Analog -- The Reference Library

Mlitary science fiction continues to be one of the most popular niche markets in the field. To those who aren’t aficionados, it’s sometimes hard to understand the appeal of the genre. I’ve even heard science fiction readers dismissively ask, as they would of romances or westerns, “If you’ve read one military SF book, haven’t you read them all?”
The answer, of course, is a resounding, “No, of course not.”
We live in a consumer culture that values consistent, repeatable experiences. Every McDonald’s burger or Taco Bell burrito tastes exactly like every other. Advertising to the contrary, a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline delivers identical performance whether you purchase it from Shell or Exxon. Most mass-produced consumer products, from lightbulbs to underwear to staples, are bought on the assumption that all units in the same category (size, style, capacity) will be essentially identical.
Intellectual property—books, magazines, comics, songs, poems, movies, plays, etc.—isn’t like that.
I’m not talking here about formatting standards. Yes, all printed books are alike in format: made of paper, bound in folio fashion, with covers and pages, margins and page numbers, ISBN and UPC codes, etc. Music is (almost always) based on the same scale of notes, and distributed in standard formats (compact disc, MP3, etc.) These are simply infrastructure—the important part, the essence, is the specific arrangement of words, pictures, music, voice, video, action.
Still, in a lot of mass culture, near-identical performance is a goal. Let’s take television sitcoms for an example. In each successive episode of the average sitcom, the specifics of the plot may differ—but enormous effort is given to ensure that the viewer’s emotional response will remain roughly the same. If everyone does their jobs right, you should feel the same at the end of the twelfth episode as you did at the end of the first. (At least, that’s what the marketers and advertisers are hoping.)
To be sure, there are certain genres of books that have similar goals. The category romances, thrillers, and westerns—your Harlequins and Silhouettes, your Mack Bolans and Executioners, your Longarms and Slocums—strive to produce books that will give the reader a consistent emotional experience with each and every volume. SF has not been immune to these marketing goals in its history: long-running series such as Perry Rhodan and Dray Prescott explicitly produced cookie-cutter books one after another.
However, in most intellectual property, there’s a constant creative tension between predictability and variety. For a perfect example, look no further than the magazine you’re reading. Analog would quickly lose readers if every story in every issue were exactly like every other story in every other issue. At the same time, there’s a necessary consistency, a synergy between writers and editor and readers. Even though it may be impossible to define and may change with time, it’s the quality ensuring that if you like one issue of Analog, you’ll probably like other issues.
Different writers and different genres place this line, between predictability and variety, in different places. Robert J. Sawyer’s books are all different, but they all share the same qualities (of tone, character, subject) that make them Sawyer books. Time travel stories, on the other hand, have even less in common with one another, sharing only the fundamental concept (moving about in time) and the same literary ancestors.
At the extreme end is the genre of science fiction itself; it’s so hard to determine what all SF books have in common that we’ve been at it for nine decades and still haven’t come up with a good definition.
Back to military SF. To some degree, all military SF stories are more like one another than all time travel stories are. Yet they’re certainly more different from one another than are, say, Robert J. Sawyer books. If you are passionate about, say, David Weber’s military SF, that doesn’t mean that you are assured of also liking Eric Flint’s.
At this point, channeling my early math training, I’m tempted to start drawing Venn diagrams and talking about sets and intersections of sets, in an attempt to formulate a Grand Theory of Military SF.
But then I take a deep breath and realize that there’s something fractal about this whole thing. As with any other field, the more you know, the more you can make distinctions. If you only read an occasional military SF book every few years, then of course you’ll perceive that all of them are pretty much the same. On the other hand, if you read just about everything that comes out, you’ll know David Drake from David Weber, and you’ll see immense differences between two given books.
In fractal terms, if you get close enough, you’ll find that two random military SF books differ to precisely the same degree that two random SF books do. It’s all a matter of perspective.
That said, let’s talk about what makes each of several recent military SF books unique.

A Rising Thunder
David Weber
Baen Books, 480 pages, $26.00 (hardcover)
Baen Ebooks: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3806-6
Series: Honor Harrington 17
Genre: Military SF

A Rising Thunder

Some military SF is deliberately in the manner of military historical fiction, and David Weber’s Honor Harrington series is perhaps the best-known modern example.
Weber isn’t the first SF writer, by a long shot, to draw inspiration from C.S. Forester’s indefatigable British Navy officer Horatio Hornblower . . . but he is the most successful. Honor Harrington’s career spans at least twelve previous books (some books in the series only involve Honor peripherally) and in that time she’s become much more than simply a female Hornblower. Similarly, the political background of the series has transcended the Napoleonic Wars on which the first few books were based.
Honor Harrington is a true hero, but she’s also a fully rounded character. If you’ve never made her acquaintance, you owe it to yourself to spend some time with her and her friends. The series has high-tech weaponry, brilliant battle tactics, and enough adventure and derring-do to please any war buff—it also has more than enough compassion, humor, convoluted politics, and just plain good storytelling to make the books a whole lot of fun.
The biggest problem with a long-running military SF series is how to keep the warfare going in a convincing fashion. Honor’s Star Kingdom of Manticore can only fight with the People’s Republic of Haven for so long before readers start to get bored; indeed, in the last few books the two states have made peace and even become allies.
The trick, as in real history, is to bring up a greater enemy—and in A Rising Thunder, the allied nations are attacked by an enemy with superior military technology: the Mesan Alignment, which aims to defeat and enslave all humans.
To defend her home kingdom from another Mesan attack, Honor is given the assignment of securing the hyperspace wormhole network. This move enrages the ancient but still powerful Solarian League—a depraved government based on Earth. As the ponderous League military machine turns against Manticore, Honor has her hands full. She must defeat the League while not allowing that conflict to become a distraction from the looming Mesan threat.
There’s a lot more here than just shoot-em-up space battles. Honor Harrington and her friends are real people struggling with complex problems, and the answers aren’t as simple as having the biggest guns and fastest ships. There are definite echoes of Poul Anderson’s Dominic Flandry. Even if you don’t think you like military SF, give Honor Harrington a try. I think you’ll be happy.

The Road of Danger
David Drake
Baen Books, 368 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)
Baen Ebooks: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3815-8
Series: RCN (aka Lt. Leary) 9
Genre: Military SF

The Road of Danger

David Drake’s RCN (Republic of Cinnabar Navy) series draws from the same elements as Weber’s Honor Harrington series—military historical fiction and real military history—but in a completely different manner.
The historical fiction inspiration, in this case, is Patrick O’Brian’s seafaring tales of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (which were, themselves, inspired by Hornblower). The pairing here is RCN officer Daniel Leary and librarian/cyber-spy Adele Mundy. Leary is the son of a high-ranking government official; Mundy’s family was executed (by Leary’s father) for treason. Despite this, the two have become fast friends and make a remarkable team as they travel the stars foiling threats against the Republic.
The real-world history comes from the classical world; Drake finds inspiration in the work of Greek and Roman historians. The Republic of Cinnabar and its major enemy, the Alliance of Free Stars, aren’t SF versions of England and Napoleonic France; the military and political situations are much more complex.
Readers familiar with the gritty, boots-on-the-ground tone of Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers series shouldn’t expect more of the same. No one would use the word “genteel” to describe the RCN series, but “friendlier” certainly applies. If you’ve avoided Drake because you didn’t care for the unsparing starkness, give RCN a try.
This time around Leary and Mundy find themselves in a lawless space sector of corporations gone wild, where money is king, corruption is endemic, and armed battles are standard negotiating technique.
Of course, there’s a rogue spy and a sadistic thug plotting war, and once again it’s up to Leary and Mundy to untangle the whole mess and defeat the growing threat. All great fun, with some nice plot twists to keep the reader paying attention (just in case the gunfights aren’t sufficient).

Ragnarok
Patrick A. Vanner
Baen Books, 474 pages, $7.99 (mass market)
Baen Ebooks: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3466-5
Series: Xan-Sskarn War 1
Genre: Military SF

Ragnarok

Female warriors are all the rage in military SF nowadays. But Earth Fleet Captain Alexandra McLaughlin and Honor Harrington could never be mistaken for one another; Alex McLaughlin is as hard-bitten and earthy as Honor is noble. In tandem with no-nonsense Marine officer Stewart Optika, Alex makes do with grit and determination, and spares no mercy for the alien Xan-Sskarn who unexpectedly attacked Earth in the 22nd century.
Against all odds, the Earth Fleet managed to repel the Xan-Sskarn during that first attack, and Alex was in the midst of the battle. Now the Fleet needs time to regroup and rebuild before the next attack.
But they just might run out of time, because Alex and Stewart discover a traitor in the Fleet. Before it’s too late, it’s up to them to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat.
Ragnarok is the first book in a projected trilogy; it will be interesting to follow the further adventures of this strong woman and her plucky sidekick.

