Claws that Catch

Looking Glass Series, Book 4

By: John Ringo, Travis S. Taylor

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Best-selling author John Ringo—a former member of the elite 82nd Airborne Division—and real-life rocket scientist Travis S. Taylor bring an unmatched level of authenticity to their action-packed military science fiction.

Claws That Catch is the fourth volume from their popular Looking Glass series. Humankind’s only interstellar craft, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to investigate an ancient civilization that may have left vital technology behind. But when the crew finds more than they bargained for, they’ll have to scramble to survive.

©2008 John Ringo & Travis S. Taylor (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Hilarious romp into SciFi

When Ringo writes, you either love it or hate it. There's no middle ground. I am one of the people who love it. Pseudo-military, pseudo-scientific, and one hundred percent hilarious. The characters are thrown from one insane situation into another, and while they generally manage to scrape through by a combination of luck and skill, it's not always sunshine and flowers. This book is a strange combination of gritty combat and lighthearted humor. The overarching threat of the Dreen, and a dive into insanity with the Anime Zone. I couldn't hear part of the narration I was laughing so hard. If you've ever read and Ringo and liked it, get this book.

worse singer ever!

other then that, great story.
why the hell would they put a minimum limit on reviews?

The last book in the series, and its good

I have liked much of this series except for the swear words being changed to grap and maulk, and the use of the word shinny for many things that makes no sense at all.

This is the last book in the series, for now I have no idea if the author is going to write more but it could be done because like the other series he has written it could be done because the ending is left open.

This book has some bad parts for sure, the ending gets strange there is this huge Christmas tree and its activated by music so the narrator tries to sing but is so bad I actually had to skip 20seconds or so to get past it each time it started up again, by far the worst thing was the singing - but also strange is that when the ship enters the shield of the tree everyone becomes anime characters and although funny because I was smoking pot at the time it was still weird and made no sense to me at all, its explained but that dont make sense either, I am just glad it was short and then back to normal and a cool space battle.

This one opened up the possibility of being able to wipe out the dreen completely with some replicating space spiders that have "claws that catch" and they work great.

What I thought was missing was what was that thing that got into Merriam head in the last book that makes her here voices and really smart, much smarter then she already is - this is not even mentioned again other then a few phrases here and there but nothing about what it was or where it came from.

I would say that all the books I have read by this author are sorta like a pot head telling you a story, you get the jest of what happened and things are in detail much detail in some cases but there are situations that are described and they dont ever go anywhere, like the voice in her head - also missing are many scenes that could have been there but were just skipped over.

I would still recommend this anyways because there is a style of writing here that most dont have, and its great.

Not what I hoped for

I don't really care for military/shoot'em-up stuff but I do like science fiction. For some reason, I decided to give this series a try, and I did enjoy the first three books. But this last story in the series was lousy. There's just way too much silliness in this story. And if I was forced to listen to more of the narrator's female readings, I think I'd shoot myself. A little more action and a lot less Navy-ology would have been nice. No I don't recommend it.

Where the heck is MIMI!!!

She's barely mentioned in the last two books! Tidy would be such a good resource I just don't understand why the author would drop one of the fascinating characters of the series!!

The book jumps the shark about 2/3rds of the way through. The Dreen attacks don't even seem all that apocalyptic or even scary anymore.

The use of military jargon and acronyms has gotten unbearable. COB CO COE XO TOP. use their names, you can't call several different characters top and expect your readers to know what you're talking about.

lastly this last book of the series is the worst of the audiobooks. Far too much of the story is dominated by truly awful of key singing of the narrator and those annoying anime zones. Just read the first three.

Off-key attempts at singing without knowing the tune.

I like most of Ringo’s books, but this one is better in text format. The performer singing the lyrics of waiting songs to his own made-up tunes is rather jarring.

Yet again Ringo gets bored with his own stories.

John Ringo sucks you in with the first 2 to 3 books of every series he does and then either the 3 rd or 4 the books end up going no where or have crap endings. He reuses characters,the whole character,including their name. Starts some story lines and then just forgets about them. The anime zone? Magic Christmas tree powered by music? And the "swearing." Please Mr. Ringo,if you don't want younger readers to be exposed to swearing,leave it out! Making up your own words is just plain irritating,irritating because of how often you use these made up words. If it was only occasional,then it wouldn't be so anniying.

I have read the Live free or Die series,Prince Roger March up Country, and now this series. Nothing beats March up country,those books are great,but then the third book slows way down,and the fourth has a real anti climactic ending. Same with Live free or die. All of his series so far ffor me are great at the beginning and end up in disappointment. Stop reusing characters.

Just Too Silly

Book 4 just got WAY too silly for me.. I actually found myself getting so irritated during the "Anime Field Effect" segments, and the "Guitar and Singing" Segments, that I just started fast forwarding to try to get through the absolute silliness.

The narration was done as good as humanly possible, despite the material that Ganser had to read.

Entertaining

Another entertaining installment with a fun mix of hard scifi, history, physics, & humor. Ringo should reward the narrator for a heroic performance trying to sing heavy metal & falsetto J-pop. It wore thin after a while, as did the tedious arguments of the XO with the cook. The least strong of the series so far, but fun.

Rock and roll music was used to destrol the aliens

What did you like about this audiobook?

There narrator was okay, the book started out alright if not a bit boring but then descended into the insanely cray cray region of space.

How has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?

The book didn't deal much with the subject matter and the plot didn't move forward very much or at least not in any way that i would consider plausible even if i put on my sci-fi/fantasy thinking cap.

Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does he achieve this?

there was no insight, at least non that was believable...he basically just made ship up. I mean come on... the cartoon planet? whats the audience suppose to be 12?

What did you find wrong about the narrator's performance?

Narrator i was alright I can't complain about his performance