Military science fiction.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

So here's my dilemma:

I love science fiction. I love war stories. Therefore, as it would be obvious, I rather like military science fiction.

Just one problem:

Most military science fiction (specifically in the U.S.) is of an extremely right-wing sort.

You have writers like John Ringo, whose politics are quite vile, but also has a tendency to go off on rather obnoxious tirades in the middle of his books (often grinding the story to a halt in the process). You have writers like David Weber, who although really good at writing battle scenes, has some rather reactionary political ideas that can sometimes pollute the over all story (though he isn't as bad as Ringo with the author filibusters). You have writers like Travis S. Taylor, who although a very educated individual committed to hard science in his stories, is still very much of the 'good ol' boy' attitude when it comes to politics and the outside world.

So my question is: Does anybody know of any military science fiction authors who AREN'T highly reactionary assholes? I'll even take middle-of-the-road bourgeoisie progressives. Just something to wash the taste of John Ringo out of my brain.

[Lord Testicles]

Check out "The Compleat Bolo" by Keith Laumer. I don't know if he's a reactionary asshole or not but I read that book a couple of years back and I don't recall anything particularly odious or right-wing about it.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

The Forever War by Joe Halderman might be to your fancy.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I've actually read The Forever War already....and yes, it is quite good. Not only a great sci-fi story, but one of the best war stories ever written.

As for Bolo...I've heard about it before, but I've never given the series a chance. Maybe I should rectify that mistake.

[The Red Star Rising]

Warhammer 40k is admittedly, not thought of as Science Fiction by some (the label Space Fantasy is probably more appropriate) but given that it's a setting in a state of eternal war between a host of extremely varied and generally unpleasant factions it's very much a military setting.

In my reading, I've found that Warhammer 40k's stories tend to be rather apolitical. Whether this is because the authors generally don't care too much about politics or the setting simply isn't conduicive to any studies into modern politics is a debatable matter.

Although I'd say that the setting genuinely isn't one where you can really use it to say much of anything on current politics, due to being built as a very cynical 80s British parody of science fiction and fantasy up to that point and a setting where all of the represented tabletop factions have valid reasons to fight everyone else and even themselves.

Perhaps the absolute most you can get out of it is that religion is bad. Your choice between an ambiguously alive all powerful psychic cripple who mandated the extermination of non-useful mutants and aliens (and then when they made a religion out of his corpse the church expanded that to "heretics), four flavours of Satancthulhu who are actively and openly malevolent and spit out horrors for the material world to chew on and legions of gibbering mutated madmen, Star devouring soul munching cosmic vampires, a bunch of dead poncy space elf gods, and almighty cockney soccer hooligans.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I disagree, the 40k books are unbelievably reactionary. I've used them as airport trash reads for years and every book at the very least involves one act of genocide and countless elitist monologues. My favorite part of those books however are the unintentional erotic undertones that develop as the writers describe how the soldiers look in their armor and then as the soldiers interact with one another. At least I assume it's unintentional based on the intended audience.

Militarism is reactionary by its nature, it would have to follow that all military sci-fi would necessarily be reactionary as well.

[Hrafn]

I disagree, EG. Are there not anti-war war movies?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I mean I guess there are, but I would categorize them as war movies and then anti-war movies, I don't see them as part of the the same genre. For instance I don't think I would call the forever war a military Sci-fi novel, when I hear military sci-fi I think of warhammer 40k or David drake novels that portray war as some grand adventure. Maybe I'm just being a dick with genres.

[Hrafn]

I disagree wholeheartedly with your division of genre. If a movie is about war, it is a war movie, regardless of its politics. If science fiction is about the military and war, it is military sci fi.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I just think it's a mistake, I don't think most people are savvy enough to pick up on anti-war themes in media. I know tons of people who think full metal jacket is the same thing as black hawk down in terms of themes. But whatever man, if you're gonna bring italics into this I'll concede the issue. I'm more into the erotic undertones of some of those horus heresy novels for real, please someone tell me they know what I'm talking about.

[Black Pawn]

I thought Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein was pretty amazing. Probably so commonly referrenced and cliche as "military sci-fi" that it was implied and my recommendation was unnecessary. Even still...

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Also super reactionary though

[Hrafn]

The movie version of Heinlein's work is, however, the exact opposite.

