Live Free or Die

Troy Rising, Book One

By: John Ringo

Narrated by: Mark Boyett

Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Beginning a New Series by a New York Times Best-Selling Author.Will the People of Earth Bow Down toAlien Overlords—or Will They Live Free or Die?

First Contact Was Friendly

When aliens trundled a gate to other worlds into the solar system, the world reacted with awe, hope and fear. But the first aliens to come through, the Glatun, were peaceful traders and the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Who Controls the Orbitals, Controls the World

When the Horvath came through, they announced their ownership by dropping rocks on three cities and gutting them. Since then, they've held Terra as their own personal fiefdom. With their control of the orbitals, there's no way to win and earth's governments have accepted the status quo.

Live Free or Die

To free the world from the grip of the Horvath is going to take an unlikely hero. A hero unwilling to back down to alien or human governments, unwilling to live in slavery and with enough hubris, if not stature, to think he can win. Fortunately, there's Tyler Vernon. And he has bigger plans than just getting rid of the Horvath.

Troy Rising is a book in three parts—Live Free or Die being the first part—detailing the freeing of earth from alien conquerors, the first steps into space using off-world technologies and the creation of Troy, a thousand trillion ton battlestation designed to secure the solar system.

©2010 John Ringo (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

One of the best sci-fi books of a generation

Excellent narration, and one of the most compelling sci fi stories I have ever read. This is Heinlein level sci fi, and my third listen to this series. John's other series are more fun if you want a good laugh, but this series brings to life a world you can imagine being real. One series that goes in my top ten list!

Funny as heck

I was unsure about buying this, but it was christmas day and I was like "hell, its John Ringo, how bad can it be?"

I wasn't expecting it to be so much fun. Its laugh out loud funny in a lot of places, I remember the first time Tyler meets the aliens in their ship the most. Just funny as heck.

The start of a great ride!

What a great start to a great ride through this series! Ringo is one of the leading names in Sci-Fi, especially when it comes to "Military Sci-Fi". Sorry for the length of the review, but I'm kinda writing for all three books currently out in the series.

In Book 1 the people of Earth breath a sigh of deep relief when the first star-faring civilization that comes through our new "Gate" is friendly... Another alien culture has dropped an interstellar-capable "Gate" in our system, without caring whether we want it or not, or caring whether we can defend ourselves from whomever/whatever may pop through at any time, or not... The Gate is a portal to our system that can be used by every hostile space-faring race out there, and we can't shut it down, or block it off! The relief is short lived though, and pretty soon Earth starts taking a beating (Though I have to say that one of the "Alien Plagues" is quite nice if you're a guy ;)! The main character, Tyler Vernon, is like a lot of people who are just trying to survive by searching for something, ANYTHING, that one of the Hyper-Advanced Alien races may want badly enough to trade some of their very old "Junk technology" for.. technology that they basically shovel out of their scrap heaps... Still, that "broken, obsolete, junk" Technology is WAY ahead of Earth's best technology, and many Earth-Based companies will pay a fortune for the scrap-tech in hopes of reverse engineering it.

Tyler Vernon offers up a lot of common items from Earth for potential trade, and hits on one substance that one alien culture LOVES... He keeps the secret of what the substance actually is long enough to get just slightly ahead of the trading curve, and from that shaky and tenuous start, he keeps "Trading Up" by selling the Alien's scrap-tech to Earth Companies, and then using the money to always have a near monopoly on the next thing the Aliens want badly. When the Aliens find that the near-addictive item is very common, they try to get all of the product in the area, only to find out that Tyler has bought all of the local stocks of it. When the Aliens try to get the USA's supply of the stuff, they again find that Tyler owns it... When they go to the Root-Source of the substance... You guessed it, Tyler and a few of his neighbors have bought every scrap of land that produces it. But then Tyler has to fend off not only Aliens, but also fight the governments of Earth who try to move in and take the product from him by force... the Aliens and the Army both find out that what seems like it should be simple to produce, isn't as easy to produce as it seems, especially not while simultaneously fighting a guerrilla war with Tyler and his neighbors!

