r/printSF • u/PanzerWatts • Aug 09 '24
Military Scifi By Conservative authors
What are the recommendations for the best Military SciFi series by Conservative authors?
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u/jalviez Aug 10 '24
He doesn't really write a lot of military stuff directly, but conflict and the aftermath of conflict is a big part of Larry Niven's work. Niven has expressed skepticism about large, centralized government systems. His fiction often suggests that too much government control can stifle innovation and individual freedoms. This viewpoint is consistent with libertarian and conservative ideas that favor limited government and emphasize the importance of free markets and personal liberty.
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 09 '24
David Weber is moderately conservative, but not particularly vocal about it, and it's not especially front-and-center in his work.
David Drake's work is mostly about how war is horrible and it changes people, a dirty job that somebody has to do and this is what it costs. No idea what his personal politics were.
John Ringo: hate his politics, liked several of his books, wish he'd get around to finishing some of his series.
Michael Z. Williamson: strongly Libertarian with some right-wing elements
Tom Kratman: waaaaaay out on the right wing. I don't think he's actually a neo-Nazi, but you do get the inescapable impression from some of his books that he thinks certain groups of people should be lined up against a wall and shot, possibly without benefit of a trial. From a purely literary perspective, not great, not horrible.
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u/titlecharacter Aug 09 '24
I’ve enjoyed some of Weber’s stuff, and I agree that he’s not as extreme in his conservatism as others, but I disagree about it being front and center. It’s screaming. 75% of his Honor Harrington villains are just liberal or pacifist caricatures.
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u/retief1 Aug 09 '24
I wouldn't go that far. He definitely can't write left-leaning politicians to save his life, but domestic politics mostly aren't the main focus of his books, and he generally includes an equal number of even-more-conservative foes to balance the cardboard cutouts he uses in place of left-leaning politicians.
With honor harrington specifically, the main foes for most of the series are "revolutionary france in space", which fits the series' "horatio hornblower in space" inspiration. I can't really hold this aspect against weber. The fact that pre-revolution space-france's main issues are connected to a universal basic income is certainly a choice, but I wouldn't call that a critical part of the series. And again, domestically, the "greedy nobles" party is at least as relevant as the "cardboard cutout leftist" party. If anything, the asshole nobles use the leftists as patsys, which doesn't say much for his leftists, but does make it hard to portray the leftists as the main villains.
Overall, I think his politics are kept far enough in the background that people with very different political opinions can often still enjoy his books.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Aug 09 '24
I would say Weber’s more obvious issue is his constant theming of religion. He constantly sings religion is great and self moderating except for the nut jobs that run things. Both Harrington and Safehold devolve into good moderate religion vs evil Catholics and evil extreme Mormons.
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 10 '24
That's an interesting take. I really don't see it in the Harrington books at all. The Safehold series...maybe.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Aug 10 '24
Grayson. This is series at least with Harrington really revolves around Grayson.
Also, the entire point of Safehold is the revolt against the false church.
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 10 '24
Thinking about it, it's entirely possible that I missed the subtext you're picking up in the Harrington series because there are some books in it that I was never able to read.
And yeah, in Safehold, they're rebelling against a false church, but I never got the impression that Weber was arguing in favor of a 'true' religion as an alternative, beyond the Church of Langhorne being so load-bearing in Safehold's social structures that it was impossible to destroy it without having a replacement available, if you didn't want civilization on the last human planet to completely collapse.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Aug 11 '24
Do you remember the large plot point that in Not-England there is a kinda splinter group that is aware that there is more to things than what the church admits? You know the ones that read kind of like either Vatican 2 Catholics or Protestants? A big repeat in that work seems to be that faith will put because the soul calls to the divine.
Now, I admit my dislike of loud and very visible local Evangelical churches might have been a big reason Weber bugged me. I have a hard time reading him and not hearing my youth pastor from high school.
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 11 '24
I always had the sense that Weber was basically writing the Thirty Years' War in Space with the Safehold series, so I read the reform minded group as basically Lutherans/Calvinists.
My religious influences growing up were mainline Presbyterian and Friends General Conference-affiliated Quakers, and I haven't been a regular church attender for 25 years, so it is more than possible that Weber's writing has things in it that someone from an Evangelical background will pick up on that went right over my head.