[Hrafn]

I just think it's a mistake, I don't think most people are savvy enough to pick up on anti-war themes in media. I know tons of people who think full metal jacket is the same thing as black hawk down in terms of themes. But whatever man, if you're gonna bring italics into this I'll concede the issue. I'm more into the erotic undertones of some of those horus heresy novels for real, please someone tell me they know what I'm talking about.

I've only read wiki articles about the Horus Heresy, and even I can tell.

[Red Commissar]

I disagree, EG. Are there not anti-war war movies?

I guess therein is a dilemna though. For what it's worth I think it's pretty possible to have gritty and terrible work of fiction to serve as a reminder or reinforcement of why war is bad, but for some people it's still a problem. It's really difficult I guess for a writer to hit a balance between that and it not coming off as sadistic entertainment.

I do not have anything to contribute in the way of books though. I never really read military sci-fi because the genre seemed too crowded and overdone to me, and likewise I have the same issues that OP has with some the writers' mentality.

That being said a friend of mine once recommended I look at a book series, "Hammers' Slammers" by a David Drake, which he said took a more nuanced look at war in the sense it's not overly jingoistic. The focus of the stories is around a mercenary army that roams around some future society where humanity is scattered across different planets, and these mercenary armies are often employed in disputes between powers and independence movements.

My friend also said that the situations and combat are so messy, that while they may make for interesting imagery and an exciting read it is never glorified, and really meant to be shown as a terrible thing to engage in. At the same time though an acknowledgement that these mercenaries are doing their jobs, so they aren't cliched guys who've had a break with reality, but their enemies often seem to be.

That was a number of years ago though- I never followed up on it because I wasn't sure if he'd actually read the book or not since it is also mentioned on wikipedia's page for military sci-fi. Likewise, like EG said earlier his stuff I've seen seems to be more of the "war is a grand adventure" type deal which makes it read like those annoying young adult novels from the old days when that genre was a big deal. That really is annoying.

I've only been reminded of it with this thread and looked at it further, came across this interesting snippet

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/drake_interview/


What I’d read had moved me deeply and answered many questions I’d had about my grandfather’s and my father’s experiences in the military. I’ve long admired Drake’s ability to talk and write openly about his experiences in Vietnam and Cambodia and to reveal the horrors of war through powerful storytelling—to shed light on the unlightable darkness.

If more of our combat veterans could write with clarity and effectiveness, maybe—just maybe—there’d be fewer wars.

...

In the 70s and 80s, Drake took “show and don’t tell” to heart and was, as he put it, “pilloried by the critics as being pro-war because I didn’t say I was anti-war. I described things that any sane person would find horrific. God knows, I found them horrific. But I didn’t say so. Of course, I opposed these things. Any idiot would know that. But, of course, they didn’t.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone reading a pro-war agenda into Drake’s fiction, but part of the power of well-crafted fiction is, I suppose, that it invites multiple interpretations.

In that snippet there's another bit about the author that makes him unique among military sci-fi writers- not only was he in the military but he was serving in a war, in this case having been drafted to fight in Vietnam. Still, I can't help but getting a resigned feeling from people's impressions of these books or from their summaries that it's more an aknowledgement that we'll be stuck with war for a long time, the whole human nature deal.

I don't know how well available these books are though. It seems to've been published in the 70s and 80s and never reprinted, so those books are likely floating around gathering dust in libraries or circulating through second-hand stores. More recently look at the internet it seems they collected the sum total of the series into three volumes, the first being the short stories and the last two being the novels.

Maybe I'll read them one day to see what I think, or maybe someone else'll beat me to it. I still have a lot of skepticism about them though.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90008.The_Complete_Hammer_s_Slammers_Volume_1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90005.The_Complete_Hammer_s_Slammers_Volume_2
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/662698.The_Complete_Hammer_s_Slammers_Volume_3

[bcbm]

'falkenbergs legion' series isn't too bad, at least until the last one (or two?) books. pretty standard military sci fi up to that point. the writer is a reactionary for sure but decent combat scenes and not too vested in politics beyond cynicism. as i recall, its been awhile.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I guess therein is a dilemna though. For what it's worth I think it's pretty possible to have gritty and terrible work of fiction to serve as a reminder or reinforcement of why war is bad, but for some people it's still a problem. It's really difficult I guess for a writer to hit a balance between that and it not coming off as sadistic entertainment.

