So you want to be a military science fiction author . You ’ve register the classic from all the major authors , and you ’ve got a great theme for a novel . Except you have n’t served in the military , and do n’t screw much beyond what you ’ve seen on TV and in movies . Here are 11 books of military history you might need to understand before diving in .
Constructing a war , military organisation and characters are complicated event , that require a bit of legwork in order of magnitude to make a credible world that your characters will function in . as luck would have it , there ’s no dearth of books about military history , and the state of war at any point in human history . For this listing of background reading , I ’ve focused chiefly on modern war , rather than some of the genre ’s more diachronic and foundational books such as The Art of War , History of the Peloponnesian War or On War , both of which are indispensable meter reading for this field .
This Wiley Post was originally published August 8 , 2015 .
So here are some Bible that are worth checking out , to give you some things to think about if you ’re planning on writing military scientific discipline fable :
1)One Bullet Away: The Making Of A Marine Officer, Nathaniel Fick.
Fick was an officer in the United States Marine Corps , where he served in Afghanistan and subsequently as a Recon Marine in Iraq . His memoir of his meter in the service , One bullet train off set about as he joins the Marines in the late nineties , and bear through his breeding at Officer Candidate School . It ’s not until you ’re a third of the way through the book when the attack on the World Trade Center hap , and Fick is off to war .
What makes One Bullet Away a compelling and utilitarian read for a military skill fiction writer is that it ’s firmly about Fick ’s experiences and how that supported his journeying becoming an officeholder . It ’s one of many soldier narratives to follow out of the Iraq / Afghanistan conflicts , but his is one of the better ones that I ’ve study . He lead carefully through his experiences and documents them with a good eye : he ’s an first-class author and does n’t dramatize his experience . We study how he trained , lead and fight , but his language is n’t dynamical — rather , it ’s artistic , and he write out the times that he did see fight like an expert , without bluster or magnification . This is an honest story , and his writing and forthright descriptions make this an fantabulous book to read through and emulate .
2)American Soldiers: Ground Combat In The World Wars, Korea & Vietnam, Peter S. Kindsvatter.
This is more of a scholarly schoolbook , but it covers some really significant topic when it come to hit the books US Military History : how has the experience change for American Soldiers in World War I , World War II , Korea and Vietnam ? Kindsvatter assist in the US Army for over two decades , retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel before becoming the dominate historian at the US Army Ordnance Center and Schools at the Aberdeen Proving Ground . This sound like a bit of a unusual topic , but it ’s an all-important one for anyone wanting to understand the exchange part of the military .
leave aside all of the political and social contexts that put up military strategy and theory , what were the experiences of soldier ( in this instance , US Soldiers ) throughout some of the 20th Century ’s most annihilating difference ? Understanding how individual soldiers and units coped with what they were put to do is a crucial understanding that any story must have . The high - level strategical stuff and nonsense is important , but those case-by-case experiences are equally so .
3)Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
How does a predominantly male fighting violence interact with a society where womanhood are fiercely protect and shelter ? Lemmon ’s book examines the creation of Cultural Support Teams , where woman were deploy alongside Special Operations forces in Afghanistan , where they could help the Army follow with ethnical demand .
The takeaway from this book that I ground important was that army intrude on a alien nation are almost inherently unable to work close with a local population to fulfill their mission . In Iraq and Afghanistan , enormous ethnical differences have embarrass exploit to win over hearts and brain , and programs like this show a new glide slope to the battleground that can aid a military force in its mission . moreover , this underscore just how complicated the field of honor can be — and this is just here on major planet Earth , where we share the same species . This situation would only be more complex when you throw an alien race in the mix , one with ethnical norms that are completely remove from what we have here on Earth .
4)War, Sebastian Junger.
This is a arresting book about the rigourousness of combat . Junger is probably best known for his book , The Perfect Storm , and for the documentary that came out alongside this task , Restrepo . In this loudness , Junger covers the soldier of Battle Company as they were deploy to the deadly Korengal Valley in Afghanistan for over a year . The story is severe and hard , and Junger get out together a complete picture of this company as they spend months in the deadliest part of Afghanistan in 2007 .
What makes War really useful is how focussed it is on the soldiers and how they make out with where they ’re located — this is an intensely personal history of combat . Junger render you with a dizzying array of details , from weapon system types to location , but never does this in a straightforward fashion . And that means he does a lot to capture the disorientate nature of the on-going battle these guy wire wag . The men of Battle Company become on patrol , took fire , lost their lives , and waited for the next battle . Junger capture the boredom and the ups and downs of the combat he witnessed while he was over there . at last , he make out to the last that the soldier on the line do n’t fight for ideology or some abstract ideal : they fight to ensure that the Isle of Man next to them will make it home safely .
5)The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies And What They Mean For World Order, Sean McFate.
Wereviewed McFate ’s book earlier this twelvemonth , and it ’s a Holy Writ that ’s well worth picking up for the sheer figure of ideas that he presents throughout . Looking at the past to see how wars were fight with secret organizations , McFate also extrapolates from the current environment , to bode the future . The war that are descend soon are n’t going to be the sorts of formal wars that we ’ve seen in the yesteryear , or even those like Afghanistan or Iraq : they ’ll be far more complicated and ticklish .
What ’s most valuable about this account book is how he examine the modern twenty-four hour period power social organization , and the ways private military companies on the field of honor can really upend the proportion of power in the world . There ’s nothing wild here like private companies such as Walmart or The Gap form their own armies , but he lay out a compelling argument for what the family relationship between the use of force between governments and these companies . Something to consider in this case is just how force is used in the human beings that you ’re create : is it alone used by a state big businessman , and what are the implication there ?