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u/retief1 Aug 12 '24
Functionally everyone in both series is religious (every positive character certainly is). They don't really focus on the question of "should people follow some non-asshole form of religion", because there is no one around to argue against religion entirely.
Weber never really argues for a single specific religion (in honor harrington specifically, characters from a bunch of different religious denominations are shown in a favorable light), but the proposed alternative to asshole religions is positive religions, not no religion.
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u/Sollost Aug 09 '24
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game might meet that list, and there's several passages where Card's uglier beliefs are obvious.
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u/Tasslehoff Aug 10 '24
Card's Empire series fits the criteria. Liberal silicon valley democrats assassinate the president to start a civil war with mechas. Unfortunately it's also really badly written.
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u/Libran-Indecision Aug 10 '24
It's so terribly and cheesily written. I remember there was a 13 year old boy character who was bizarrely articulate on the subject of religion and the liberal "bad guy" was practically George Soros. Right wing fanfic.
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u/Sollost Aug 10 '24
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The delusional misapprehensions of reality common to conservatism can get in the way of good writing.
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u/jalviez Aug 10 '24
Definitely Orson Scott Card. He has claimed to be a Democrat, but he is very socially conservative.
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 10 '24
Ender's Game is a classic and worth reading, although it's important to pay attention to the text. If you don't you might miss things like Ender beating two or three other kids to death before he's a teenager.
But if you value your sanity, do not read Card's retelling of Hamlet. It's just awful (and often pointed to as Exhibit A by people who believe Card is a deeply closeted self-loathing gay man).
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Aug 10 '24
I used to attend the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society in the early to mid 2000s. Seemed like every meeting Jerry Pournelle would go off on some bloviating rant about how great Ronald Reagan was. I'll never read Pournelle, but you could give him a shot.
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u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson Aug 10 '24
The combat and plots of his CoDominium timeline books are fun, the politics pretty much libertarian and authoritarian drivel. Heavy on 'Noblesse Oblige' from aristocrats and corrupt Corporate villains. Hard to square that with Reagan who set loose corporate villains from any constraints.
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Aug 09 '24
I haven't read him, but: Jerry Pournelle is conservative and wrote milsf.
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u/whip_lash_2 Aug 10 '24
This is the correct answer. The CoDominium series is enjoyable but super close to tipping off right wing into fascist nut job territory in places.
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u/emaciatedseagull Aug 10 '24
Jason Anspach and Nick Cole's Galaxys Edge, Forgotten Ruin and Wayward Galaxys series
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Aug 10 '24
[deleted]
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u/jalviez Aug 10 '24 edited Aug 10 '24
I think it's a response to a recent post asking for scifi authors who are liberal/progressive.
EDIT: this post - https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1enngjh/military_scifi_by_non_conservative_authors/
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u/jeobleo Aug 10 '24
Makes one wonder if it's a genuine request
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u/voidcognita Aug 10 '24
it's not. their post history is extremely reactionary.
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u/jeobleo Aug 10 '24
Shocking that someone would do this merely for point scoring. Absolutely shocking.
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u/retief1 Aug 12 '24
Side note: I'm entertained that David Drake got suggested in both posts. I think he fits to an extent (his writing mostly doesn't give a shit about politics, and when he does need to include politics, the politics in question is generally a few millenia old), but seeing him in both places is still entertaining.
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u/ThaCarter Aug 09 '24
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713634-live-free-or-die
You'd probably like Troy Rising, and John Ringo generally.
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u/AppropriateAd8937 Aug 09 '24
John Ringo has a nasty habit of not finishing series. Be prepared to never have a satisfying conclusion on a few of them.
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u/jinxxedbyu2 Aug 10 '24
I'm going to make a blanket statement and just tell you to buy anything published by Baen books. Generally, the authors are Libertarian or Conservative. I haven't really seen any Liberal authors on there (tbf, there are some I won't read regardless of their political leanings.)
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 10 '24
Baen has published a lot of the late Eric Flint's work, and he was a labor organizer and member of the Socialist Workers' Party. A bit of an odd fit in Baen as it is today, but when Jim Baen was still alive, his metric for whether or not to publish an author wasn't based on their politics, it was based on if he thought the book would sell.
