Everyone's a WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi Thread

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Everyone's a WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi Thread

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StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

So in what book did Honor commit the warcrime? Quit evading the question.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 15:45

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:32

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

occamsnailfile posted:

There was at least one occasion when Honor was going to shoot a POW out of hand. Now, the guy was miserable scum, but still protected under space law etc. One of her subordinates knocked her gun aside--so she almost did, but the plot saved her. I can't remember any of the other details like which book, who the guy was specifically, or who prevented her from shooting, but having a murderous temper is one of her major character traits.

That said, since she's the protagonist and we're supposed to like her, she doesn't generally go around bombing civilians or any of the other atrocities her enemies routinely commit to convince us of their evilness. I guess that's something I have trouble with in a lot of MilSF, is that there can't just be a war that nobody really wants but can't quite be avoided (a la WWI) and where there may be individually exceptional or despicable individuals but mostly it's just people. I think the closest I've seen that I can remember offhand was actually that weird trilogy by Timothy Zahn where humans and aliens were fighting and the war was caused because radio communications caused psychic damage to the aliens. It wasn't a very good series but at least it didn't present things as black and white.

Okay, thank you for answering the question.

Regarding a war neither side wants to fight I'd point you to the Lost Fleet series. As the series proceeds it becomes clear that no one remembers how the war started...and while the protagonist whoops a whole lot of Syndic rear end he is instrumental in making peace happen and finding out why they went to war in the first place.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 20:17

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Larry Parrish posted:

And drake gets mentioned a few times in the OP's quotes but to those who might not know, much like Haldemann he's a Vietnam vet and so a little old and out of touch compared to young folks but hes definitely not a protofascist. Like the Hammer's Slammers stories are all about how awful people can be when their only identity is tied in with being a soldier, not that they're good and cool for being utterly detached from their humanity

Read his Redliners, it's great

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 20:38

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Kchama posted:

Oh. I'm very sorry NoNostalgia4Grover for not making this myself. I've been in a slump and was finally feeling okay enough to even look at SomethingAwful and was like "Okay let's see what the Scifi thread has to say before I make this" and it turns out you did it. So thanks.

Did you write up anything? I wanna see it if so.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 21:15

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

90s Cringe Rock posted:

You can believe that if it helps you sleep at night.

the tank orgasms as it kills russians

What the gently caress is that from

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 21:42

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

NoNostalgia4Grover posted:

Kind of want to discuss C. J. Cherryh's 3 or 4 Mil-Scifi books

Wait, she wrote more than one Mil Sci-fi novel? I only knew about Hellburner! Please, tell me more!

# ¿ Jun 28, 2019 15:49

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Bolo stuff is interesting, but I've come to warn against the political screed masquerading as a Bolo novel: Road to Damascus by John Ringo. It's garbage front to back, and you would not believe how evil a welfare system is.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2019 17:34

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Darth Walrus posted:

Mind you, Japan does have good milSF as well. Legend of the Galactic Heroes blows most Western offerings out of the water, and the Gundam franchise includes some solid contributions to the genre.

Favorite dumb fun detail about the Gundam novel by Tomino: big bad Char has velcro boots so he can walk around in his ship properly. Picturing the sound of that as he walks is great.

The rest of it is surprisingly good "war sucks" stuff.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2019 19:23

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

pmchem posted:

Do any of the posters in this thread actually like the genre the thread was made to talk about, and can recommend good books/series? or is the purpose of this thread just to say how bad books in the genre are?

I enjoy military sci-fi! Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell is really good space battles, and in Warhammer 40k land Gaunt's Ghosts by Dan Abnett is great infantry in space stuff. What kind of military sci-fi are you looking for?

# ¿ Jun 30, 2019 19:56

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

"Quiz/Reading Comprehension Questions�multiple choice/short answer questions to
test reading comprehension:
1. Who are the �Dolists� and what problem do they pose for the Republic of Haven?
(chap. 1)

answer to 1
". The Dolists are the �mob,� the people who have supported Haven�s wars in order
to have a better standard of living. They are �on the dole,� dependent on
government support to live. The are �useless drones� who are sucking up
resources without contributing. Their demands contribute to Haven�s need to
conquer new territory in order to keep their economy viable"

that's not how welfare works, weber!

