Saturday, March 14, 2015

The World Of Special Forces Military Fiction Novels

By Leslie Ball


When you love to read, you are always looking for new directions to take yourself, to explore new genres. One such genre that you might wish to consider is the war novel, or special forces military fiction novels. Sometimes, when the author has the opportunity to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, he can spin a more truthful yarn than he could if he were writing a non-fiction feature article.

Most of today's war novels are set outside the United States. Most 21st century conflicts are in practically every other continent apart from North America. The wars in which they are set tend to be in the Gulf or the Balkan states. Prior to that, Vietnam war stories were popular and before that, World War II or Korea. As tensions heat up between NATO and Russia, the next generation of war stories may well focus on an emerging Cold War II.

Some of the biggest thrillers involve the Navy SEALs and other special forces. Special operations units tend to have fewer members, which makes it easier for the author to develop the characters. Also, SEALs and others make for the most terrifying, rapidly paced stories with huge consequences if the good guys lose.

War leaves a powerful mark upon a person's life and writing about it can be cathartic. This could explain the plethora of series of novels, such as Josef Black's, "The Blades, " a series of novels about SAS special ops. The latest book is set in 1997 during the uneasy peace following conflict in the Balkans. Previous novels were set in Sierra Leone, Colombia, Paris, London, and even Las Vegas.

In a similar genre but going in a completely different direction is the "AFTER" post-apocalyptic series by author, Scott Nicholson. The first volume in this series is called "Shock, " in which a massive solar storm kills billions of people and demolishes the world's technological infrastructure. A handful of survivors struggle to survive while a new, violent, population evolves.

Military science fiction is another sub-genre within the war novel classification. These stories tend to be based on past conflicts but retold on a grander scale, involving planets and galaxies instead of countries. A perfect example of this theme was seen in an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation, " set in the 24th century, but retelling the story of Gilgamesh, a king of Mesopotamia late in the third millennium, B. C.

Readers have been captivated by war stories since the days of Virgil and Homer and the Aenid and the Iliad, respectively. Although the stories and the characters themselves may not be true to life, it is possible to cram a lot of realistic detail in the descriptions of the scenery, characters and how they lived.

So what's coming next in the world of the war story? There could be a big new paradigm on the horizon as the Navy considers whether to permit women to serve in special warfare combat teams or even the SEALs. The field is wide open for new heroins, new story lines and a new dimension of human wartime relationships.




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