Book review: Not that Kind of Good Guy, by John Ringo

Ringo tackles superheroes

John Ringo originally started this series on his personal substack. But it can now be owned via Baen Books. It’s his foray into the superhero genre and …

Sometimes, there are books that make me worry about the author. There are moments here that make me want to ask John Ringo if he’s okay.

The Story

While a great many authors lately open with “pure action” sequences, most of them suck because it’s a situation the reader knows nothing about, with characters we haven’t been introduced to yet. For those people, they should read the opening of Not That Kind of Good Guy and take notes.

During a Baltimore shootout with MS-13, thirteen-year-old orphan Michael Edwards is shot to pieces … but he’s saved when his superpowers kick in. Not only does his healing factor save him, but his new powers lead him to a government program for “junior supers” like him. He’s dragged out of the ghetto of Baltimore and into the nicer parts of New York. He’s put with new foster parents, who are genuinely good people (even if they are vegan), and a super team.

Now Michael’s only problem is to deal with The Society, the secret masters of the world who pull strings behind the scenes. They’re a deep state / World Economic Forum hybrid that manipulates governments and hierarchies.

But Michael also has a secret society of his own called Gondola. And Gondola doesn’t play nice either.

Also, MS-13 still wants to kill him.

And the government agencies are run by rejects from Epstein’s island and other progressives.

Not That Kind of Good Guy is very … John Ringo. His data dumps are intensive and entertaining, and could teach David Weber a thing or two. Michael’s powers involve the manipulation of earth minerals, so Ringo goes into weaponizing types of rock. And while we’re at it, Ringo throws in elements of Hindu mysticism. Instead of logistics, like the Vorpal Blade novels, Michael spends time on the covert development of his abilities. Since this is in the genre, let’s poke fun at the superhero genre. And looking at federal waste and bugout bags.

Since it is the superhero genre, it’s very much a frappe of elements. There’s a fully self-aware AI, demons, witch doctors, two competent FBI agents (bringing the book fully into fantasy). And since Michael comes from Baltimore, we have to take a few shots at The Wire while we’re at it.

Since this is Ringo, we seem to be building to a world-threatening antagonist that may destroy the world. Or at least kill 95% of of the human race, as usual. To some degree, it feels a little bit like Larry Correia’s Grimnoir Chronicles—all the superpowers, none of the alternate history.

It’s also very clear that Ringo has done research on child psychology and the foster care system, and vomits it out onto the page more than once. It’s presented in enough of a clinical way that it doesn’t feel like another episode of SVU. But Michael’s file is referred to several times as “The War and Peace of Child Abuse.”

Even taking all of this into account, Not That Kind of Good Guy was an entertaining read. This is an intelligent look on the superhero genre I haven’t seen since Silver Empire’s Heroes Unleashed series. Ringo took some very basic powers we’ve seen in multiple shows, and weaponized them in creative and smart ways. The plot has a nice balance of superheroism, conspiracy thriller, and the looming threat of MS-13 in the background.

The Characters

Ringo insists that Michael is Chad from his Monster Hunter Memoir series. Which is funny, I don’t remember Chad being quite this broken, with layers of PTSD, abuse, and the focus of a meth-addled squirrel. For Chad, killing monsters is just business. For Michael, it’s pure survival. Michael’s upbringing in the ghetto has basically made him decide that Dave Chapelle is too politically correct.

Any other character would probably be a Mary Sue, but Michael is far too broken for that. On the one hand, he’s a self-taught 5’10” thirteen-year-old with multiple graduate papers in multiple areas. Before any superpowers kicked in, he had learned

“….since I was six and figured out how to set it up, I’ve been listening to two college lectures at a time on earbuds, one in either ear, sped up to usually three times speed.”

Like I said, a little Mary Sue.

He’s also been abused multiple times by multiple foster homes, and been resuscitated repeatedly due to Baltimore being a hellhole. His catchphrase is “If what don’t kill you make you stronger, I be diamond.”

ADHD and PTSD are a hell of a combination.

The World

It’s our world plus superheroes and renaming the deep state and the WEF as “the Society.” It’s much less development than Morgon Newquist did for her superhero world, but there are a lot of overlaps—mostly that a lot of heroes seem to be more interested in selfies and celebrity than actual heroing (in this case, part of that is encouraged by ye olde secret society). But it has some of its own history going back a few years, even a few boogiemen.

Politics

It looks very much like John Ringo watched the last five years of public stupidity, noted all the sacred cows, and skipped turning them into hamburger. He just decided to break out the flamethrower and hit “flambe.” Want to talk trans? Want to talk about low-trust societies, defund the police, and “bail reform”? How about a discussion on the foster care system as a massive abuse factory? Perhaps shooting at academia? If you’re on the left side of the issues, this will not be your cup of tea.

Ringo basically took 2020 as well as I did, and my thoughts on 2020 involve arson, because nukes are too quick.

The only thing that could be considered “centrist” is one attempt for a 90s “muh both sides” moment regarding an element of the trans issue. But I suspect it was written before every mass shooting was led by someone diagnosed as “trans.”

Content Warning

Violence. Lots of violence, and that’s just in chapter one.

Discussions of rape and pederasty, sexualizing children, and someone who expresses Marion Zimmer Bradley’s opinion that “everyone is innately homosexual.”

Torture. Torture-like symptoms.

I don’t care if the protagonist is thirteen, do not treat it like a YA novel.

Who is it for?

For those who liked The Grimnoir Chronicles or Jim Butcher’s Spider-Man novel The Darkest Hours. (Yes, I’m reaching back through the sands of time. Do you know how hard it is to get a good superhero novel in prose?)

Why buy it?

It’s a solid, character-driven novel by John Ringo. And this time, the only squicky is with the villains.