Looking for stories with realistic depictions of warfare and/or battle. I've read the grim reaper series and really enjoyed his battle scenes and overall explanation of the life of a soldier.
Looking for stories with realistic depictions of warfare and/or battle. I've read the grim reaper series and really enjoyed his battle scenes and overall explanation of the life of a soldier.
Over on Fine Stories The Outsider has a very good story, 'A Glass and Darkly'. It is a follow-on to his story 'A Charmed Life', which you should really read first.
https://finestories.com/s/10527/a-charmed-life
https://finestories.com/s/10926/a-glass-and-darkly
'Finding Jessica' by A A Nemo has some short descriptions of scenes of battle.
https://storiesonline.net/s/54822/finding-jessica
'The Mission' by sagacious is a shorter story describing missions jamming enemy radios during battle.
https://storiesonline.net/s/66094/the-mission
Most of Ka Hmnd's stories in Clair War group have descriptions of battles
In print books, the 'Brotherhood of War' and 'The Corp' series of books by WEB Griffin are filled with descriptions of warfare, before, during, and after battles and the time between.
Any of Al Steiner's stories involving armed conflict.
eg Aftermath & Greenies.
https://storiesonline.net/s/34601/aftermath
https://storiesonline.net/s/46291/greenies
I've always found John Ringo to be one of the better writers of close combat in fiction. Particularly his Paladin of Shadows series which used to be in the Baen Free Library but appears to now be pulled and monitized but is probably floating around various places. He does well with all of his other books I personally think, the Empire of Man series stands out for me too. If you poke around a bit on the net most of the old Baen Free Library content is archived in various spots and shouldn't be too hard to run across though personally I have bought copies of them myself since I enjoy them enough.
Other authors to look for are Michael Z. Williamson and Tom Kratman come to mind offhand as well who have done a fairly credible job with the military genre though mostly scifi oriented types. I like the Older W.E.B. Griffin stuff but not the newer novels that his son is helping him with. I am sure others will pop to mind later on but these are the ones that stand out immediately to me. I may add some more later on if they jump out at me.
HTH
John Ringo ... Michael Z. Williamson ... Tom Kratman ... Older W.E.B. Griffin
Were you looking at my book shelves?
Add David Drake, David Weber, Raymond Feist, and S.M. Stirling to the list.
@StarFleet_Carl
Add David Drake, David Weber, Raymond Feist, and S.M. Stirling to the list.
*chuckles* I like Drake but his combat descriptive's never felt that compelling to me. SM Stirling is good for a fun afternoon and Feist is alright too. Weber is great but his most recent work is a little lost into the details I think. The last two Honor Harringtons suffer to me from telling the same story from different POV characters that don't really advance the story from a whole. Heck one of them was just a whole lot of minor planetary insurrections with characters using obtuse and impossible for me to pronounce names to basically give me nothing that advances the real core of the story so they've been disappointing. That said I am waiting with great anticipation the next in the Safehold series.
In a way I have always found it funny how one author often leads you to another. For me Weber led me to Ringo that led to me Drake etc. Lately Ringo has led me to David Correia which led me with a twist to John Conroe.
Toss in a few conventional folks like Stuart Woods, who wrote the best damn Ghost story I have ever read in Under the Lake along with a very early but fun near technothriller in Deep Lie which let me to read all his other work and enjoy his very long running near 50 book series on Stone Barrington. Authors like Lee Child, John Grisham and a host of others round out a lot of my reading but I always look for new and interesting addons.
Often threads like this find odd gems for me so I always love reading them.
I like Drake but his combat descriptive's never felt that compelling to me.
I think the problem Drake has is that he really is a vet, having served in an armor unit in Vietnam.
Weber ... if you can handle the screwed up names (which do make sense, given the 'universe'), his Safehold books are good military. I'm hoping he redeems himself with the newest Honor book, but that universe needs to come to some kind of resolution. He said he'd planned on killing Honor off and then things went a bit haywire on him. I suspect one reason for the 'back-story' books is simply because he had to figure out what the hell was going on in the universe anyway, so he figured he may as well write a book about them.
Larry Correia, not David. Monster Hunter International, and Agent Franks...
I started reading Raymond Feist back in college ... that trilogy that turned into, what, 29 books? And in September, was licensed so that it may actually show up on TV. Hey, if they can do GOT, they can do Magician, right?
Safehold got way to long winded for me. By Hells Foundation Quiver, Clyntahn still running amok was stretched to the point of being incredulous.
He's a good writer, but I don't enjoy it when he gets into the bug dust like he did with that series.
I thought Bruce Bretthauer battle descriptions in his Families War series were good as was the stories.
Random Writings - The Private
I once compared it to reading a Michael Bay movie. It is all color and action and well described. The action comes alive and even though it is a future, it is easy to see.
The fact he has not updated in so long is infuriating though.
Honor Harrington brings to mind the Hornblower series by C.S. Forester, on which it's based, as is Star Trek. Amazon says it's 12 books from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower to Lord Hornblower.
