Monday, March 9, 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.

A hot topic today is the special operations forces, like the Navy SEALs. These units have fewer people, so the cast of characters is easier to maintain. Modern wars no longer take place on huge battlefields so they need a new approach from that of our ancestors. Enter the special ops teams.

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.

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.

For a real adventure, try military sci-fi. These novels take true stories based on historical conflicts and then amend them so they are set in the future and involve galaxies, not just countries. An example of a futuristic setting that refers back to ancient history is the Star Trek TNG episode where Captain Picard is in a situation similar to that of King Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia 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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