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The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

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Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#61

Post by angersock »

aetherson wrote: post #22
angersock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't really care for Old Man's War . It's a fun read, but it's popcorn. It was a bit too juvenile nanotech wankfest for me. Nominally it looks at subjects like long life, implanted AIs, etc., but it doesn't really do anything with them other than go "squeeeee look at the tooyyyyyys". EDIT: If you want to just bask in the sheer glory of superior firepower and gallows humor, and maybe even occasionally see somethin…

The greatest crime of Old Man's War is that it has a wonderful hook: we don't want 18 year olds, we want our recruits to be canny and wise and experienced, so we recruit 70 year olds and rejuvenate them... And then it does basically nothing with that. The 70 year old soldiers distinguish themselves in no way from the 30ish protagonists of every other scifi story.

Exactly!

If your entire setup is "But we want to use old folks!", then you should really delve into old prejudices, being unable to change worldviews, reflections on what it means to move to what is effectively a Valhalla of endless figthing and fornication divorced from your previous life, etc.

None of that stuff shows up though.

By contrast, look at the entire handling of, say, Mandella and the changing standards towards homosexuality portrayed in The Forever War, and the dissonance of the veterans with younger troops about the purpose of the mission and the validity of the government and its past actions.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#62

Post by marktangotango »

davidw wrote: post #38
mrec wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd second the Hammer's Slammers rec. Don't be put off by the lurid pictures of ZOMG TANKS!!! on the covers of some editions; it's a lot more nuanced than the name and artwork imply. I'd also recommend his Redliners , which deals in large part with the need to re-establish empathy between soldiers and the civilians they fight for. Some elements of the plot get a bit silly, but Drake was exorcising some serious person…

Jerry Pournelle has some fun military sci-fi too. I don't care at all for the guy's politics, but some of the stories are good. Actually, I mostly read for entertainment, so I tend to favor stories that are first and foremost entertaining and interesting stories, rather than things trying to Send A Message.

If we're pulling old authors out of a hat, check out H. Beam Pipers stuff, in particular 'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen' and 'Space Vikings'. Edit; my reference to Pournelle was in error, apologies!

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#63

Post by omegaham »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #33
gregjwild wrote: post #4

'“To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise.” It’s one of the best books about war, period' I'd probably raise that on Gibson. It's one of the best books, period. "The protagonist, an almost-anagrammed stand-in for Haldeman named Mandella, is hurled across far reaches of the galaxy to fight a poorly understood, apparently undefeatable foe." In that…

I often read comments like this about The Forever War and I'm never sure if I read the same book. I enjoyed it but it seemed an awful lot more shallow than it's given credit for. It just seemed to me that it raised lots of ideas but never really explored them fully. I found it a bit 'thin'. Perhaps that was intentional as a corollary to the breakneck pace of time-dilation Mandella faced and the societal change he fac…

> I found it a bit 'thin'. Perhaps that was intentional as a corollary to the breakneck pace of time-dilation Mandella faced and the societal change he faced. I always felt out of place and behind as a reader, never really finding myself fully immersed in the story Haldeman was telling, always wanting to stop and see more about how things had changed. I guess the 'world building' wasn't as good as I hoped for.

I think that this was a conscious choice by Haldeman - he wanted you to feel as lost as Mandella, who got a brief glimpse of a culture before being plunged yet again into another relativistic journey into the future. The only constant in his life was the Army, as inhuman and brutal as it was. I thought it was a good choice, but I can definitely see why you'd be frustrated with it.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#64

Post by dragonwriter »

shepardrtc wrote: post #27
sampo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> paen to the military I always thought Starship Troopers was meant to be a satire, not praise for war. Just like Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. isn't a patriotic song.

You are correct, it is satirical. But its a common misconception that its some sort of military love-letter. Edit: So I assume that downvotes now are a form of disagreement rather than a measure of contribution to the discussion.

> You are correct, it is satirical.

I don't think that's the case; I think that it isn't simplistically prescriptive the way that shallow readings usually take it, but I don't think its satire either. Its more complicated than that.

I think that there are a number of things that come together in ST:

(1) Heinlein's concern about what he saw as a then-current political current to dismiss what he saw as clear, current, existential threats.

(2) Heinlein's enduring strong opposition to conscription and view that it was equivalent to slavery.

(3) Heinlein's general frustration with the bureaucracy and politics of the day and feeling that it was due in large part to the incompetence and lack of civic mindedness of the governing class and, the electorate more generally.

ST, though, wasn't utopian -- it wasn't describing the way things should be -- it was an exploration of ideas related to these topics (and, in some ways, a release of Heinlein's frustration around them.)

> But its a common misconception that its some sort of military love-letter.

There's definitely an element of military love-letter -- particularly, to the individual infantryman -- to it.

That's actually one of the few things the common shallow readings get right (Heinlein himself has written as much, subsequently.)