But Tyler has MUCH bigger plans in his head... he just needs to stay ahead of the curve long enough to learn to acquire and use Alien technology, His own growing fortune, and his own smarts and bold thinking, to steadily build up forces and equipment that can make Earth's enemies wish they'd never seen our Gate!

The cool thing about Ringo's many many books is that you can almost always tell when and where he's recently gone on vacation, and you get a glimpse of his latest "real-life" interests and hobbies, because he works the knowledge he's gained, and places to which he's traveled, into the storylines of his books... And John Ringo churns out some books! He seems to always be working on 4-5 (or more) books at the same time! A few years ago at Dragon*Con in Atlanta I was joking around with John and his wife out by the pool at one of the several High-End Hotels that hosts Dragon*Con, and I jokingly asked him if he was finally falling out of his habit of releasing "only" 4-5 books every year.. his wife said, "Cut him some slack, he's released ELEVEN books in the last year alone!" You can often find John out at the pool in the evenings during the convention, surrounded by a crowd of Sci-Fi Fans and Military Vets (Many disabled vets), talking "Military" and "Sci-Fi"... He's not out there "just talking to fans with feigned 'Patience' ", he talks with people for hours with obvious "ENTHUSIASM"! The man has an INCREDIBLE knowledge of even the most obscure bits of details and trivia about nearly everything Military related. On top of everything else he has going for him, he's also your basic "nice guy"!

I'm waiting for Book 4 in the series now... John said he kinda wrote himself into a corner with Book 3 of this series, but he has no doubts a solution will come to him... I hope it comes SOON!!! It's an Awesome Series and storyline! The plots and twists just keep hitting you, rapid-fire!

Great, very original.

Good book,great story,however,the series last/third book is horrible. You've been warned. Ringo gets bored and wants to share it with you as the series ends in the third book.

WOUNDERFUL

Me, my grandson's and great grandson listened to "TROY RISING SERIES" three times. What more can one say?? We are waiting for one more in this series. SOON. Please

true science fiction

What made the experience of listening to Live Free or Die the most enjoyable?

no magic, no witches, no dragons, no fantasy, just good science fiction well told

What did you like best about this story?

see above

What does Mark Boyett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

a feeling of anticipation

Any additional comments?

ringo's opinion re. of the warrior "class" . his opinion of government officials.

This is the THIRD time I've bought this book!

This book and the two that follow it are some of the fastest reads I've ever owned, I read a lot and just couldn't put these down. I bought my first set in paperback and reluctantly gave them to my nephew, bought my second set (also in paperback) for one of my sons. I just recently bought a Kindle Fire and discovered that I can plug it into my work van and listen while I drive (I'm a Courier.) Now I'm buying the audio set.

The science (as far as I could follow) is accurate and not overwhelming. The story just flows so well, I didn't want to shut it off to go to bed. It's just that good.

My hat's off to Mark Boyett as well. The Narration never got in the way of the story.

Troy Rising, Book Two PLEASE!!!

Awesome book, but I am having problems waiting on the next! I really enjoyed it and I am sure you will too if you are a Ringo fan...

Excellent SF and Funny

Where does Live Free or Die rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is a great book as it remindes me of Heinlein with the political commentary crossed with occational Douglas Adams type humor.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I really like the main character, Trevor, as he has a southerner's view point that cuts to the meat of any situation with a critical view of the buracracy of business and government.

What about Mark Boyett’s performance did you like?

The naration is great and it is one of the few books I heard that made me laugh several times on the reading.

Any additional comments?

The next two books in the trilogy are also good, but this one was my favotite.

One of the best Science Fiction books ever.

Would you listen to Live Free or Die again? Why?

Yes I would listen to the Troy Rising series for the third time!

What other book might you compare Live Free or Die to and why?

This book is most like the Ender's Game saga.

Any additional comments?

This book is an incredible demonstration of just how much a writer can grow and improve over time.