Amazon says it's 12 books from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower to Lord Hornblower.
They leave out the (very) short story about how Horatio Hornblower got his name. He had a trumpet he played to indicate, by how long and how loud he blew, the relative number of whores in the ports they were about to enter. The Whore Ratio Horn Blower.
Just to throw in another author I think is very good - try Tinker by Wen Spencer. Very original, well written and with a great main character.
I enjoyed Tinker as well. Its about time to read it again. Something my lousy memory lets me enjoy.
In dead tree form, the "Casca the Legionaire" series by Barry Sadler, who was an actual Green Beret. It depicts the life of the Roman soldier who stabbed Jesus Christ and was cursed to stay a soldier and wander the world until they met again. Each book depicts a different age and war. I started the series in the early 80's when I was in high school.
A dead tree SF series with a lot of military action is the Frontlines series by Marko Kloos. MK is ex-military but I'm not sure he was ever actually involved in fighting.
The names of the actual books (in order) are:
- Terms of Enlistment
- Lines of Departure
- Angles of Attack
- Chains of Command
- Fields of Fire
- Points of Impact
'The Mission' by sagacious is a good shorter story about radio jamming in a modern conflict.
https://storiesonline.net/s/66094/the-mission
Heck I hope he manages to restart the Empire of Man series with John Ringo.
Loved that series, and wanted more, but changed my mind. There is a reason why both Weber and Ringo have problems plotting the sequels. The original arc was showing the underdog, against all odds, winning. The sequels would be mostly large-scale politics and interstellar war; from the point of view of the emperor.
It would be a very different story, and probably much like the later Weber (and White) epics; which frankly are less interesting.
You might gather from this that I liked Honor Harrington when the narrative was mostly focused on one person and one ship. Not so much the thousand-PoV tapestry of galactic conflict.
Loved that series, and wanted more, but changed my mind.
I'm sort of mixed about that. I think I'd like more, but realistically, you wouldn't have Prince Roger and Nishamet Despreaux running around any more. Oh, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be interesting, it's just that the characters we spent several novels growing to know, love, and even mourn when they died, wouldn't be the focus any more.
With Honor, I think one more decent book and that ought to wrap up the whole Honorverse. SPOILERS AHEAD if you're not already an Honor fan.
Peeps and Star Kingdom have joined forces now, they blow Mesa off the map, take out Frontier Security, and put a real government in place on Earth. Perhaps with Steadholder Harrington in charge. End of series. :)
Seriously, that seems to be the way things are going anyway, so why the heck not?
Peeps and Star Kingdom have joined forces now, they blow Mesa off the map, take out Frontier Security, and put a real government in place on Earth. Perhaps with Steadholder Harrington in charge. End of series. :)
Absolutely. Except the way things are going, that would take 16 volumes. And leave even more threads hanging.
I'm sort of mixed about that. I think I'd like more, but realistically, you wouldn't have Prince Roger and Nishamet Despreaux running around any more. Oh, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be interesting, it's just that the characters we spent several novels growing to know, love, and even mourn when they died, wouldn't be the focus any more.
If memory serves Ringo on his own wrote four or five chapters of a sequel that took place after book 4 in series and put it up on his forum awhile back. I found on Baen 3 chapters that are post book 4 here:
http://jiltanith.thefifthimperium.com/site/book/EmpireofMan5/-
It's unfortunate that it's not an arc story about Miranda but alas it seems stalled for whatever reason and given what I read I can clearly see why.
http://jiltanith.thefifthimperium.com/site/book/EmpireofMan5/-
It's unfortunate that it's not an arc story about Miranda but alas it seems stalled for whatever reason and given what I read I can clearly see why.
Yeah, the story of Miranda and the Dagger Lords might be interesting. Although the challenge will always be knowing how she ends up. A problem with all prequels, including Episode One (Star Wars).
Yeah, I read the snippet of Empire of Man 5 -- and again, it's clearly headed towards palace intrigue and large-scale political maneuvering interspersed with occasional battles. Both Weber and Ringo have enough talent to make it work, but it would be a very different story from a "band of brothers" fighting overwhelming odds to return the rightful empress to the throne.
Loved that series, and wanted more, but changed my mind. There is a reason why both Weber and Ringo have problems plotting the sequels.
My understanding is that David Weber always intended for the sequel as it were to be more of a prequel focusing on the Great-Great-Grandmother Miranda who founded the Empire of Man Dynasty. I think THAT has the potential to be a hell of a story arc given she would need to defeat whatever the "Dagger Lords" were the original story arc alluded too
You might gather from this that I liked Honor Harrington when the narrative was mostly focused on one person and one ship. Not so much the thousand-PoV tapestry of galactic conflict.
I am similar to you with the HH series. Frankly the smaller scale of the first few novels struck me as the best part of the series. I've enjoyed most of the series and wonder just how Weber will dig out of what appears to be a generational scale plot to be done in a way that doesn't mire down like Star Wars Episode One did. I fear though that it may be too late for that at this point.