Military science fiction: Encyclopedia II - Military science fiction - Characteristics

Military science fiction - Characteristics

At its best (as in, for example, Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers or Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan novels), military SF examines hard questions about the ethics of violence, individuality versus collectivity, and the relationship between the military and its society. At its worst, military SF becomes simple carnography (pornography of violence).

Frequently, the conflict is assumed to be inevitable (humans vs. aliens, democracies vs. dictatorships, etc.), and the military approach is not questioned. (However, in a significant number of such works, the problem of ending an intractable conflict is dealt with, and in such works the conflict is often shown to have been pointless originally. Examples include David Drake's Counting the Cost, and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.) Traditional military values (Discipline, courage, plight, etc.) are stressed, and the action is described from the point of view of either a soldier or officer. Technology is advanced and often described in detail. In some stories technology is fairly static, wars are not primarily won by R&D or even logistics, but by willpower and military virtues. In other stories technological changes are central to plot development.

Another common characteristic is the use of actual historical battles or conflicts as more or less direct models for fictional situations. A few such events have been re-used often enough to become clichèd, such as the battle of Rorke's Drift or the Nika riots. Often starships are classified as in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922: heavy and light cruisers, etc.

Thus, while the original Star Wars movies have an armed conflict as backdrop, they would not usually be considered Military SF. Most Star Trek series are not part of this genre, though Deep Space Nine borrows some of the genre conventions in later seasons. Similarly, Babylon 5 is a borderline case. Space: Above and Beyond is clear Military SF, but the Lensmen cycle by E.E. Doc Smith is not considered so.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Characteristics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki