Thursday, March 5, 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.

A lot of modern war novels concern wars in Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, the Middle East, Central and South America, Central Asia, and Europe (specifically, the Baltic states). The previous generation of authors wrote about the Vietnam, while the generation before that wrote about World War II. The next wave of war novels will undoubtedly focus on the emerging cold war between Russia and a growing section of the rest of the world.

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.

A lot of war novel authors were soldiers, sailors or aviators themselves. For them, writing about their war is a catharsis, part of the healing process. This could be why we see so many series' of novels. Take, for instance, "The Blades, " about SAS special operations. These stories take place in places as diverse as Sierra Leone and London, Colombia and Las Vegas.

Another series of military fiction stories are Scott Nicholson's "AFTER" books, a series of stories about a world recovering from a catastrophic solar storm that wipes out the world's computers and kills billions of people. Those who survive have to contend with not only a world without Facebook, but a strange new violent race of people they call the Zapheads.

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.

War stories have been captivating readers ever since Homer scratched out the Iliad and will continue to do so for centuries from now as man conquers outer space. Although they are by definition not "true, " a lot of historical perspective can be gained from them by reading about the human side of war.

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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