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#65

Post by shepardrtc »

dragonwriter wrote: post #64
shepardrtc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, it is satirical. But its a common misconception that its some sort of military love-letter. Edit: So I assume that downvotes now are a form of disagreement rather than a measure of contribution to the discussion.

> You are correct, it is satirical. I don't think that's the case; I think that it isn't simplistically prescriptive the way that shallow readings usually take it, but I don't think its satire either. Its more complicated than that. I think that there are a number of things that come together in ST : (1) Heinlein's concern about what he saw as a then-current political current to dismiss what he saw as clear, current,…

I agree with your assessment. I over-simplified it because I'm lazy and its been 15 years since I read it.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

iamcurious wrote: post #49
mikeash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Heinlein's history and politics, I don't think so. Now the movie , that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it.

How so? It is the same guy that wrote "Stranger in a Strange Land" after all.

Starship Troopers, its worth noting, was written in something of a fit of political pique that interrupted the writing of Stranger in a Strange Land.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#67

Post by justin66 »

shepardrtc wrote: post #60
justin66 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The book was definitely satire. Heinlein doesn't come right out and say how absurd the whole thing is, he lets the reader figure that out. I guess some don't. Everyone's entitled to their interpretation but you're getting downvoted because you come across as kind of a douche when you state things this way. The notion that Starship Troopers was an antiwar satire is rare enough that you can't really link to a Locus s…

I made another comment saying that it was satire (without the douche-iness), and it got downvoted, too. So its just disagreement. When I initially read the book, I expected it to be pro-war. In fact, I just wanted to read a SF book about aliens and robotic suits. But after I was finished, I was very surprised by it being satire. Sure, if you look at it from a completely superficial perspective, it looks like its espo…

> I made another comment saying that it was satire (without the douche-iness), and it got downvoted, too. So its just disagreement.

This is kind of superfluous to the discussion but I'm trying to be constructive here, honest: all three of your comments on this story might lead one to believe that you are an enormous bag of douche. Reexamine your use of terms like "common misconception" and "quite clear" as an exercise.

> completely superficial perspective

See, you're doing it again with the douchiness.

I mean, the story links to an interview with a well-respected science fiction author (who has won so many Hugo and Nebula awards that it's like they are shooting them at him with a t-shirt cannon and who also teaches an SF class at MIT discussing Starship Troopers) and he disagrees with you about the book. Do you think he's just being superficial? I mean I guess it's technically possible that he just hasn't thought about the book as much as you have...

Acting as if the people who disagree with you just don't get it is making you look a little silly. That's what the downvotes are about.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#68

Post by logfromblammo »

Jtsummers wrote: post #41
mikeash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Heinlein's history and politics, I don't think so. Now the movie , that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it.

> Now the movie, that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it. Ironically, many people hated the movie because they didn't recognize that it was satirizing the (apparently) pro-military book.

Some people, such as myself, dislike the movie because it was an almost completely unrelated script that was just reworked to have some of the same superficial elements as the book.

It wasn't satirizing anything. It was just capitalizing on name recognition.

But if they didn't do that, fewer people would have watched it, and we would not now be discussing movie vs. book, because they would have always been two separate things. They still are, really.

When I read the book, I didn't see it as either pro-military or anti-military. It was a fictionalization of actual contemporary military experiences into a future sci-fi setting. The reaction should be in the eye of the beholder. The book may have seemed to glorify the military, because the entire premise of the book was that the military had essentially staged a coup against every human government, this making it the keystone of all human society. The rest is just how Heinlein thought things would work if the military were in charge of everything. Some things would work better; some would be worse.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#69

Post by angersock »

davidw wrote: post #38
mrec wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd second the Hammer's Slammers rec. Don't be put off by the lurid pictures of ZOMG TANKS!!! on the covers of some editions; it's a lot more nuanced than the name and artwork imply. I'd also recommend his Redliners , which deals in large part with the need to re-establish empathy between soldiers and the civilians they fight for. Some elements of the plot get a bit silly, but Drake was exorcising some serious person…

Jerry Pournelle has some fun military sci-fi too. I don't care at all for the guy's politics, but some of the stories are good. Actually, I mostly read for entertainment, so I tend to favor stories that are first and foremost entertaining and interesting stories, rather than things trying to Send A Message.

If you can stand anime, find an old series called "Legend of the Galactic Heroes". It's long, it's decently hard sci-fi in places, and it's got wonderful reflections on war and politics.

It very much feels like old Pournelle/Heinlen stuff, with a healthy amount of cynicism about the politicians causing the various conflicts.

On the surface, it's just Space America versus Space Prussia, but there's so much more going on.

Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War

#70

Post by lhc- »

Jtsummers wrote: post #41
mikeash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Heinlein's history and politics, I don't think so. Now the movie , that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it.

> Now the movie, that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it. Ironically, many people hated the movie because they didn't recognize that it was satirizing the (apparently) pro-military book.

I'll admit I was guilty of that when I first saw it, as a kid. It took a while before I realized it was actually a critique.
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