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 02:00

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Kchama posted:

Well, yeah. But Weber has no idea how this poo poo works. He said in one of his Pearls of Weber that Haven is explicitly America and its welfare system. So even though he's drawing on a specific thing, he literally has no idea how it works.

aaaggghhh

As a disabled person who cannot work and relies on the government and my parents to keep me afloat this pisses me off extra hard.

Also can you imagine the sheer lack of empathy it takes to decide that it would be okay for poverty to exist

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 03:59

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Arcsquad12 posted:

On the topic of "good" MilSF is there any title out there with a particularly interesting take on space combat? I was watching a trailer for that new FPS game where astronauts have guns and they fight in zero G and all I could think was "this would be a bloodbath in real life" because no ACS could move an astronaut fast enough to dodge a bullet without also killing or crippling the user due to the forces at play.
The big issue I find with a lot of SF space warfare in the MilSF subgenre is that it is really easy to come up with caveats that make your proposed method of combat appear suicidal, and the only solution is to continually move away from micro scale conflict to macro scale where you have tens of thousands of remote operated drone ships fighting across millions of kilometers in pre-planned maneuvers that have taken years to position properly. The vastness of space and the difference of fighting in a vacuum compared to terrestrial or atmospheric engagements is so overwhelming at times I have trouble comprehending how we would actually do it in a way that isn't completely insane or predetermined to be genocidal.

So if realism is out the window, what are some interesting ways that MilSF books deputy space warfare? Better yet, is there a book that takes my issues above with the troubles of fighting in space and proposes the solution "we fight really, really poorly"? Like the people within the book admit they do t know how to fight in space, and the solutions they fall upon are acknowledged to be terrible and costly and a driving factor is finding better ways to fight that aren't horrendous disasters.

Realism isn't out the window yet!

Nightrider by David Lance contained incredible orbital combat between two starships, and then a great sequence for the astronauts on the ground in big bulky suits meant for combat...kind of. It was a great subversion of space marine powerarmor, actually, and I loved how intricate combat in space was.

It's not technically military sci-fi as that's not the primary focus, and it's really well written, but hey - it's good, go look at it.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 11:07

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

ToxicFrog posted:

If you weren't also recommending Moon and Bujold in this post I'd assume you were trolling. The Lost Fleet books were pretty bad. Not politically odious (that I recall), unlike a lot of books discussed here, just supremely dumb. All the ink that would have been spilled on the evils of the welfare state in the pen of another author is instead spent explaining the difference between heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships (sometimes multiple times per book); the rest is spent with the protagonist kicking the poo poo out of everything because he's the only person in the entire setting who comprehends basic tactics (seriously, that's the explicit premise of the series) and on a head-trauma-inducingly stupid love triangle subplot that requires everyone involved to be shockingly childish and petty.

Not trolling when I rec the Lost Fleet books. They're perfect military sci-fi schlock that I devoured like popcorn and intend to reread someday soon. I really enjoyed how he wrote the space battles? I mean, compared to Nightrider it's pure garbage but if you want to turn off your brain and enjoy cool space battles with tolerable human drama, it's a lot of fun.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 23:52

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I think 1632 is becoming my favorite thing out of Baen next to Vorko stuff. It's so optimistic and happy. :kimchi:

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 14:40

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Epicurius posted:

I hate 1632. Its just so....I dont even know how to describe it. Mike Stearns is always inevitably right, anybody who disagrees with him is an idiot or evil, and every early modern person inevitably sees how much more awesome Grantville values are than theirs.

It also just gets a lot of the early modern personalities wrong....it makes the Sazon dukes opponents of the Emperor when they were moderate Lutherans who were Imperial loyalists, it has Oxertina betray Gustafus Adolphus as part of a plot to preserve the traditional nobility when the real guy was fanatically loyal to the king and did a lot to open up the Swedish government to non-nobles, and so on.