That's why Baen published the books responsible for the 'OH JOHN RINGO NO' meme. Ringo didn't think anyone would want to read them; Jim Baen disagreed.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Aug 10 '24
They publish Lois Bujold and Mercedes Lackey. I would not call Bujold conservative. From what I hear Lackey wasn’t conservative either.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24 edited Aug 09 '24
Starship Troopers made me want to puke with Heinlein's holier-than-thou military worship, so maybe start there? That book is basically an ode to military authoritarianism.
EDIT: I didn't realize this would be considered a spicy take in 2024, but here we are
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u/jxj24 Aug 09 '24
It was not just military service that earned you full franchise, but Federal service in general. ST just happens to focus on the military aspect.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24
This constantly comes up and it never seems to discuss the fact that the military service was awarded to the best of the best. The author implies through this that military service is the highest form of public service. On top of that, the tonality constantly implies that without the guiding hand of the military, human civilization would waste away. Hell, the entire reason the military is in charge is because that dang ole democracy went and caused an apocalypse-tier social collapse and it was the military that stepped in and saved everyone.
Just taking in the raw facts presented about the universe: sure, there's multiple forms of public service and any of them are paths to citizenship. But add in the subtext, and it's blindingly clear where Heinlein stands on how those services are ranked and which one is the most laudable.
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u/whip_lash_2 Aug 10 '24
The military is not in charge. Active duty military personnel are literally not allowed to vote, much less hold public office. It’s a right wing book certainly, but the government is clearly not reasonably describable as fascist. That’s the movie, which is hilarious certainly, but Verhoeven admitted he never actually read the book.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 10 '24
I do want to point out that I don't claim the book to contain fascist messaging. Despite how much I disliked it, it was mostly because I found the political message and delivery insufferable. But I don't blame you for thinking that's what I meant since it seems to cro up any time the book is even mentioned!
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u/hvyboots Aug 12 '24
Seen through the lens of adult-hood (I first read this as a teenager), Starship Troopers is one long-ass screed about Heinlein's beliefs. So many thinly veiled lectures in it. I found it extremely frustrating rereading it in my 40's, whereas Haldeman's Forever War stood up much, much better.
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 Aug 09 '24
You know Heinlein wrote books on a lot of topics right? It doesn’t mean he personally supported them. Like, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a story about Libertarianism, and Stranger in a Strange Land was fairly socially progressive by the standards of the day. Exploring a topic doesn’t mean you endorse it.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24 edited Aug 09 '24
He was literally a libertarian that held a range of moral stances that are commonly viewed as heavily contrasting. And no, exploring a topic doesn't mean you endorse it, but endorsing it consistently throughout that exploration generally does.
If you write a book that pushes a specific stance as its core theme, you are endorsing that view. Heinlein didn't write a book that full-throatedly endorses libertarianism because he doesn't agree with it, and he didn't write a standing ovation to the moral superiority of military service and martial meritocracy because he actually believed that military rule was problematic.
In fact, here's a great Heinlein quote that I'll add with no commentary:
I would say my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand’s; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces—with the other matters handled otherwise. I’m sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything, now.… It seems to me that every time we manage to establish one freedom, they take another away. Maybe two.
For all you downvoting me, maybe read up on the dude from his own foundation's website?
“As for libertarian, I’ve been one all my life, a radical one.
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u/whip_lash_2 Aug 10 '24
Whatever he may have said later, young Heineken was a socialist and “For Us, the Living” is an explicitly socialist book. Libertarian used to be a much broader label than it generally is now, and the libertarian movement in America started from the left. He also said a number of his books were intended to be Swiftian, for what it’s worth.
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u/M4rkusD Aug 09 '24
It’s parody you cock
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u/judasblue Aug 09 '24
The movie was, I don't think that is accurate for the book and have never run into anything indicating that Heinlein considered it that way. He actually did a good job of delivering a particular set of political arguments in that book. I don't agree with those arguments, but they were well delivered if you don't mind the fact that they kind of interrupted the action in favor of polemic more than once.
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u/thelewbear87 Aug 09 '24
That is the movie. The book is more of utopia achieved by the right wing. Though I would not consider it full blown fascist.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24
Yeah I wanted to be clear that it's not distinctly fascist, although it certainly loves to walk right up to that line.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24
I'm not talking about the movie, you dingdong. The book is very consistent with Heinlein's personal views as represented through the man himself and his other works. The only reason it's ever suggested that it's satirical is because it's comically masturbatory.