I do not have anything to contribute in the way of books though. I never really read military sci-fi because the genre seemed too crowded and overdone to me, and likewise I have the same issues that OP has with some the writers' mentality.

That being said a friend of mine once recommended I look at a book series, "Hammers' Slammers" by a David Drake, which he said took a more nuanced look at war in the sense it's not overly jingoistic. The focus of the stories is around a mercenary army that roams around some future society where humanity is scattered across different planets, and these mercenary armies are often employed in disputes between powers and independence movements.

My friend also said that the situations and combat are so messy, that while they may make for interesting imagery and an exciting read it is never glorified, and really meant to be shown as a terrible thing to engage in. At the same time though an acknowledgement that these mercenaries are doing their jobs, so they aren't cliched guys who've had a break with reality, but their enemies often seem to be.

That was a number of years ago though- I never followed up on it because I wasn't sure if he'd actually read the book or not since it is also mentioned on wikipedia's page for military sci-fi. Likewise, like EG said earlier his stuff I've seen seems to be more of the "war is a grand adventure" type deal which makes it read like those annoying young adult novels from the old days when that genre was a big deal. That really is annoying.

I've only been reminded of it with this thread and looked at it further, came across this interesting snippet

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/drake_interview/


In that snippet there's another bit about the author that makes him unique among military sci-fi writers- not only was he in the military but he was serving in a war, in this case having been drafted to fight in Vietnam. Still, I can't help but getting a resigned feeling from people's impressions of these books or from their summaries that it's more an aknowledgement that we'll be stuck with war for a long time, the whole human nature deal.

I don't know how well available these books are though. It seems to've been published in the 70s and 80s and never reprinted, so those books are likely floating around gathering dust in libraries or circulating through second-hand stores. More recently look at the internet it seems they collected the sum total of the series into three volumes, the first being the short stories and the last two being the novels.

Maybe I'll read them one day to see what I think, or maybe someone else'll beat me to it. I still have a lot of skepticism about them though.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90008.The_Complete_Hammer_s_Slammers_Volume_1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90005.The_Complete_Hammer_s_Slammers_Volume_2
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/662698.The_Complete_Hammer_s_Slammers_Volume_3


It's funny that he would make a statement like that, but it's exactly what I meant. Unless it's made explicit, anti-war themes can be hard to spot. The problem I think is that at this point everyone is so familiar with the 'real' side of war due to how wars are covered these days in the news, that things like massacres, abuse of prisoners, etc. etc. don't throw up a red flag to alert the reader/viewer that what they are experiencing is a bad thing, it's just the 'real' thing, which in most people's minds makes it apolitical. Of course it's not apolitical in any way, it's an extreme expression of politics. It's a weird irony we live in where themes/acts/scenes that a century ago would have screamed anti-war, are now just a standard trope of war porn.

I kind of want to read one of his books now and see if he's full of shit, I've never read anything by him in the past.

[The Red Star Rising]

I disagree, the 40k books are unbelievably reactionary. I've used them as airport trash reads for years and every book at the very least involves one act of genocide and countless elitist monologues. My favorite part of those books however are the unintentional erotic undertones that develop as the writers describe how the soldiers look in their armor and then as the soldiers interact with one another. At least I assume it's unintentional based on the intended audience.

Militarism is reactionary by its nature, it would have to follow that all military sci-fi would necessarily be reactionary as well.

The Aliens are all out to get mankind and mankind in turn is divided between Satancthulhu and Jesushitlerwho are out to get all alien, mutants and heretics. Let's take a headcount of the major players shall we?

Madmen addled by literal daemonic powers who range from run of the mill evil to some of the most vile beings ever put to print who generally want the galaxy to burn.

The actual Daemonic legions who serve the dark gods who joyously inflict endless suffering and catastrophe upon the material realm.

Fungoid lefftovers of a universe shaking conflict created to not only be perfect warriors, but to have a culture that demands eternal war and the worship of size and power, and due to breeding by sporing and having genetic memory of everything needed to wage modern war and Orky kultur, will ensure that a world once infested by Orks, is always infested by Orks.

Incredibly racist space elves who gladly sacrifice the lives of trillions of others not of their kind if it means saving a handful of theirs or according to their psychic future vision.

Said Space Elves' evil bretheren who literally feed off of auffering and live in aa society solely devoted to the self, objectivism incarnate with that little push of emotional vampirism.

