4 ms·

What books are your favourite military scifi?

stevekemp 3y ago
Not the parent but The Forever War by Joe Haldemann is a classic. (As is Starship Troopers). For something different, think "navel warfare in space", the Lost Fleet series from Jack Campbell dealt with relativistic effects in space, with regard to combat, and the difficulties of predicting where/when people were.
- bl0b 3y ago
  I enjoyed the Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee. It also is labelled a space opera and has a decent amount of naval warfare in space
- _0ffh 3y ago
  As you mention "naval warfare in space", David Webers "Honor Harrington" series is apparently quite well regarded. Weber himself has described the series as "Horatio Hornblower" in space.
Scubabear68 3y ago
The CoDominium series by Jerry Pournelle and David Drake. The Empire of Man novels by Weber and Ringo. Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. The General series by S.M. Stirling and David Drake.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. I think most people usually don't consider Tom Clancy to be a science fiction writer, but these two books (his best two by far, FWIW) both feature speculative technology central to the story. Red October features a magneto-hydrodynamic drive for a submarine; MHD drives work for real in the small scale but without great superconductors it doesn't scale well to work for a full scale military submarine. In Red Storm Rising there are F-19 stealth jets based off rumors of the F-117. They get a few things wrong (smooth continuous curves instead of flat facets, poor stealth from below, armed with anti-aircraft missiles, etc) but on the whole they were reasonably grounded speculation. If you're not convinced, here is a longer argument for Red October (the film) being hard science fiction: https://qntm.org/october https://qntm.org/october
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  > Tom Clancy to be a science fiction writer This is a canonical examples of the sub-genre / crossover category named "Techno-thriller" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-thriller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-thriller
tekla 3y ago
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQUKZMY/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQUKZMY/ It's basically 21st Century Naval Warfare in space. I quite enjoyed it. A lot of thought was put into the world.

Not the parent but The Forever War by Joe Haldemann is a classic. (As is Starship Troopers). For something different, think "navel warfare in space", the Lost Fleet series from Jack Campbell dealt with relativistic effects in space, with regard to combat, and the difficulties of predicting where/when people were.

bl0b 3y ago
I enjoyed the Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee. It also is labelled a space opera and has a decent amount of naval warfare in space
_0ffh 3y ago
As you mention "naval warfare in space", David Webers "Honor Harrington" series is apparently quite well regarded. Weber himself has described the series as "Horatio Hornblower" in space.

Scubabear68 3y ago

The CoDominium series by Jerry Pournelle and David Drake. The Empire of Man novels by Weber and Ringo. Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. The General series by S.M. Stirling and David Drake.

mcpackieh 3y ago

Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. I think most people usually don't consider Tom Clancy to be a science fiction writer, but these two books (his best two by far, FWIW) both feature speculative technology central to the story. Red October features a magneto-hydrodynamic drive for a submarine; MHD drives work for real in the small scale but without great superconductors it doesn't scale well to work for a full scale military submarine. In Red Storm Rising there are F-19 stealth jets based off rumors of the F-117. They get a few things wrong (smooth continuous curves instead of flat facets, poor stealth from below, armed with anti-aircraft missiles, etc) but on the whole they were reasonably grounded speculation. If you're not convinced, here is a longer argument for Red October (the film) being hard science fiction: https://qntm.org/october https://qntm.org/october

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
> Tom Clancy to be a science fiction writer This is a canonical examples of the sub-genre / crossover category named "Techno-thriller" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-thriller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-thriller

tekla 3y ago

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQUKZMY/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQUKZMY/ It's basically 21st Century Naval Warfare in space. I quite enjoyed it. A lot of thought was put into the world.