Princess of Wands, 1

by John Ringo

Book Overview

Special: distinguished by some unusual quality . . .
Circumstances: a piece of evidence that indicates the probability or improbability of an event . . .
Barbara Everette, homemaker living in a small town in Mississippi, had the perfect life. Perfect husband, perfect children, perfect house, perfect Christian Faith. She cooked and cleaned perfectly and managed all of the chores of the modern suburbanite, toting the kids, running...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416573860
• ISBN13: 9781416573869
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Baen
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Christian Warrior Woman

Princess of Wands (2006) is the first Fantasy novel of a new series. Barbara Everette is a soccer mom, living in Algomo, Mississippi, with a husband, three kids and an SUV. She is a devout Christian, without being evangelical about it. Yet she also has lived in various nations around the world, has a Black Belt in an eclectic mix of martial arts, and carries a licensed H & K .45 automatic in her purse. In this novel, Barbara loves her kids, but feels the need for some time away from them. She defers to her husband in everything, but has a way around direct confrontations. Mark is a couch potato, especially during the football season, and very unlikely to even notice that he is agreeing to something that he wouldn't condone if he was in his right mind. She asks for, and receives, permission to take a vacation. Usually Barbara goes to Gulfport on these trips away from husband and kids, but this time she heads toward Louisiana. She follows her instincts away from New Orleans, which is currently plagued with a series killer called the Ripper, and heads off the freeway onto state roads. She ends up in a dark little town called Thibideau within bayou country. The hotel is older than the nonexistent hills and doesn't even have locks on the stateroom doors. The bathroom is down the hall. There is no phone in the room or at the desk, but there is a payphone outside the Piggly Wiggly. Barbara is warned not to go out on the streets at night, as the bull alligators wander through the town looking for mates. She spends the night in her room, with wedges holding the hall door tight against the frame. The next morning, she ventures out to continue her trek, but finds that her car won't start and no rentals are available. She is stranded in the town until a part is delivered and installed. Detective Sergeant Kelly Lockhart of the New Orleans Police Department is working on the Ripper case. All the victims so far have been prostitutes, many of whom are professionally known to Kelly. There are no leads, but plenty of evidence. The FBI has been called in, but hasn't contributed anything to date, although they have lost a large scale found on one body. Kelly develops a lead that takes him to Thibideau and meets Barbara. They have a mutual aversion to Chief Deputy Etienne Mondaine. The local sheriff had died a month before and Deputy Mondaine was now responsible for law enforcement within the county. Augustus Germaine is an FBI consultant on Special Circumstances, i.e., the supernatural. He arrives in New Orleans after Kelly leaves for Thibideau. Germaine briefs Kelly's boss, Lieutenant Chimot, on their findings; there are definite indications of demonic manifestation in the Ripper murders. In this story, Barbara and Kelly find that something supernatural has taken over the town. Chief Deputy Mondaine organizes an armed manhunt for the two of them. When his men capture Kelly and invade Barbara's hotel room, she escapes and evades the hu

Soccer Mom meet Demon, Demon ... Damn, she blew him away!

John Ringo is back on track with a great new book. A serious Christian woman with a background as a martial arts expert and knowledge of weapons takes on demons trying to open the gates of hell. Two novellas, one situated in the bayous of Louisiana and the other at a SF & F convention in Virginia start the book. The short story that follows takes place in this mom's back yard in Mississippi. The stories are pure action with a strong dose of humor poking fun at the Fantasy genre. My favorite is the second novella with the SF & F convention. Here we meet a cast of authors, publishers and fans all loosely based upon real authors, publishers and fans. The fun is trying to pick out who is who in real life. I can highly recommend this book for those who need a little action, but also enjoy the more humorous side of fantasy in a modern setting.

I really can't understand the complaints about prosteletyzing in this book.

