Military science fiction
Encyclopedia
Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 in which the principal characters are members of a military service and an armed conflict is taking place, normally in space, or on a planet other than Earth. A detailed depiction of the conflict, the tactics used to wage it, and the role of a military service and the individual members of that service forms the basis for a work of military science fiction. The stories often take features of actual past or current Earth conflicts, with countries being replaced by entire planets or galaxies of similar characteristics, battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

s replaced by space battleships and certain events changed so that the author can extrapolate on what might have occurred.

Characteristics

Traditional military values of bravery, sacrifice, sense of duty, and camaraderie are stressed, and the action is usually described from the point of view of a soldier or officer. Typically, the technology employed is more advanced than present-day and described in detail. In some stories, however, technology is fairly static, and weapons that would be familiar to present-day soldiers are employed, but other aspects of society have changed. For example, women may be accepted as equal partners in combat roles. One prominent example of female characters in combat and authority roles in military sci-fi is Elizabeth Moon
Elizabeth Moon
Elizabeth Moon is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Her novel The Speed of Dark won the 2003 Nebula Award.-Biography:...

's Serrano / Familias series. Wars are not won primarily by research and development, or even logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...

, but by willpower, bravery, tactical foresight, and other military virtues. In many military sci-fi stories, technological advances are central to plot development.

One subset of space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...

 overlaps with military science fiction, concentrating on large-scale space battles with futuristic weapons. In such stories, the military tone and weapon system technology may be taken very seriously. At one extreme, the genre is used to speculate about future wars involving space travel, or the effects of such a war on humans; at the other, it consists of the use of military fiction plots with some superficial science fiction trappings. The term "military space opera" is occasionally used to denote this subgenre, as used for example by critic Sylvia Kelso when describing Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold is an American author of science fiction and fantasy works. Bujold is one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella The Mountains of Mourning won both the Hugo...

's Vorkosigan Saga
Vorkosigan Saga
The Vorkosigan Saga is a series of science fiction novels and short stories set in a common fictional universe by American author Lois McMaster Bujold. Most of these were published between 1986 and 2002, with the exceptions being “Winterfair Gifts” and Cryoburn...

. Another example of military space opera would be Elizabeth Moon
Elizabeth Moon
Elizabeth Moon is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Her novel The Speed of Dark won the 2003 Nebula Award.-Biography:...

's Vatta's War
Vatta's War
Vatta's War is a science fiction series by Texan writer Elizabeth Moon, comprising five books: Trading in Danger , Marque and Reprisal , Engaging the Enemy , Command Decision , and Victory Conditions...

 series.

History

Military science fiction dates back at least as far as George Chesney
George Tomkyns Chesney
Sir George Tomkyns Chesney, KCB, CSI, CIE , British Army general, brother of Colonel Charles Cornwallis Chesney.-Biography:...

's story "The Battle of Dorking
The Battle of Dorking
The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer is a 1871 novel by George Tomkyns Chesney, starting the genre of invasion literature and an important precursor of science fiction...

." Other works of fiction followed, including H.G. Wells's "The Land Ironclads
The Land Ironclads
Written by H. G. Wells, "The Land Ironclads" is a short story that originally appeared in the December 1903 issue of the Strand Magazine and set in a war similar to the First World War...

." Eventually, as science fiction became an established and separate genre, military science fiction established itself as a subgenre. One such early work is H. Beam Piper's
H. Beam Piper
Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper...

 Uller Uprising (1952) (based on the events of the Sepoy Mutiny). Robert A. Heinlein's
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...

 Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published as a serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published hardcover in December, 1959.The first-person narrative is about a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his...

(1959) is another pivotal early work of military SF, along with Gordon Dickson's Dorsai (1960), and these are thought to be mostly responsible for spreading this sub-genre's popularity among young readers of the time.

The Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 resulted in veterans with combat experience turning to write science fiction, including David Drake
David Drake
David Drake is an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran who has worked as a lawyer, he is now one of the premier authors of the military science fiction subgenre.-Biography:...

 and Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman
Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.-Life :Haldeman was born June 9, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Maryland and Anchorage, Alaska as a child. Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known...

. Throughout the 1970s, works such as Haldeman's The Forever War
The Forever War
The Forever War is a science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, telling the contemplative story of soldiers fighting an interstellar war between humanity and the enigmatic Tauran species...

and Drake's Hammer's Slammers
Hammer's Slammers
Hammer's Slammers is a 1979 collection of military science fiction short stories by author David Drake. It follows the career of a future mercenary tank regiment called Hammer's Slammers, after their leader, Colonel Alois Hammer...

helped expand the popularity of the genre. Short stories also were popular, collected in books like Combat SF
Combat SF
Combat SF is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by Gordon R. Dickson. It was first published by Doubleday in 1975. Most of the stories originally appeared in the magazines Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Galaxy Science Fiction, Fantastic Universe, New Worlds, Fantasy and Science...

, edited by Gordon R. Dickson
Gordon R. Dickson
Gordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author.- Biography :Dickson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1937...

. This anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 includes one of the first Hammer's Slammers stories as well as one of the BOLO stories by Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer
John Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a U.S. diplomat...

 and one of the Berserker stories by Fred Saberhagen
Fred Saberhagen
Fred Thomas Saberhagen was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his Berserker series of science fiction short stories and S.F...

. This anthology seems to have been the first time SF-stories specifically dealing with war as a subject were collected and marketed as such. The series of anthologies under the group title There Will be War edited by Pournelle and John F. Carr
John F. Carr
John Francis Carr, was born December 25, 1944 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in San Diego, California. He is a science fiction editor and writer.-Career:John F...

 (nine volumes from 1983 through 1990) helped keep the category active, and encouraged new writers to enter it.

Viewpoints

A number of authors have presented stories with political messages of varying types as major or minor themes of their works.

David Drake
David Drake
David Drake is an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran who has worked as a lawyer, he is now one of the premier authors of the military science fiction subgenre.-Biography:...

 has often written of the horrors and futility of war. He has said, in the afterwords of several of his Hammer's Slammers
Hammer's Slammers
Hammer's Slammers is a 1979 collection of military science fiction short stories by author David Drake. It follows the career of a future mercenary tank regiment called Hammer's Slammers, after their leader, Colonel Alois Hammer...

books (1979 and later), that one of his reasons for writing is to educate those people who have not experienced war, but who might have to make the decision to start or support a war (as policy makers or as voters) about what war is really like, and what the powers and limits of the military as a tool of policy are.

David Weber
David Weber
David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Weber and his wife Sharon live in Greenville, South Carolina with their three children and "a passel of dogs"....

has said that:
"For me, military science-fiction is science-fiction which is written about a military situation with a fundamental understanding of how military lifestyles and characters differ from civilian lifestyles and characters. It is science-fiction which attempts to realistically portray the military within a science-fiction context. It is not 'bug shoots'. It is about human beings, and members of other species, caught up in warfare and carnage. It isn't an excuse for simplistic solutions to problems."

Examples

Military science fiction is seen in an array of media, including books, movies, TV and anime, and games.

External links

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