6)Learning To Eat Soup With A Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, John Nagl.
As the Iraq War raged on in 2007 , the United States deployed an extra 20,000 soldier into the country in what ’s now called the Surge . Part of this mission was to aid bring the warfare under controller , but it also came with some new approaches under General Petraeus . Counterinsurgency became a major issue of treatment within military circle , and the military begin to adopt new strategies forwards attacking a non - ceremonious armed services .
One of the main architects of the Army and Marine ’s raw Counterinsurgency manual was John Nagl , who looked back to the British experiences in Malaysia and the US experience in Vietnam and looked at what lessons could be pull out of both fight . And he ’s written a fascinating book that looks very specifically at some of the tactics that were used , and how successful they were . While there have been some significant issues with the exercise and effectuation of Counterinsurgency tactics , there ’s some genuine virtue to some of the arguments , in the main about how military and soldiers need to operate in complicated battlefields . When it comes to military science fiction , reason and mapping out precisely what prompt an foe force-out or foe civilian body is something that will bring a spot more deepness to the battles that your fancied characters will be fighting , as well as bring your combat and strategy beyond just “ These bozo shoot those guys . ” As a incentive , it ’s worth picking upThe U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual .
7)Wings, Women & War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat, Reina Pennington.
Pennington ’s history of the Aviation Group 122 is an absolute must - take for any readers of military history out there : it ’s a thorough and elaborated account of the fabled female Soviet air unit . In it , Pennington narrate the bravery and technological accomplishment expect of the distaff pilots , who served with distinction during the Second World War .
This story is part of a originate body of scholarship within the military chronicle field that is specifically examining the experience of distaff player in warfare : a universe long discount within the battlefield . The book serves as an excellent examination of the unit throughout some of the most devastating battles during the Second World War . This book is peculiarly utilitarian as an interrogatory of a unit ’s combat book after the fact , but also a pure monitor that some parts of history are simply ignored . It serve as a skilful example of the diaphanous complexness of the conflict , and how wars are staggeringly difficult to sum up in a single text . It ’s good to commemorate that any story about a warfare will tell just a little sliver of the whole picture .
8)Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, P.W. Singer.
We ’ve been fans of P.W. Singer and his books here at io9 for a farsighted metre : wire For War is plausibly one of the best Koran out there about drone pipe and wartime robotics . Along the fashion , Singer peppers his book with reference to science fable novel and movies . What makes this a stand up - out book is n’t so much the ironware that he discusses ( the stuff that ’s on the field of honor now is primitive compared to what will be out there in the make out tenner ) , but how robotics and mechanization shake up the command structure on the field , and what the implications there are .
This is n’t a trivial retainer : leadership on the battlefield is crucial , and the office of commanders superintend an meshing has drastically shifted . In a future tense where technology is pervasive on the battlefield , their persona will stay on to change , as well as the specific relationships between high ranking officers and the soldiers carrying out their orders on the champaign . As a bonus , check out Singer and Austin Cole ’s novel Ghost Fleet , which pull out in a lot of the lessons from this book and some of his others .
9)The Untold War: Inside The Hearts, Minds and Souls of Our Soldiers, Nancy Sherman.
Sherman ’s book covers ground that has gotten a considerable amount of aid in the yr since the origin of the War On Terror in 2001 : the psychological well - being of soldiers go off to war . In this book , she looks at the ethical decisions that soldiers must persist as they go about fulfilling their duties .
This is n’t a book that seem simply at psychological disorder such as PTSD or the physical injury that drastically switch soldier ’ lives : it ’s a deeper look at the cost that warfighting get hold of on soldiers , and how they come to terms with what they might be asked to do . When interpret how soldiers go , it ’s authoritative to realize that their job is among the most unmanageable , and contradictory : being ask to drink down for their country . The price that this can play is high , and understanding this can help add to the worked up depth of one ’s graphic symbol .
10)Vietnamese Women at War: Fighting For Ho Chi Minh and the Revolution, Sandra C. Taylor.
This is an interesting , donnish text that I in the first place understand for my skipper ’s degree . In it , Taylor examines the experiences of female soldiers during the Vietnam War and the complicated role that they played on the battlefield .
Taylor not only explore what the women did on the battlefield — but also , the complicated ways in which warfare and gender interact . war is perceive as a for the most part a male - dominated job , despite the legion contribution of women to generation of warfare . This book is very utilitarian in that it explores these topics as sociology , rather than as straight up account , and it serves as a useful admonisher to would - be military science fiction writers that on the field of honor , gender is both complicated and an of import broker to consider .
11)Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Armyby Kayla Williams.
Kayla Williams ’s memoir follows her experiences as one of the adult female in the US Army . Enlisting before September 11th , she by and by serve in Iraq and dealt with the complicated and contradictory experience that she found there .
Williamas talk about her own , personal experiences serving in the US Military , and this is a solid example of the ‘ Solider Memoir ’ genre , in which soldiers go back and narrate their own experience . This , and other entries in the genre , impersonate war from the viewpoint of the individual soldier present the foe , and this personal view is crucial above all others : what is war like for the multitude who wage it ? After all , the drama in a military scientific discipline fiction novel comes down on the central characters , and their own struggles with armed combat in the near or far future .
The above certainly is n’t an exhaustive list . The military history publishing field has a nearly infinite bit of books about the subject field , and there ’s going to be a lot of others that will help with specific situations , epoch , tactics and equipment that you’re able to draw upon . What books of military history do you find most useful for conceive of a science - fictitious war scenario ?
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