Military science fiction shouldn't simplify the complexity of war

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Military science fiction shouldn't simplify the complexity of war
April 22, 2011
by Damien G. Walter
guardian.co.uk

War. What is it good for? No, seriously, what? If you, like I, responded "absolutely nothing", then it is likely that you will react to the existence of Baen books with kindly bemusement. Baen is the world's leading publisher of military science fiction, with a stable of authors who regularly top the New York Times bestseller lists. Many of their books are likely to be on prominent display at Illustrious, the British Science Fiction Association's Eastercon convention, which this year has adopted military SF as its official theme in recognition of guest of honour David Weber, author of the bestselling Honor Harrington military SF series.

War is hardly difficult to find in SF novels. It features heavily in the work of fellow Illustrious guest of honour Peter F Hamilton, British author of doorstopping space opera epics.

But Hamilton's works are not true military SF in the sense that Weber defines the niche genre. "For me, military science fiction is science fiction which is written about a military situation with a fundamental understanding of how military lifestyles and characters differ from civilian lifestyles and characters," says Weber. "It is science fiction which attempts to realistically portray the military within a science fiction context. It is not 'bug shoots'. It is about human beings, and members of other species, caught up in warfare and carnage. It isn't an excuse for simplistic solutions to problems."

Of the many criticisms that might be made of military SF, to call it simplistic is probably the least fair. Beneath the trashy covers and often less than demanding prose style can be found an ongoing debate about the morality of war, often conducted by writers with first-hand experience of combat. David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series and Joe Haldeman's classic The Forever War both emerged from their authors' direct experiences of the Vietnam war. But it is a debate that, particularly in the decade post 9/11, has been dominated by the same neo-conservative fiction that has perpetuated our real world conflicts.

The prototypical military SF story begins with a milquetoast government leaving our nation/planet/galactic empire undefended after dismantling the military-industrial war machine built to protect it. In Battlestar Galactica, military SF's televisual "high-water" mark after the idealism of Star Trek, the military-industrial complex becomes literally the last refuge of human kind, without which the entire species would face extinction. The irony, as first identified by General Dwight D Eisenhower, is that the military-industrial complex, with its vast economic and political influence, is at least as great a threat to democracy as any foreign nation – a threat which only "an alert and knowledgeable citizenry" can counter.

But cometh the hour, cometh the man – or in the case of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, the woman. In a model made familiar to millions of readers through the characters of Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey, Honor Harrington not only heroically defeats one alien menace after another, but gains both rank and wealth in the process. It is a staple of military SF that wars are decided by the heroic actions of individuals, and that our military heroes are well rewarded for their sacrifices. In reality, young men and women are fed in to the meat grinder of modern industrialised warfare in their tens and hundreds of thousands. Those lucky enough to return alive, and with all their limbs, are often irrevocably traumatised and left to join the growing population of urban homeless and mentally ill.

No real war can be fought without an enemy. A millennia ago the neighbouring county were the enemy. A century ago the neighbouring nation. But now that neither Germany or Surrey make credible adversaries we are having to look to the next star system for opponents. Military SF's top gun, John Ringo, specialises in depicting alien civilisations that you can truly love to hate. His Posleen novels introduce an alien race of cannibalistic carnivores intent not just on defeating mankind but on eating us as well. Military SF, for all its flaws, points at the gaping divide growing wider each day in western culture. On the one side, it seems, are the Guardian reading liberals, for whom war is good for nothing, and nothing more than a failure of understanding and communication between peoples. On the other are military SF loving conservatives, who believe that the enemy is out there, is evil, and can be defeated by heroes carrying very big, very expensive weapons. One of us is living a fiction. Let's hope it's them, not us.