Strands of Sorrow (Black Tide Rising Book 4)

good read

Finish the series saving it for a cover to cover sit and read

Continues the storyline, but focuses more on blood-n-guts adventures. It is becoming more unreal with 14 and 16- year - old girls leading conscripted troops.

I am very fond of the Black Tide Rising series and I am certain I will buy, read, and enjoy as many of these books as Mr. Ringo cares to write. If you have read any of them, you already know that a family of preppers is the seed that is growing into a viable military resistance to the worldwide zombie apocalypse, and book by book has been laying the groundwork for a rollback starting in the USA. The focus has been on the planning and execution of a bootstrap military campaign, and on the development of military skills (and deportment) of the family members, especially the two daughters.Now, there are issues that arise from Mr. Ringo's choices described above, but they should not detract from one's enjoyment of the whole. The biggest complaint from some readers has been the decision to make the main protagonists two teenaged girls -- ha! in a book about zombies, a couple of fierce teenaged girls are what some folks find most implausible! A bigger problem in my mind is that the redoubtable Smith family is the essential core of a recovery, and everyone else in the world is helplessly holed up in subs or bunkers.The need for a military-style campaign is the essence of the series, so Mr. Ringo can be partially forgiven for his increasing reliance, as the series wore on, on military jargon and speaking style. Military briefings that included one or more of the Smith family seemed to become the preferred means of delivering information to the reader. And Sophia and Faith seemed to learn and use that manner of speaking to a fault.Finally, the end of the book exposed a political bias on the author's part that struck me as oddly self-indulgent, and there is one political/personnel decision about which I can't say more but for which I can find no justification.The blurb states this is the conclusion of the series. All I can say is, NOOOOO.

I am torn. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and devoured it in a couple of sittings as I have all three of its predecessors. But for the first time in the series i finished and said "Is that all there is?" Not because the series is ostensibly over. But because for a book so brimming with blood it was strangely bloodless. In his Ghost series John created characters that were more fully fleshed out and who the reader cared about so when they were badly hurt or killed in what was a dangerous undertaking the reader cared because the protagonist cared. In this series there are fewer characters developed enough to care about and despite the prevalent and horrific violence I felt like they were playing Doom in "God Mode" - not really at risk. Steve's wife Stacey disappears in this book although she gets a nice reward at the end but she has always been only a peripheral character.- almost as if she has had little to do with Seawolf and Shewolf's emotional strength. Made up more of vignettes than a cohesive narrative this is still a great read.However, despite his alleged pantheon of military advisers and his own experience John still left a couple of military clinkers. A hatch is an opening in a deck and an opening in a vertical bulkhead is a door in naval parlance. So when he talks about knocking on a hatch I grimaced. And no one who so much as graduated from boot camp would ever refer to 1/1 as "First infantry Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment" as the 1st Marines are an infantry regiment even in the reconstituted Corps of his fictional world.I actually would love to get a glimpse into the future of the Smiths .and their dystopian surroundings - perhaps the anthology of stories in this world he mentions will provide that.

I enjoyed this book like all the others in Ringo's series

Fabulous book 4. But, we need to have (at least) a book 5: too many story lines left unresolved.OK, JR conceived this as a 3-book series and was "talked into" doing book 4 by his wife. Hey, JR-wife, keep talking/cajoling/nagging him into writing the next one.... I enjoyed the series so much I immediately started over with book 1 and am re-reading, something I rarely do.Spoiler alert: don't continue reading if you haven't read the first 3.We pick up the story following the rescue of Prince (now King) Harry and the flotilla is heading to the US to begin mainland clearance. Good issues, bad issues, work-arounds abound and we finally get to see what a "big gun" on an M1A1 Abrams can accomplish, not to mention good/bad/humorous use of 155mm arty. Faith gets to play with a big-enough gun. Given that most of the combatants are amateurs with (now extensive) OJT, the situations our intrepid sisters and their cohorts find themselves in feels pretty realistic. Also, the new reality of life -- military and otherwise -- is both humorous and grim. Finally, the executive-branch big bosses will remind you of current Washington politics: somewhat wince-inducing but good Ringo-reality.All in all, some of John Ringo's best work. JR, we really need some more story: what did happen to Thomas-the-train-engine? What happened to the mad scientist? Did the microwave popcorn last? Who launched the virus? Did he/she survive? What other governments/people/enclaves survived? How does Capt. Carrion transition to civilian life as SecWar? How does MamaWolf handle being #2 in power? Which states get reinstated as states? lots of threads, similar to the Honorverse....

Faith runs up against a brick wall of marine brass stupidity and the wall breaks!! An excellent finish to the darkling sea series that gives a sense of accomplishment to the reader. In the event of a zombie apocalypse the books would most likely run true, given the government reaction to even the simplest crisis (headless chicken time) a serious crisis can only mean total shut down of even the essential services. If we do get a global pandemic, asteroid strike alien invasion let's hope some rugged individuals like the smith family rise to the occasion. Because the likely official reaction will be a sub committee or maybe a fact finding mission to bora bora.

I had wondered how this series could end as what was essentially a tale of a family in a crisis mutated through expansion etc etc. In fact this last episode treads the line between giving up, and setting up for more and more of the same with ever decreasing impact, by working through a viable final run. The conclusion would allow the Smith family to reappear, in a very different sort of novel/series if necessary.I just know that some people will hate it but the underlying storyline doesn't have the stuff of a full on-going series like the Honorverse or Lost Fleet worlds.

I enjoyed this, although it did feel more rushed than the previous books in the series, this, combined with what seemed to be, at times, quite a repetitive plot, is why I have only given this one 3 stars. I felt that the ending was quite abrupt, with no real closure - who started the plague, what happened to some of the other characters from the earlier book (notably Smith's brother) - if this is the final book in the series then it a very unsatisfying conclusion.

Although a good read and enjoyable story in the same vein as the rest of the series, not quite up to usual standard you could feel that this was the last of this series. I do hope in the future that this series will be added to, if so then I am sure that the author will return to his usual high standards.

No spoilers. This series is well worth reading, or in my case, reading and then listening to.Intially did not want to read this as it is about a zombie appocalypse, not usually my scene, but boy was I wrong. Could not pur it down, the whole series is excellent.