It's so optimistic it becomes saccharine, yeah. It's just about the sweetest, most wholesome alternate history thing I've ever read, and I don't even care that Flint got some facts wrong. Give me more of good people being right and good, thank you, it's such a breath of fresh air after reading so much Warhammer stuff.

Also I would disagree that "every early modern person sees how awesome Grantville is" is true - a large chunk of this novel has been spent on the germans going "what the gently caress are they doing, they're insane. but they've got booze and guns so they can be insane" which isn't the same as "democracy is the best hell yeah" that I went in expecting.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 17:46

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Kchama posted:

I think the keyword was 'inevitably'.

Though I'm pretty sure there's like a dozen sequels. Can't say if any of them are good as I abandoned Flint after Crown of Slaves.

Fair point. Democracy is the best and they'll come around once the Americans have beaten it into them, obvs :v:

And yes: the very next sequel is co-written with Weber, so, uh, we'll see if my enjoyment of this book overcomes my desire to follow your warning to avoid Weber. There are also new sequels coming out - Flint keeps finding co-authors.

e: Oh and while the romances are sweet, they're also frustrating as hell because it's like the second a good man spots a good woman they fall instantly in love and are the perfect couple forever. Flint, please do not write romances again please please

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 18:01

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

1632: an American cheerleader/crackshot demonstrating her sniping skills for the King of Sweden with Tilly's officers as targets is the most unashamed nonsense I have ever read. God I love it!

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 22:32

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

"don't read the bad book," says the thread

screw you dad I do what I want

1633 and its sequel the Baltic War are in the mail and I am hoping Flint can restrain Weber long enough to write more cool Americans being bros with the Swedes

# ¿ Jul 11, 2019 01:01

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

so I peeked in the back of the Seer, an actually cool and good fantasy novel recently published by Baen, and it had a semi-decent "if you liked x, try y" section...followed by a page about Robert Conroy.

A few gems from his bibliography:

1862 (2006), ISBN 978-0345482372, is based on what might have happened had the United Kingdom entered into the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy after an actual international incident in which that did not happen.
Himmler's War (2011), ISBN 978-1451637618, deals with what might have happened if Hitler had been killed in 1944, and leadership of Nazi Germany had passed to Himmler, who then adopts a considerably different strategy.
North Reich (2012) ASIN B008BVXZXO (e-book only), considers if Britain had surrendered to Nazi Germany, and had a fascist regime installed across the Commonwealth and Empire, with Canada becoming a base from which Germany prepares to launch a war against the United States.
1882: Custer in Chains (2015), ISBN 978-1476780511, depicts George Armstrong Custer surviving and winning the Battle of Little Big Horn. As a result, he is elected President in 1880 and two years later provokes a war with Spain and its decaying empire after an incident involving an American ship being massacred near Cuba.
Germanica (2015), ISBN 978-1476780566, Joseph Goebbels prolongs World War II by building a German redoubt in the Alps.

dude really liked Nazis

# ¿ Jul 12, 2019 11:14

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Epicurius posted:

I read a bunch of his stuff, until I realized he had written one book multiple times.

1. Some alt-history historical event happens that means the bad guys attack the US (imperial Germany attacks, Victorian Britain attacks. Canada goes Nazi and the Germans attack through Canada, the Japanese take over Hawaii, the Nazis and the Soviets team up and attack, etc)

2. It looks bad for the US, because we're outnumbered and caught off guard. How can we survive?

3. American pluck and can-do-itness wins in the end, and the world is saved. Hurrah!

That's actually not as bad as I was afraid of, huh! That's...actually kind of adorable. Retired dude writes America "ooh-rah!" stories up until he passes.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2019 14:23

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Let's talk about Turtledove and how much he fuckin' sucks!

Specifically, his Darkness series. It has the world's coolest covers:

These covers tempted me to read at least two books in this series. They're so cool I should buy posters of them.

The problem with this series is that it's boring. It's just a slow retelling of WWII with some magic tossed in and basically nothing interesting at all. The idea of Leviathans replacing submarines is badass but he does nothing with it and it sucks.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2019 20:18

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Aerdan posted:

For all that Weber's a hack (and Honor Harrington purportedly a Mary Sue ), at least he's not Jean Johnson, who wrote a whole series where the MC is explicitly a Mary Sue.

