Can we have a /m/-literature thread?
I only ask because when I really think about it, the only thing I can call /m/-literature is Starship Trooper and even then the suits are hardly the focus of the work. And it seems sad that my list includes only a single work.
>>12394696
I really didn't like Starship Troopers. Hell, I don't like anything Heinlein has done. Compared to Clark and Asimov, he really was the weakest of the big three.
There are the various (Mostly untranslated) Gundam Novels, tons of light novels of various different series (which are also untranslated)...
Really, if you want mecha books, you gotta read the moon runes.
Well, there's always Haldeman. Forever War and Forever Peace are the two /m/-related books of his that come to mind, Forever War being the better book, but Forever Peace having the better /m/ parts.
>>12394719
Heinlein was at his best with short stories. The Unpleasant Profession of Johnathan Hoag, And He Built A Crooked House, The Roads Must Roll, etc. are all nice and solid stories, provided you don't ask too much out of them.
I don't know quite why his novels suffered, but the only two I think approached the calibre of his short stories were Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Door Into Summer (off the top of my head).
I actually have to say Clarke was the weakest, however, at least his most popular works. Give me Tales From The White Hart over Childhood's End any day.
David Drake's "HAMMER'S SLAMMERS" are all good pulpy fun, as long as you're into pulp.
Any book about the Bolo's (Laumer's orginials are good, but not the best, which I think belongs to the new Bolo novels by Keith and Weber) are about what happens when you give a tank to a /m/an and tell him to take it to its logical extreme.
>>12394696
I know the feeling. I think you might like Leviathan. To be honest its not the best read but the concept is quite interesting and its the only other book i know of with actual mech besides Mecha Corps.
>>12394763
I think I'm just too much of a sucker for Clark to say his work's anything less than second best.
Now that I think of it, I think any of Asimov's robot stories could count as /m/, but they aren't really giant war machines or superheroes.
>>12394719
The one for the first Fafner anime, too.
>>12394806
There is a distinct lack of hot blood and screaming in most of Asimov's stuff, now that you mention it.
Does magical power armor count as /m/ related material?
Yukikaze was a really good book about fighter pilots. It had a Philip K Dick meets Top Gun vibe. Don't read the sequel though. The prose becomes very repetitive and long winded. Also it kind of ends on a cliff hanger and the third book is untranslated.
>>12394719
Like it or not, but Starship Troopers is THE most important book in the history of military science fiction. It has influenced so many books, films, games, etc. It's the founding story of what we call modern "military sci-fi".
Iain Banks was pretty good.
>>12394696
The Forever War is fairly /m/ excellent read too.
>>12394890
Really? Are you sure that Starship Troopers was more influential to the genre than, say, Dorsai! ?
Only partly /m/, but pic related had a really great relationship between a pilot and his sentient mechanical dragon (the setting is not-Russia at war with not-Japan, and the pilot and his squadmates are the aces of not-Russia who bomb not-Edo with their magic mechanical dragons). Basically lots of mutual shittalking/snark, since he's an ex-gutter rat and she learned all her language and behavior from him.
The rest of the novel is literal fujoshi bait, though, so avoid it unless you like/tolerate that kind of stuff.
![bLzJzsl[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/a2W50iP.jpg "bLzJzsl[1].jpg")
Here's my deal. I love military-sci fi and gritty war stories. So that makes me overlap a bit with anime and manga. I'm running out of the good stuff though. Once I get through all of them, I think I have to switch to literature to get my military sci-fi fix.
My criteria:
>gritty
>realistic in its depiction of warfare, battles and the effects on civilians as brutal and grim
>cool down to earth sci-fi weaponry
>history and politics... in space!
>parallels to real world conflicts and wars
Gundam F91 fits a lot of that. It's one of the few Gundam series to show how scary and devastating giant robots fighting in a city would be. Most Gundam and mecha shows kind of downplay that, or ignore it, but F91 just dives right into the concept. Even though it's giant robots, it feels very real, because modern conflicts with modern weaponry completely destroys cities. Look at Homs, Aleppo, or Kobani from recent conflicts. They're just piles of rubble now.
Another thing is that I like politics and history. So my ideal sci-fi would be that but in space so you get cool futuristic but grounded weaponry out of it.
So does anything come to mind? Any suggestions?
>>12394864
>>The Stormlight archive, cause I forgot to sauce
We need to make charts with /m/ recommended lit.
Starship Troopers was a book?
>>12395050
Millennial PLEASE
>>12395050
Just an adaptation of the movie I believe. Generally accepted as a kids' thing.
>>12395055
Apparently they made a book out of Dune, too! Who knew?
>>12395072
They made a book out of Dune 2? I loved that game!
>>12395072
Dune? The Star Wars knockoff? Who even gave a fuck about that movie to begin with?
>>12395055
>>12395072
>>12395078
>>12395081
YOU GUYS
Thanks for reminding me, I started reading this but never finished it, I'll have to dig that out somewhere.
>>12394696
Japanaese edition of Starship troopers is best edition.
http://ourstarblazers.com/vault/KatohST/
>>12394696
>>12394871
The second book is the best one though.
>>12394838
I'd watch an anime where Hardin's a mobile suit pilot.
Mecha is at once hardly present and omnipresent in western sci-fi literature.
It's ALWAYS in the background and rarely ever in the foreground.
Great "mecha" classics such as "Starship Troopers" can't even be bothered to describe the mecha in great detail, which other sci-fi classics that no one would describe as "mecha" still have crazy-awesome mecha bits (i.e. those fucking killbots in Fahrenheit 451, the Angel Battalions in The Handmaiden's Tale, etc.)