The vast bulk of humanity which is under the loose auspices of a fascist theocracy that slaughters trillions for genetic flaws, difference of creed, or cozying too much to aliens, nevermind it's xenocidal policies that have turned potential allies of mankind into bitter enemies because they wage wars of annihilation on other species solely for being alien. And Science and Engineering are stagnant under the auspices of an ultra conservative machine cult that condemns whole worlds to die to secure dusty relics and has prevented appreciable advancement of science in eleven thiusand years.

Imperialist mummy robots who instigated the war that is responsible for a good three quarters of all the reasons the galaxy sucks because they were jealous sixty million years ago. They may have taken science to the point where even to other sophisticated factions they may as well be using magic, but their culture is so regressive that their nobility thought the stripping away of sapience from their peasantry was an improvement. Oh and they literally made deals with solar system crushing soul munching incorporeal cosmic vampires.

An Endless swarm of hiveminded organic monstrosities who despite having a gesalt consciousness that thinks on a level far beyond the comprehension of any one being, has taken the path of omnicide to feed itself, and has already stripped a thousand galaxies of any usable materials for life before coming to devour our own. Oh and to navigate they send the bastard offspring of the deep ones and xenomorphs to install mutant cults on other worlds that draw their fleets like cosmic lures.

And finally a rather shadey utilitarian society with a caste system and rather openly authoritarian overtones, but at the very least value individual life and tolerate other creeds and species, they're brand new to the scene, but many human colonies have defected to them and the nicer space elves seem to like them. They are unfortunately, unaware of how awful their reality is.

Effectively, everyone, when taken as a faction, is villainous to some degree. Life sucks, but don't worry, when the Necrons finally awaken in full and the main body of the Tyranids arrive it will all be over. Because everyone is going to die screaming soon, but at least the end of soul possessing sapient life means you get the peace of oblivion rather than a horrific eternity of an afterlife in the warp.

By 40k canon, the situation for the Imperium of Man is at this point, hopeless. They estimated a need for unsustainable and crippling motivation just to fight the Tyranids when it was believed they had only devoured one galaxy beforehand. Now they can at best, slow them down and go into their gullets with a fight. And this isn't even mentioning all their other enemies from the arising Necrons who both outnumber them and have vastly superior technology, the Forces of Chaos who are pushing harder to end the civil war of eleven thousand years past in their favor at last, the Orks who only grow more and more unified every passing day and hope to bring about the WAAAAGH to end all WAAAGHS!, the Eldar and Dark Eldar who have also largely decided that while they cannot avert the end, they won't go quietly, the Tau and innumerable other upstart Alien civilizations circling the dying Imperium like vultures as the Old Wolf dies, and all that.

The Imperium is doomed barring literal miracles of unprecedented scale, the eleven thousand year Fascist Theocracy which has wiped out countless worlds, purged more lives then there are stars in the sky, clamped down on human progress, wiped out thousands of sapient species, cannot even maintain a consistent level of development across it (many worlds of the Imperium are literally still in the stone age and the Imperium doesn't care as long as they can recruit soldiers from them, hell, they tolerate just about any political system so long as it worships the emperor and pays it's taxes and tithes to the Imperium, presumably even communist societies), is now facing it's gotterdammerung. But with quadrillions of men at arms, legions of super soldiers, die-hard fanatacism, an inordinately vast navy, a culture of martyrdom and zealous fanatacism to it's religion, it sure isn't going to die peacefully.

[Rss]

I disagree, the 40k books are unbelievably reactionary. I've used them as airport trash reads for years and every book at the very least involves one act of genocide and countless elitist monologues. My favorite part of those books however are the unintentional erotic undertones that develop as the writers describe how the soldiers look in their armor and then as the soldiers interact with one another. At least I assume it's unintentional based on the intended audience.

Militarism is reactionary by its nature, it would have to follow that all military sci-fi would necessarily be reactionary as well.

Most 40k books are reactionary, there are exceptions though; Ciaphas Cain novels and novels from orkish perspective.

[The Red Star Rising]

I think there's more than a bit of degree in folly in trying to seriously analyze a setting set up in a way to justify every faction always being able to fight any other given faction, including fighting itself. Nevermind sociology, economics, or historical materialism, the laws of physics themselves would render a great deal of 40k impossible. A good part of why 40k is an awful place is because reality warping unassailable gods are real and are actively malevolent. Which is thankfully, not possible (reality warping through simple force of will that is) as per our laws of physics.