Hey! Jean Johnson didn't just make her a Mary Sue, she went all out and was obviously having so much fun with it that I can't hate her for it. Mary Su Ia surfboarded a flood wave, killed more aliens than you ever will, and beat up the resident squid overpowered aliens just because she caaaaan.

It's fabulously terrible. Far better an author who goes full silly/dramatic than one who does it unintentionally.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2019 01:21

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Larry Parrish posted:

I read Joe Kasabian's Citizen of Earth, which is really good. I finished it in a night but I read really fast due to 10 years of playing MUDs so I dunno if it's all that short or not. It's like an actually good Starship Troopers I guess. Actually it kind of read like one long action sequence from one of the Expeditionary Force novels which in my opinion is good. Highly recommend as a actually good mil scifi book

Anyway it continues the trend of infantry guys always writing the best ones of these kinds of books

Also it's like $2 or $3. Support leftist troops

I'll look this up, thanks! In return you might be interested in Charles Gannon's Caine series. It's not military sci-fi but it's adjacent, it's a sci-fi thriller about exposing corporate abuses and preparing the Earth for potential alien warfare.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2019 13:50

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Someone tell me about Mark L Van Name before I cave in and buy the omnibus of his first two Jon+Lobo books. They sound like fun space thrillers with an angsty dude and his AI starship pal.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2019 17:22

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

NoNostalgia4Grover posted:

On the other hand, physical Baen Book titles are easily identified, and avoided what you know what to look for.
-Overall glossiness of the book cover + book art-cover
-Huge ALL CAPS fonts for the author name + smaller font for the title

Kchama posted:

Also being so awful that a dark miasma radiates from them, filling the air with sickening.

Let me tell you it was the weirdest feeling to pick up the Seer and go "oh I like this coverart" and then see Baen on the spine. It was like I'd walked into a parallel dimension.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2019 20:48

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I bought Grunt Life by Weston Ochse on ebay. It's coming in a few weeks. It's by the author of SEAL TEAM 666.

It's about a dude who commits suicide, gets stopped and drafted into the military so he can be part of the super special secret team that's prepared to fight invading aliens. To join this squad, you must have tried to commit suicide.

quote:

THE INVASION IS OVER. THEY ARE ALREADY AMONGST US.

Benjamin Carter Mason died last night. Maybe he threw himself off a bridge into Los Angeles Harbor, or maybe he burned to death in a house fire in San Pedro; it doesn�t really matter. Today, Mason�s starting a new life. He�s back in boot camp, training for the only war left that matters a drat.

For years, their spies have been coming to Earth, learning our weaknesses. Our governments knew, but they did nothing�the prospect was too awful, the costs too high�and now, the horrifying and utterly inhuman Cray are laying waste to our cities. The human race is a heartbeat away from extinction. That is, unless Mason, and the other men and women of Task Force OMBRA, can do anything about it.

This is a time for heroes. For killers. For Grunts.

It's published by Solaris. They won't let me down, right? Right?

e: For reference, Solaris also published Yoon Ha Lee (loved their stuff) and Chuck Wendig and other genuinely good stuff.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2019 01:59

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

occamsnailfile posted:

I mean. I'd try reading it, though I probably would get it from the library or find it abandoned somewhere and pick it up or whatever. Solaris does some good work generally so you have at least an even chance of something not terrible.

My library sadly doesn't have access to SEAL TEAM 666 or this book :sigh:

No taste, no taste at all.

(if it helps, this was the final book in an ebay bulk order so I could get a discount - got two czernedas, a nalini singh (shush I love PNRs) and was looking for something to fill out the choices and this seemed like a fun bet)

# ¿ Aug 2, 2019 02:19

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Arcsquad12 posted:

I found a bunch of old paperbacks called The Lost Regiment today in a used book bin. They looked like MilSF. Anyone know about this series and if there's any red flags?

The top review of it on goodreads written by Carol Storm (can't link because I'm on mobile and the goodreads app is garbage) describes it as the Union vs Genghis Khan in space, and as a rebuttal to Turtledove's Guns of the South. No whitewashing the Confederacy, etc.

