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Upon reading the Wheel of Time saga, one of the things that intrigues me the most is the sudden knowledge of military tactics that Mat Cauthon gets, in one of the books.
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Lemme guess, it was a 'sleeper has awaken! 0.0' Dune moment, right?
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Except Satan's armies are effectively from the bronze age.
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But really strong and fast right? ;D
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I...can't unrecommended TSW enough. I actually, I should war you that military fiction in general is simply bad and military fan-fic (which is what that is) is worse.
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Haha, I can see why that is true. Except for (what I've read), Orphanage series, and The Eagles series. I've read every orphanage except the last one which is yet to be released - it's appropriately dramatic and romantic (yes, believe me; this all hinges on believable characters) but has ironic humor at the same time. What is most exciting is how everything shifts rapidly from book to book, so you know that the story isn't going to be the same each time. In fact, the 'sequels' take place at different times in the protagonist's life, and could probably be read independently of one another (like an action serial or something; which is a nice touch - though I made sure to read them all in proper order).
The Eagles is at times boring, but also holds onto incredibly believable characters not unlike who you might encounter in real life (it's speculative fiction after all). It talks endlessly about military tactics, and weapons, but this does not get dull (at least for me; after all, the original protagonist in the first two books was a smith). In most of the battles, something happens that changes everything so that you don't know where the climax will show up - which is realistic. Naturally, a battle is abrupt and changes things. Especially in an age with less forgiving technology. Each story I've read so far is basically 'was this the climax? oh no it wasn't. it's still coming!', which for me, is pretty exciting. In the second one (singing sword) the
The climax and resolution was pretty abrupt, tragic, and right out of nowhere but it felt pretty satisfying. Not at all an ass pull. Like somehow, you knew it was coming, but it couldn't be prevented. Very effective story telling I think. |
(spoiler)
Can you guess which setting belongs to which series? One is Mil-SF of the near future, involving a bug war, and the other is britain during the fall of the roman empire.
They say that an author has to experience the franticness of war in real life in order to write proper mil fic. However, I find that to be down right abusive to our humble potentially intelligent author who, while interested in shooting a gun at a target range, would not like to be slogging in mud or having somebody shouting at him for 6 months to a year before he has to hang out with uneducated thugs that probably end up having a firm grip on the leash that military service puts around his neck. At the end of all that, he probably doesn't value intelligence and is abstructed by such severe writer's block resultant from many buried incidents of PTSD that shoot up throughout the years - that he ends up like Tolkien, and takes at least another 30 years to get everything down on paper in the right order to appopriately describe the moments in life when he felt the most 'alive', in order to appropriately romanticize what the cruel reading community would otherwise consider utter garbage.
So no, an author doesn't need to experience the franticness of war - if he wants to do that, then his best career opportunity is SOLDIER (which itself leads to inspriing lines of work, like law enforcement, paramedic, technician, mechanic, command, or sergeant, but NOT WRITER).
So yeah, an author needs the right insight - not experience. Authors that readers want to respect in america are the ones that travel the friggen world. For some reason, having money and traveling gets you respect. No, in fact, it shouldn't. Non-fiction writers are the only ones that need to travel, because they write non-fiction and not getting your facts straight in non-fiction = right to be stoned. For everything else there's google images and wikipedia and many many hours of free time. That's it. Doing it the old fashioned way is silly. We aren't adventuring bards, are we? We're fat (metaphorical if not literal), lonely writers - a step below the dude with the guitar at college who seduces girls with his music and 'sensitiveness'. That is, until we can sell.
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You need to check out Osprey's military book line. I can't stress that enough.
Also Machiavelli's Art of War is a good read into pre-firearm battles and the pre/post processes.
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Given that both are probably recommended non-fiction at a website for people that like to role play FANTASY and SCI FI, I'll wait until I happen to stumble upon a history course that assigns those as readings. :P
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I...can't unrecommended TSW enough.
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You can't unrecommended? Unreccomendededededededed... what are you stammering?
Unremmondedingstoofalwithen!!!!