There Will Be Dragons by John Ringo

I'm not a hardcore Fantasy reader, but I like me some monsters, trolls, and swordplay every few months. So, when I saw a book featuring not only a sexy elf with a bow, but a huge red dragon AND a spaceship on the cover, well, I thought... this could be interesting. Much to my chagrin, there must have been some fine print on the cover I didn't see. Perhaps the book was titled There will be (slight mention of) dragons (but they won't affect this story!). Or There Will Be Dragons (in that other book you passed by on the shelf).

And yet, I made it through the whole book, so it wasn't bad enough to put down (or toss through the window). Ringo does a good job of world building, sometimes with too fine a brush. I'm interested in how feudal society works, but not so much in how they plan to bathe, fell trees, or set up farms. These can be covered in passing detail. Ringo seems to be trying to meet a minimum word quota at certain points in the story.

The action, when it does come, is great. Military knowledge gives Ringo an edge in painting the battlefield for the reader. The rest of the story boils down to: World Loses Power, and only RennFaire re-enactors can save the world!
You know those guys: the chunky ones with pale skin and scruffy beards and bad long hair? The chicks with the corsets who probably shouldn't be wearing the corsets? Yeah. They're saving the planet here. And the thing is, I like RennFaires. I like it when people dress up. I've been to plenty of RennFaires, enough to know that girls with the "tapered waists and ample bosoms" with which Ringo endows several of the female characters, are nowhere to be found, possibly accounting for only .8% of the crowd.

Why did this review turn into a rant? Apologies.
NO! NO APOLOGIES! I trudged through 500+ pages. Don't make the same mistake. I'm positive Ringo has other amazing stories in him, but he's off his game here.