Wolf Among the Stars
Steve White
Baen Books, 245 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)
Baen Ebooks: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3754-0
Series: Lokaron 2
Genre: Military SF

Wolf Among the Stars

A dozen years ago, Steve White’s Eagle Against the Stars told the story of a near-future Earth dominated by the alien Lokaron, a technologically superior race who were no match for good ol’ American libertarians with their spirit of freedom, derring-do, and facility with weapons.
Now White returns to the universe of Eagle Against the Stars. It’s a generation later, and Earth has thrown off the oppressors, and is now struggling to find its place in the Lokaron empire. That empire is in trouble—opposing forces are tearing it apart from within, as they are apt to do in empires. There’s also a conspiracy whose goal is the destruction of the empire altogether, with Earth maneuvered into doing the dirty work.
Enter Earth Captain Andrew Roark, son of the first book’s hero Ben Roark and obvious spiritual heir of Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark. This Roark is a master of Lokaron war technology and battle tactics . . . and nobody’s going to use Earth as a proxy under his watch. Together with a high-powered Lokar friend, Roark sets out to uncover and defeat the alien conspiracy (including the humans who support it) and (ideally) to bring the blessings of Earth-style libertarianism to the beleaguered planets of the Lokaron empire.
The distinct element here is the political and economic nature of the central conflict. The book’s issues of personal liberty and economic justice are familiar from today’s headlines. Earthmen—that is, Americans of the libertarian persuasion—fight for freedom and demonstrate that they are superior to their tyrannical alien overlords. One definitely gets the feeling that John W. Campbell would approve.

Guardian of Night
Tony Daniel
Baen Books, 334 pages, $13.00
(trade paperback)
Baen Ebooks: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3802-8
Genre: Military SF

Guardian of Night

Speaking of tyrannical alien empires, meet the Administration. In the middle of the twenty-first century, their space fleet attacked and almost destroyed Earth. Since then the U.S. Space Fleet has bravely fought to defend the planet and prevent its annexation. The Fleet’s abilities have increased under the constant pressure of decades of war, and various courageous heroes have arisen—such as plucky Captain Jim Coalbridge and linguist Lieutenant Commander Griff Leher. Still, Administration forces have superior weapons and numbers, and Earth’s eventual defeat is a foregone conclusion.
Except for Administration Commander Arid Ricimer. Ricimer is everything a military commander should be: brave, bold, a brilliant tactician, and a man of unimpeachable honor. This man of honor, convinced that the Administration is on the wrong path, chooses to defect to Earth—along with his battleship, Guardian of Night. With Ricimer’s expertise and Guardian’s super-weapons, Earth has the opportunity to defeat the Administration and, ultimately, bring freedom to the galaxy.
But can Earth trust Ricimer? Is he the honorable defector he claims, or a double agent who will bring destruction?
This book is unusual among military SF for its well-developed alien culture and biology; Tony Daniel has done his homework, as evidenced by a dozen pages of glossary and notes at the end. Ricimer and his culture give additional dimensions to what could otherwise have been a rather ordinary military defector story in the manner of Hunt for Red October.

The Crucible of Empire
Eric Flint and K. D. Wentworth
Baen Books, 593 pages, $7.99 (mass market)
Baen Ebooks: $6.00 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3804-2
Series: Jao Empire 2
Genre: Military SF

The Crucible of Empire

Here’s another tyrannical alien empire with a difference. In the first book, The Course of Empire, the alien Jao conquered Earth fairly easily . . . but as conquerors and conquered got to know one another, they developed mutual respect and eventually became allies against the Ekhat, a still more powerful and more psychotically tyrannical alien race who have the Jao Empire in their sights.
In this sequel, a joint Human/Jao starship, the Lexington, sets forth on a dangerous mission to track down the Lleix, a legendary race that has a bad history with the Jao . . . but also seems to have the power to resist the Ekhat.
These are thick, meaty books with splendid worldbuilding, fascinating alien cultures, and deliciously Byzantine politics. There are echoes of David Brin’s Uplift series. The characters are multidimensional and compelling. Even readers who don’t care for military SF would find plenty of rewarding reading here.
And I’m out of space. I hope I’ve managed to give you some sense of the diversity of current military SF. Now go forth and conquer.

Don Sakers is the author of The Leaves of October and A Voice in Every Wind. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com.