I haven't read it yet but I own it and I am deeply curious

# ¿ Aug 2, 2019 03:09

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

occamsnailfile posted:

I am fortunate in that I have access to a university library that will move heaven and earth for even the dumbest ILL requests so I’ve had good luck in that.

On the milsf front I’ve been reading Blaze Wards Science Officer stories. I call them milsf because of overall tone I think, they are very thoroughly action oriented and the lead is very ex-mil. Maybe they’re closer to the idea of Men’s Adventure fiction in some ways but without the pretense of being true stories. At any rate I’ve found them tolerable but the obvious eventual romance is as tiresome as a bodice ripper.

My library system has access to 60+ libraries wow!! ... They're all tiny upstate NY libraries so the selection is decent but I am so jealous of Syracuse. City libraries have basically anything but that's too far to drive. Instead I must surround myself in piles of books, some of them straight garbage I bought online to sate my curiosity. When will I be rid of them? Never. This is my hell.

Your adventure/mil-sci-fi reminds me of the Caine Riordan books by Gannon that I'm reading - the first book effortlessly segued from thriller/conspiracy to sci-fi and now the second book is straight military sci-fi. It retains a thriller feel throughout, but, well - warzones.

One of the coolest things about this second book (Trial by Fire) is that it features a unique alien invasion. The aliens are at the end of a long supply chain, they want to conquer instead of destroy, and their ground troops have rough parity with ours so it's turned into space Vietnam. They control space but not the ground and I am eating this up.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2019 03:22

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Deptfordx posted:

I missed this, Link?

Right off of their wikipedia: They adopted one boy in 1966, Scott David.[9][10] They adopted a younger girl between 1966 and 1969.[10] In 1969 they lost custody of both children and each were sentenced to a year in jail from separate trials after pleading guilty to child abuse.[11][12]

There are newspaper articles detailing that the children were bruised to hell and terrified

# ¿ Aug 3, 2019 20:28

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

PupsOfWar posted:

one thing im discovering is RIngo is apparently super pro-Rhodesia

that's...that's a bit of a racism deep-cut even for a right-wing military fiction author

i dont think you'd catch Weber or SM Stirling or whoever going "actually the selous scouts were cool"

if i wanted to characterize a protagonist as a hardened Cold Warrior who kept fighting in other awful colonial wars after Vietnam, i'd go with something mainstream like the american proxy war against the Sandanistas , something many american audiences would still accept uncritically

i would not go with the guys who were so racist and tyrannical that apartheid south africa considered backing them to be a bad look

Thanks for this post, I had no idea what Rhodesia was and after perusing their wikipedia article - :stare:

# ¿ Aug 10, 2019 11:50

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

PupsOfWar posted:

I will probably need to at least skim some of his zombie books before I can do so. For posting about Ringo I can mostly lean on details I remember from a long time ago, but, if we want to talk about Patterns in his writing at any level more specific than "war man bad", it would be weird to do so without including Ringo in his most evolved form. I aint giving the man money, so this will have to wait til I am near a town large enough to have a library large enough to have those in stock.

Before I enter Hell, however, I suppose I should do some Positive Recommendations

1. Two Mil-SF short stories I enjoy are Morrigan in the Sunglare and Morrigan in Shadow, by TBB's own poster General Battuta. The Baru novels and his video game writing get talked about plenty on SA, but I think people forget he also has a goodly amount of short fiction that can be read for free on the internet. These two specifically are adapted from a Freespace 2 mod he wrote for, meaning that they are, I guess, a type of fanfic. I am pro-fanfic though so this is fine in my book.

Battuta's work is apropos to this thread since the Hard Man Making Hard Choices is such a ubiquitous mil-SF trope. His work almost always features the Hard Man Making Hard Choices as its central conceit, but is more about how this type of power transaction breaks your brain and whether it is fundamentally irreconcilable with being a functional human.

2. Dickson's Dorsai series is as foundational to the subgenre as Starship Troopers is, even though Dickson got memory-holed and Heinlein didn't. I wouldn't call these books good as such, but, as with a lot of these old guys, I find the baroque and melodramatic stylings of the original material more enjoyable to read than its prosaic immitators from the 90s. If you read these, try to track down the oldest versions rather than the later revisions.