>>12394696
Currently my favorite military sci-fi series. It's a very realistic portrayal of what space combat would be like, as Jack Campbell draws on a lot of his naval experience as a shipdriver for a lot of the physics of moving big ships.
The audiobooks also have God-tier narration and acting.
>>12396205
It's not that good
>>12394696
I read Starship Troopers for the powered armor, and was bored to death most of the book
>>12394967
>We need to make charts with /m/ recommended lit.
This this this
>>12396205
terrible novel
>>12394838
Asimov intended his robot stories to be heady and thoughtful.
I find it funny how so many people take his Laws of Robotics as gospel, and believe they're some grand enlightened thinker when they find flaws with them. Failing to realize Asimov worded them exactly as he intended so he could spend his robot stories poking holes in what seem like solid laws at first glance.
>>12397825
Then you read it for the wrong reasons. It was just Heinlein wanking off his right-wing military state boner. And don't think Heinlein wasn't wanking his hippy, liberal, peace and love boner over in Stranger From a Strange Land.
>>12394696
VERY good read, and full of delicious /m/.
>>12398744
Does fuck all about the ending though. Felt like a rush to end the story.
>>12394894
Mein dicky old chum!
Hammer's Slammers is decently good. Its influence is all over the place in the Battletech universe.
>>12394696
I read that book. Totally not what I was expecting compared to the movie.
>>12394801
I read that series too. A little to the "young adult" side but decent nonetheless. Illustrations were nice.
>>12394947
08th Mess Team sounds like the perfect thing for you.
>>12396809
>psychohistorians are newtypes
Makes sense
>>12396809
>defending Terminus with Seldon's super secret nuclear prototype as surrounding powers attack with aging mecha
>as the end grows near, a second ultimate machine is uncovered
>after the skirmish, everyone worships the machine as god
>keikakudoori.jpg
I like it.
No one's mentioned All You Need is Kill yet? I'm ashamed, /m/
I almost made a Hammer's Slammers thread the other day. Paying the Piper, one of the more recent Hammer's stories, is great and the e-book used to be up on the Baen Library for free.
In the series, David Drake makes armor relevant again by making airplanes incredibly unsafe when used in war zones. When you have laser weapons that can shoot anything out of the sky in an instant, the shit on the ground becomes a lot more important. He's a Vietnam War vet and wrote about the stuff he knew; if only he chose robots instead of tanks.
>>12400016
kek
>>12394947
>Another thing is that I like politics and history
Dougram. It was made just right after Gundam, so the mech design and action is sort of goofy due to the era, but the politics and its depiction of guerilla warfare are among the best I've seen in any mecha anime. It was inspired by the Battle of Algiers movie, from what I hear, so it's definitely good on the guerilla warfare front.
>>12394967
God, if only.
>>12394947
I'd recommend Lethal Heritage - Blood of Kerensky; it has all of the above.
>>12404091
Is that literature? Is it translated? If so, where can I read it?
Has anyone read the Star Rigger novels? If so, what're your thoughts in them?
>>12404194
>Is that literature? Is it translated? If so, where can I read it?
Dougram?
The anime by the Votoms guy?
HELLO MCFLY
I FUCKING LOVES ME SOME LENSMAN
I always thought the first three Robot novels (the ones with Lije and R. Daneel, that is) were better than the Foundation novels.
>>12394794
My nigga. BOLOs are awesome-tier.
Hammer's Slammers is fun too. It's what happens when a Nam vet writes good goddamn scifi.
>>12394947
On the lit side, you'd adore Dave Weber, John Ringo, and (a magnificent bastard, but still a bastard) Tom Kratman.
John wrote a pretty good little mech into his Looking Glass series, and that is some serious hard scifi. Co-written by an astrophysicist, Doc Travis Taylor. Reeeeally good.
>>12404264
I think it's because OP asked specifically for literature.
>>12397545
>Great "mecha" classics such as "Starship Troopers" can't even be bothered to describe the mecha in great detail
Starship Troopers spends six pages doing nothing but that.
>>12398854
I don't even remember there being an ending. Skitarii, the noosphere, haptic interfaces, though? All delightful.
>not reading Cordwrainer Smith
It's like you don't even support the Instrumentality of Man in their quest to shoot giant metal men through space in order to piss napalm all over sentinent chicken.
It's like you don't even want to read tales of married Kamen Riders commanding Shokker goons on humanity's quest to colonize space.
It's like you don't want to read about depressed and probably quite insane nazi killer robots.
>>12405565
The guy I was quoting mentioned Gundam F91 though, so I thought he might have been cool with anime as well. My bad if I misinterpreted though.
For purely /lit/, the early Honor Harrington books are good with the military strategy and politics, though as the series goes on, from what I've heard, the protag becomes more and more of a Mary Sue.
>>12406360
>The guy I was quoting mentioned Gundam F91 though, so I thought he might have been cool with anime as well. My bad if I misinterpreted though.
I'm okay with anime, or live action, or whatever. It's just that very little of it are the gritty war stories that I'm looking for. F91 for a little bit of it at least, did sort of what I liked.
>>12406446
In that case, Dougram is definitely up your alley. I also second >>12394726's recommendation of Forever War, that book was written by a Viet Nam vet and explores his feelings of alienation upon returning from war and seeing how much society has changed.
>>12394905
Dorsai! had a lot of effect especially to the mercenary company books that came after it but it's direct influence has tapered off. Starship Troopers keeps having a direct effect even after all these years.
Which is a shame since I like the first few of the Childe cycle , by published order, better then Starship Troopers.
