 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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