Emerald Sea by John Ringo
Cover art by Clyde Caldwell
Published by Baen Books
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
The Council War rages on, as Paul Bowman's cronies steadily show their darker sides, their fondness for the perverse and grotesque, in their eastern realm. Meanwhile, the stalwart people of the revived North American Union struggle to preserve some tiny fragment of hope and human dignity in a world that has gone mad, in which the technology upon which civilization depended has failed and humanity must once again scratch for a living in an unforgiving soil.
Now the war goes to the sea, where humans have transformed themselves into an approximation of the merfolk of folklore and fairy tale. Herzer Herrick and Duke Edmund lead a free human force, including friendly dragons and wyverns (dragon-like beasts without full sapience), to defend them from an attack by evil humans that have transformed themselves into orcas.
However, things are rarely so simple as they appear, for the mermaids are as sexual as they are beautiful, and although Herzer has been living chastely since his unpleasant adventure right after the Fall, he is still a young man, with all the drives that go with that stage of life.
In addition to the main story, Ringo has included a bonus, the novella "In A Time of Darkness." Much darker than Ringo's usual fare, it explores the psychology of captivity, and what people will do when all the normal social furniture of their lives has been knocked out from under them. This is definitely mature stuff, but it also sets up what is supposed to become a major character in future books in this series.
Review posted December 15, 2008
Buy Emerald Sea (Council Wars)