What to Research for Military Fiction?
I'm beginning to write a novel on a person in the military, and this is set in the future so the technology would be different, but I want a basic overview of every branch of the military. This would include weapons, ranks, strategies, jobs, everything. Does anyone have any recommended books or movies or even google searches? Please and thank you for your help.
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You ought really read everything Liddell Hart wrote. They are no nonsense literature, which is also very well written and easy to read.
Because the technology will be different (seeing how you said your fictional story takes place in the future) real strategy is what you'd be best off studying. For the equipment, anyone can go and read the latest scientific american and guess what kind of gear shall be around. (And most of it had been anticipated by Smith, Vogt, and Heinlein long ago ... ) Whatever anyone can do doesn't really pay.
Creative use of strategy will allow you to build in great plot twists, which are understated and unexpected. Yet they have large impact as the story develops.
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I am a big fan of Sun Tzu. His "Art of War" is still relevant, so I suppose it would remain relevant in the future as well. He writes about general concepts like supply lines, instead of specifics like cavalry or drones. The concepts do not change, I guess.
Another book I would recommend is "Catch 22". It's absurdity and horror give a very good show of how military service actually feels.
Two things separating the military from civilian life are the lingo and the discipline. That's the two things I remember best from my bootcamp, anyway. You can assume your average reader would be a civilian, so his introduction to the military environment would be similar to the introduction of a rookie to bootcamp. The lingo you can make up, since you're in the future. The discipline - it's up to you just how uptight your military is (there's wide variety between modern armies, and different divisions in the same armed force), but there would be something. You can look here for more discussion of military discipline in fiction.
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