3. For some reason, Steakley's Armor does not get talked about on SA as often as Haldeman's The Forever War, even though they are equally tentpoles of mil-SF in the aftermath of Vietnam. This is a crime - if you're gonna read one, you should also read the other.

4. Glen Cook's written stuff besides Black Company and Dread Empire - read Starfishers you cowards

5. My final rec is the Argentine alien invasion comic El Eternauta.

I used to have a link to the full thing (I'm not sure whether that would count as as I don't know if the author's estate was liquidated after he was murdered by the Videla government) but can't find it now. Anyway it definitely counts as mil-SF imho.

These are all good recs and I'm gonna look them up. Thank you!

# ¿ Aug 18, 2019 13:18

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Kchama: hope you're having a good holiday season, just wanted to let you know that I'm looking forward to the next chapter of this trainwreck. It's certainly saving me from ever reading the damned thing. I tried no less than three separate times and never made it beyond chapter nine or so.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2019 03:59

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I'm so glad this is back, and I'm glad you had a good holidays. Shame the book isn't exactly rewarding the effort here...

# ¿ Dec 29, 2019 03:25

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Has the plot advanced at all? It's like she got to Basilisk Station and now the plot is suspended while she grinds loot and reputation off the easy mobs.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2019 03:56

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

ahahah naw I'm still here, lurking. Keep on posting you brave idiot goon

# ¿ Jan 1, 2020 12:35

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Excuse me, the treecat worship is perfect and I wouldn't have it any other way. I like how it's a cat/parrot fusion and loves making a mess and being terrible.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2020 11:58

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I'm sorry. I tried. I can't read that. My eyes just...stopped working.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2020 21:51

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

mllaneza posted:

Camelot
S.N. Lewitt

Lewitt is a pretty obscure author, but she's done work. We'll see her again when I pick up my review of The Fleet.

Camelot is a peaceful planet, they're basically cosplaying a golden age. New settlers take on names that are setting appropriate. Our PoV character, "Jazz for Jasper" takes the name Geoffrey and marries a local girl. Things go well, life is good, then pirates land in a wheat field, zap a few locals with plasma guns and demand all the portable wealth. The get it. Then they say they'll be back for the harvest and maybe a few of the prettier boys and girls.

The locals form a militia, but they've got nothing by way of weapons. They scrape up all their foreign exchange and send a delegation offworld to purchase weapons. naturally, since this is a Bolo story, Jazz-for-Geoffrey and a buddy take the trip and they're veterans of the Dinochrome Brigade. Geoffrey commanded Bolos in the field and Frederick was a top-flight mechanic. They end up purchasing a decommissioned Mk. XXIV Bolo (they served with XXXs, so this one is obsolete and demilitarized).

Unit KNY of the Line makes short work of the pirates, but then the story's main dilemma rars it's ugly head. How does a ten kiloton sentient combat AI fit into life in an idyllic pastoral society ?

Easily, Unit KNY is a sentient being in armor and there is precedent in Camelot for armored protectors. Sir Kenny will protect Camelot until the last flicker in his survival center goes out.

pops head into thread

oh hey! I really love SN Lewitt's novels, her Cyberstealth/Dancing Vac trilogy is a real solid sci-fi fusion with Top Gun. Finding out that she wrote a cool bolo story makes me excited to go find and read it, thanks!

# ¿ May 31, 2020 02:32

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:32

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

mllaneza posted:

Good news ! That, and Lost Legion, are the two sample stories from this volume ! It's a good story, enjoy ! The link will go to Lost Legion, hit the Contents link to get the ToC.
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0671721844/0671721844.htm

This is sweet, but I am the lucky owner of Bolo v1-4! Apparently SN Lewitt wrote TWO bolo stories and I have them both. I'm so happy, I was able to find the books.

... I also found my old Man-Kzin Wars collection. Despite owning like five of them, I haven't read any of them. Has anyone in here read 'em?

# ¿ Jun 1, 2020 00:56

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Everyone's a WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi Thread

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