It looks like Walter Jon Williams[1] has succumbed to the fashion and begun writing a series of military SF novels[2]. The series title is _Dread Empire's Fall_. Book 1, _The Praxis_, was released last year, and the second book, _The Sundering_, came out within the last month or so in the US. A novella featuring one of the characters, Lady Sula, appeared in _Asimov's_ in 2003 IIRC. This may be reprinted in _The Praxis_, but I mistakenly have started with the second book and won't get back to _The Praxis_ until I finish reading Neal Stephenson's newest (more on that below).
_Dread Empire's Fall_ is set sometime in the far future, though how far isn't made clear; thousands of years are implied, and the empire has definitely been around for many millenia. The Empire was founded and ruled by a race called the Shaa. Humans comprise one of the six subject races of the Empire. The Shaa are a mysterious race and in decline, but still provide legitimacy to the Imperial government as the series opens. The real work of governing is performed by Peers, nobles appointed by the Shaa from the various subject races. The noble class has all the decadency, stagnation, corruption, intrigue and in-fighting one might expect from such long-standing institutions. The Empire's fall begins when the last Shaa dies and one race, the Naxids, initiate a civil war.
Williams takes a fairly hard-science approach to his space combat. Interstellar travel is accomplished via wormholes between systems, and mention is made of the need to balance the mass that transits a given wormhole. Spacecraft are capable of many Gs of accelleration but there is no gravity compensator or inertial dampener technology; crews use vacc suits which double as G-suits and constantly take medication to compensate for the high-G effects. Some races have differing G-tolerances which has both strategic and tactical implications.
Space combat is primarily conducted with anti-matter missles, with lasers and particle beams forming secondary armnament and providing point defense. As the war starts, the Fleet hasn't fought a shooting war in several thousand years, which has had the effects you might expect on it's efficiency and combat preparedness.
Ground combat hasn't been much of an issue for the Empire, as situations requiring more than police forces seem to historically been met by overwhelming orbital bombardment. Still, there's some ground actions in the second book, with some interesting military tech.
Lots of material to mine here: interesting characters, noble intrigue, machinations within the military service, some fairly-well fleshed out worlds, cool tech (I haven't even mentioned the world-circumscribing accellerator rings). Definitely worth checking out.
My current reading is Neal Stephenson's new book, _The Confusion_, which was just released yesterday. This is the second book in his _Baroque Cycle_, three books he wrote in one go similar to the way the "Lord of the Rings" movies were shot. The setting is 17th and early 18th century Earth with a central theme of exploring the feud between Newton & Leibnitz over who invented calculus, which begs the question, "What's here for a Traveller ref?"
The answer is: "Lots." Intrigue among the noble houses of Europe, great ground-level views of diverse cultures, some interesting exposition on trade and commerce, and Stephenson's usual offbeat characters. Any ref who can't make use of "Half-cocked" Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds, in their campaign needs to turn in their dice! Stephenson's characters often have inside views of historical events with other happenings being related to them, many of which could be mined for ideas in a Traveller campaign (John Churchill's exploits against the Barbary pirates is a great example). As Mr. Wiseman says, "You can't make up stuff this good!"
A word of caution: Stephenson's books from _Cryptonomicon_ on are big, 800-900 pages, but his writing style alleviates that quite a bit.
John
[1] Williams is a multiple Hugo and Nebula nominee (I'm not sure if he's ever won) and has written a number of novels in diverse settings, from the Cyberpunk classic _Hardwired_, an obvious influence on Shadowrun, through exploration of nanotech in _Aristoi_ and geomancy in _Metropolitan_ & _City on Fire_.
[2] I don't have anything inherently against military SF and in fact am a long-time fan of it, except for the fact that it's getting harder and harder to find good stuff dealing with other genres of SF.
_Dread Empire's Fall_ is set sometime in the far future, though how far isn't made clear; thousands of years are implied, and the empire has definitely been around for many millenia. The Empire was founded and ruled by a race called the Shaa. Humans comprise one of the six subject races of the Empire. The Shaa are a mysterious race and in decline, but still provide legitimacy to the Imperial government as the series opens. The real work of governing is performed by Peers, nobles appointed by the Shaa from the various subject races. The noble class has all the decadency, stagnation, corruption, intrigue and in-fighting one might expect from such long-standing institutions. The Empire's fall begins when the last Shaa dies and one race, the Naxids, initiate a civil war.
Williams takes a fairly hard-science approach to his space combat. Interstellar travel is accomplished via wormholes between systems, and mention is made of the need to balance the mass that transits a given wormhole. Spacecraft are capable of many Gs of accelleration but there is no gravity compensator or inertial dampener technology; crews use vacc suits which double as G-suits and constantly take medication to compensate for the high-G effects. Some races have differing G-tolerances which has both strategic and tactical implications.
Space combat is primarily conducted with anti-matter missles, with lasers and particle beams forming secondary armnament and providing point defense. As the war starts, the Fleet hasn't fought a shooting war in several thousand years, which has had the effects you might expect on it's efficiency and combat preparedness.
Ground combat hasn't been much of an issue for the Empire, as situations requiring more than police forces seem to historically been met by overwhelming orbital bombardment. Still, there's some ground actions in the second book, with some interesting military tech.
Lots of material to mine here: interesting characters, noble intrigue, machinations within the military service, some fairly-well fleshed out worlds, cool tech (I haven't even mentioned the world-circumscribing accellerator rings). Definitely worth checking out.
My current reading is Neal Stephenson's new book, _The Confusion_, which was just released yesterday. This is the second book in his _Baroque Cycle_, three books he wrote in one go similar to the way the "Lord of the Rings" movies were shot. The setting is 17th and early 18th century Earth with a central theme of exploring the feud between Newton & Leibnitz over who invented calculus, which begs the question, "What's here for a Traveller ref?"
The answer is: "Lots." Intrigue among the noble houses of Europe, great ground-level views of diverse cultures, some interesting exposition on trade and commerce, and Stephenson's usual offbeat characters. Any ref who can't make use of "Half-cocked" Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds, in their campaign needs to turn in their dice! Stephenson's characters often have inside views of historical events with other happenings being related to them, many of which could be mined for ideas in a Traveller campaign (John Churchill's exploits against the Barbary pirates is a great example). As Mr. Wiseman says, "You can't make up stuff this good!"
A word of caution: Stephenson's books from _Cryptonomicon_ on are big, 800-900 pages, but his writing style alleviates that quite a bit.
John
[1] Williams is a multiple Hugo and Nebula nominee (I'm not sure if he's ever won) and has written a number of novels in diverse settings, from the Cyberpunk classic _Hardwired_, an obvious influence on Shadowrun, through exploration of nanotech in _Aristoi_ and geomancy in _Metropolitan_ & _City on Fire_.
[2] I don't have anything inherently against military SF and in fact am a long-time fan of it, except for the fact that it's getting harder and harder to find good stuff dealing with other genres of SF.
