butler (Phillipines etc.), Joshua Wainwright at Bataan, Patton... if anything Bandit Six's accomplishments with lots of appropriate supplies is the unrealistic part, not the journey or battles.
Ringo also captures modern farming and taciturn Minnesotans (lots in the family and friends, he's nailed 'em.)
Ringo's got an unusual amount of information backing his story points here, it's just as often common in recorded history rather than just extrapolating current trends. It's a different book, but it's a rich and sophisticated read.
Rated by buyers -
As John Ringo promised, there is something in here to "annoy" just about everyone. Ok, he didn't use the word "annoy", but I'm trying to keep this review "family friendly."
It's a "worst case scenario" story. The whole world has gone to Hell in a Handbasket and someone has to clean up the mess. This someone is Bandit Six. An infantry officer stuck in a bad mess and trying to make the best of it.
How bad are things? Well, Bird Flu makes the species jump and is deadly. A large chuck of the human population is killed off, especially in areas with little or no health care, and areas with heath care systems that are regulated by the state don't do as well as areas with well funded free market systems (ok, axe one is being ground here).
John Ringo's politics are clearly right leaning Libertarian, but he doesn't mind rubbing those groups noises in their faults either.
Oh ya, the world gets cold, fast. The global cooling we were promised back in the 1970s hits fast and hard. Those expecting global warming were caught completely off guard.
So, in many places, the infrastructure of civilization is falling apart because the people who operate it are either dying or trying to stay alive, what were the "breadbaskets" of the world are suffering from long winters and short cool summers, and Bandit Six is stuck in Iran guarding Billions of dollars of military equipment when the US pulled its troops back to the US to deal with the Bird Flu problems. Iran? Oh, by 2018, Iraq isn't a problem, but Iran is.
Ok, so the plot is laid, and not the fun can begin. Just remember that "adventure" is someone else in deep trouble, very far away from you.
Oh ya, Bandit Six grew up on a farm and has strong opinions on organic farming.
Yup, something to annoy everyone in the family.
I heartily recommend it.
Rated by buyers -
I realize this is a right wing diatribe in most respects; but, it sure picked up my spirits as I watch the news literally play out every theme covered in John Ringo's "Last Centurion". I certainly hope for all our sakes the things in this book never happen; but, I firmly believe the "Last Centurion" is a darn close prediction of the facts should they ever happen. I zipped through this in 2 days. It is worth the read just to have a pick up from the otherwise blaring, shrill liberal press. I actually believe the segment on Detroit could happen.
Rated by buyers -
Not Ringo's typical style of work. The action scenes were well written and realistic, just not very detailed. The mix of political philosophy and flashbacks took some getting used to, but looking back the novel reads like what it's supposed to be, the memories of someone who was "there" during a big historical event. A paradigm shift as it were. It's very first person POV and obvious political slant are going to turn off some readers and for a science fiction novel, it's not very sci-fi; but it's a rock solid novel that makes suspension of disbelief and immersion in the storyline easy.
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