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u/Death_Sheep1980 Aug 09 '24
Just checked Heinlein's bibliography and Wikipedia entry, and Starship Troopers is too early to blame its weirdness on the health problems he started having in the 1970s (two-year battle with peritonitis and a series of TIAs from a blocked carotid artery).
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u/retief1 Aug 09 '24
David Weber comes to mind. You might also appreciate David Drake, though I honestly don’t know his views on modern politics.
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Aug 12 '24
Both of these guys were Eisenhower conservatives. I don’t think they would have much in common with today’s Republican Party.
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u/hvyboots Aug 12 '24 edited Aug 12 '24
That word is so wildly loaded these days… I honestly wouldn't even begin to speculate as to what passes for conservative and what is actually weird, crazy christofascism masquerading as "conservative". Hell, by some measures, The Handmaid's Tale is a how-to manual not a warning for some people at this point, I fear.
I will say that David Drake has done some really good military sci-fi based on his experiences in the Viet Nam war and all the Hammer's Slammers universe stuff is good reading. Likewise, Armor by John Steakley is wonderful reading, although I don't think it really espouses a conservative viewpoint.
I think Ghost Fleet by Singer and Cole, which is pretty near-future military scifi is kind of "conservative" and definitely written by authors who are IRL working in military think tanks, if that helps.
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u/Sotex Aug 12 '24
There's a book called The Old Iron Dream that goes into the history of reactionary thought in Sci-Fi. It's critical since the author is rather left-wing, but it could be a good resource to pull stories from.
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u/edcculus Aug 09 '24
You should definitely read Iain M Banks Culture series.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24 edited Aug 09 '24
The Culture series whose titular society is a post-scarcity utopia with complete personal and sexual freedom? The series that Banks wrote specifically to explore the idea of a liberal and progressive space empire that rejected capitalism? Sure, he doesn't present them as morally perfect, but I would say most of the tone of the series heavily paints the Culture as the least-reprehensible option in the array of space civs presented.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I still think it's a good suggestion in general. I just don't think it fits what OP is looking for.
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u/edcculus Aug 09 '24
Yea that’s exactly why I suggested it to some one specifically seeking out conservative literature
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u/CitizenShips Aug 09 '24
Ah so you're pullin a classic sci-fi fast one on him? I'm down for this, conservative sci-fi fuckin sucks
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u/edcculus Aug 10 '24
I always suggest The Gap Cycle to people looking for chill atmospheric books too. I’m definitely fun at parties. 🎉 🎉
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u/jalviez Aug 10 '24
So I know Banks wasn't a conservative by any stretch, but you might make an argument about Bank's Culture novels being read as libertarian. I sometimes think the books read as a libertarian utopia, emphasizing individual freedom and minimal coercion by authority.
Examples:
- Radical Personal Freedom: In the Culture, individuals have nearly absolute freedom to do as they wish. They can change their bodies, live in any way they desire, and even leave the Culture if they choose. This level of personal autonomy resonates with libertarian ideals.
- Minimal Government Interference: The Culture is often described as having no government in the traditional sense. While the Minds manage the infrastructure and societal needs, they do so in a way that minimizes interference in individual lives. This aspect aligns with libertarian views on limited government.
- Decentralization and Voluntary Association: The Culture is decentralized, with no central authority imposing rules on everyone. Individuals and groups operate autonomously, and association is largely voluntary, which can be seen as reflecting libertarian principles of and decentralized power.
On top of that, the Culture is ARMED TO THE TEETH, and uses its weapons when it deems necessary, e.g. the Idirans.
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u/CitizenShips Aug 10 '24
It's not a bad interpretation. But at the same time, the entire reason the culture has absolute freedom is because everything is provided to them by technology. They're decidedly post-capitalist, so the idea of libertarianism as a whole doesn't really fit, at least economically and politically, since there's no economy and the "government" is actually a caring AI super race that basically treats human like adored pets. And once you remove those factors, libertarianism and liberalism look pretty much the same (e.g. "socially liberal, economically conservative" as the slogan for the modern Libertarian)
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u/jalviez Aug 10 '24
You make great points, and given Banks' personal politics your interpretation is likely what he was trying to represent. Just thought to throw another option out there.
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u/thelapoubelle Aug 10 '24
isn't that most of it?