A Series of Essays at Tor.com on Military Science Fiction

Over on Tor.com they’re doing a series of military science fiction. I’ve been reading the columns at work as they come out, and sometimes logging on at night to see if anything knew is out. So far they’ve been about half-and-half; I like several of them very much, and a couple are (from the mistakes in them) the result of a quick skim-and-judge.

I have friends that read military SF. I have friends that read nonspecific SF. I have friends that do not read SF, and I have a few friends that don’t read books at all. Excepting that first group, I doubt many of them really understand what military SF is. There’s a link to the wiki up at the top; you can read that, it’s not bad. But thanks to this Tor series, there’s a good indicator, too.

In “A Kind of Humor” David Drake, whom I consider perhaps one of the finest prose writers in the genre, offers an essay on why military science fiction is so young, in genre terms. In my experience–which is in no way military, since I have never served–he portrays men and women in combat in what seems to my uneducated guess to be the most realistic fashion. “A Kind of Humor” is an essay more about history and reader attitude than anything else; if you accept the validity of Drake’s statements, and you can understand the black humor and the coping mechanisms he describes, you’ll very likely understand military science fiction.

Another good read is Myke Cole‘s two-part “Why Every Writer Should Join the U.S. Military” (Part 1 and Part 2). In this essay Cole describes the lessons he learned about discipline and expectations while in the military, and how he has applied those lesson to his writing career. I could explain it in detail, but instead I’ll excerpt this bit from Part Two that I think is more or less the money shot of the whole essay:

Writing is like that. It is an absolutely binary and unforgiving process. The community is full of wonderful people who will smile and make sympathetic noises. They will drink with you and be your friend. All of this is absolutely genuine, and none of it changes the fact that the serious gatekeepers, like military officers, put the mission first.

They must buy manuscripts that will sell and make their companies money. If that means you have to suffer and be in pain, then too bad, so sad. They will again smile and make sympathetic noises, but they were looking for the 1, not the 0, and all the kindness in the world isn’t going to change that one iota.

The universe doesn’t care if you’re sad, or lonely, or having a tough week. You either sit down and put the requisite words on paper to finish your novel, or you don’t. You either take the hard look at your craft and study those writers you admire and make changes as necessary, or you don’t.

Now, having said that I have never served a day in uniform, I get a feeling I might get along all right with soldiers. This is more or less my outlook on life–you either do it, or you don’t. If that’s the lesson that Mr. Cole took from the military, then so much the better. I will happily be reminded by him, and rededicate myself to promoting it in others. I’ll also be buying his book as soon as it comes out.

In addition to the essays are a number of book reviews of seminal militar SF texts. I enjoyed both Ryan Britt’s “For Whom the Space Beacon Tolls: Another Look at Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers” and Michael M. Jones’ “Future Shock: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman,” both of them writing in somewhat literary terms about classic works. The more reviews of more recent works I enjoyed less–in several cases I outright disagreed with the writers in their conclusions, but didn’t care enough to brave the comment threads to argue–largely because they kept raising issues that I didn’t think were terribly germane. In particular, the specter of gender equality in militar science fiction continues to rise, and I really don’t want to be a part of that argument. I’ll probably have a separate post on that topic, but that’s for later. I’m sure I’ll be crucified.

I mention this series on Tor because I’m quite pleased, whether it turns out that I end up agreeing with more of the essays than I disagree with, because I’m pleased to see the genre get more exposure. It’s the genre I most often write in, and the one I most often read in. I enjoy writing it–few themes and tropes are as much fun to play in as life or death, after all–and if this helps draw more readers to the genre, I’m not too proud have mercenary interests.

Go on over and read some of the articles. You won’t like them all. But it’s never a bad idea to learn more about something you may not understand.