I am a Pagan who is often quite prickly about authors pushing their own political and religious views. I found very little of that in this book, well a bit of the political maybe, but no religious prosteletyzing. Yes, the main character is a Christian woman with particualrly "traditional" views of a woman's place in the household. And she lives as best as she can within those self imposed strictures. But Ringo makes it clear that Barb *needs* those strictures to help hold in her own dark side. Barb is a Christian because Christianity works for her, it helps her be a better person. (there are some suggestions that without those self imposed strictures she might make Mike Harmon of Ghost look like a Cub Scout.) She is the ONLY hero type character in this book who is a Christian. The other members of the demon fighting organization she is recruited into are Bhuddists, Hindus, Wiccans, Asatru, etc... and they ALL kick ass for the light. Barb is a Christian, but she is not a bigot. She judges people based on their behaviour, but not their beliefs. And she accepts behaviour from her allies that she will not allow in herself, because their gods allow and encourage those bahaviour, while her own is more strict. Other complaints have been about the section at the sf con, I am not a con goer myself, naver have been. But "Princess of Wands" has me tempted. Too many in jokes? Maybe, but not knowing tham doesn't detract form the story, and knowing them might even add to it. And hell, Princess of Wands is a rip roaring fun read What more can you ask?

Cleopatra Jones meets Mrs. Brady

This book is the most fun I've had reading in ages. John Ringo, tongue firmly placed in cheek, has created a beautiful, pistol-picking, Karate kicking, demonslaying, "soccer mom" heroine. Need I say more? The story is basically three short stories set in the Mississippi, New Orleans (pre-Katrina) area. The stories are chronologically laid out. They follow the adventures of Barbera (call me Barb) as she is recruited into a secret organization (ala X-Files) that fights demons, vampires, werewolves as well as other lesser known manifestations of the Supernatural. Barb is a "Uber-Christian" partnered with such everday partners as Doris (call me Janea) who happens to be a stripper/hooker/sword swinging worshipper of Frey that wears a skimpy, chainmail bikini. Barb however new to the orginization, has defeated a higher level demon and so has special status as a serious tail-kicker who "channels" the White God (Jesus) in order to battle evil. Before reading this book, I had read some of the other readers reviews and saw that many of them were turned off by Barbs "traditional" values ("a man is the head of the household..."). However, they are so 50's and so over the top, it is pretty obvious to me that John Ringo was having fun with this. Ringo, rather than stating the superiority of Christian beliefs (as some reviewers saw it) makes the claim that real spritual power comes not from a specific God, but rather from a deep belief and that ultimately all "gods" are the same God. He continually says through his characters that there are many paths and names for God. However, for Barb to keep her ability to channel God, she must keep tightly to her faith...even if it clashes with the faith of others. Barb's husband is basically an "empty seat" that she continually claims to love. Ringo seems to poke fun at this arrangement (which many here took seriously) by having Barb Kow tow to this extremely dissinterested, beer drinking, sports watching, Ward Cleaver, while at the same time doing whatever she wants anyway ("There's frozen casserole in the fridge...pickup the kids from Karate practice") and dissappearing for weeks on a demonslaying adventure. "Princess of Wands" is a really fun read that manages to respect, while at the same time, poke fun at Christianity and spirituality in general. I for one, hope that John Ringo writes more stories about Barb the Christian demonslayer!

The lighter side of Ringo ... for a given value of light.)

Okay, from the excerpts I'd already seen, I had absolutely no clue what the book would be like, but I thought 'What the hell' and bought it because, well, *John Ringo*. Need I say more? Imagine my delight and surprise when it turned out to be a collection of short stories about a Episcopalian soccer mom as a Ninja Warrior Of God! Dude. Let's revisit that concept. June Cleaver as Ninja Warrior Of God. Only John Ringo, man, only John Ringo. Coming up with - and writing - a plot like that takes a special kind of wonderful twisted genius that I just can't imagine finding anywhere else. The whole thing was fun, heroic, unique, gloriously pulptastic, and immensely likeable. Anyone who is foolish enough to mistake the protagonist of "Ghost" for Mr. Ringo himself really needs to read this book. It's the other side of the coin. And aside from just the regular fictional joys of demon vanquishing with the help of good training, good guns, and the love of God, Ringo threw an extra little present in there. He set the demon hunt in the second story at a sci fi con, and made many of the major characters there thinly disguised authors and fans! There were bits where I was almost crying with laughter. If you want the very best of the lighter side* of Ringo, in all of the delightfully and intentionally cheesy glory that it can entail, I very much suggest this book. * (For a given value of light. Which is to say, demon tail gets kicked, righteous vengeance is enacted and unfortunate victims pile up on the sidelines, but innocent small children don't die in view of the readers.)