I write about flawed characters as a reflex. I’m more interested in exploring the journey of an alcoholic monster hunter with literal and figurative demons than a white knight. Throughout my life, I’ve seen the effects of substance abuse up close, and while difficult, it helped me find the humanity in flaws. I choose to write about those flaws with a humorous bend, because life is far too long to go through without jokes. As a result, I gravitate towards pithy antiheroes and dark comedy. To feel a character’s pain is human, to laugh in the midst of their darkest moments is divine.
Here is yet another book where at first it seems as though there are no heroes.
Abercrombie writes a masterful world filled with magic, politics, swordfights, and bleak attitudes. One of the main POV characters is a torturer—I mean a full-on break your toes and laugh about it torturer—but even still, I found myself wanting more of his story. He’s certainly not a hero, but he was at one point, and that’s even more intriguing.
The characters drive this fantasy series, but the world is also a gorgeous setting that Abercrombie clearly spent many long nights thinking through. Every detail feels like it matters, and throughout this trilogy, the smallest specks of plot come back to matter.
On top of it all, I loved the audiobook narrator and his particular performances for each character brought the world to life.
Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body - not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers.
Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men.
I had finished The Bluebird Trilogy, three novels that centred on the first half of the Second World War, and I heard echoes of the Great War ringing faintly in the egos of my older characters. I started to read more of the history and was drawn to the aerial maelstrom that befell the RFC over Arras in 1917. I was also interested in working with a larger cast of characters, many transients, and telling their stories over a short stretch of time. The result was Major Claypole and Jackdaw Squadron, Glory Boys every last one.
Robinson’s tale of Goshawk Squadron battling the odds in the last year of the Great War cuts through the Biggles-style myths and legends that had dominated the public perception for many years. He shines a light on the bleak and terrifying business of aerial warfare and unflinchingly portrays the horror and helplessness of becoming the loser in a dogfight to the death. Yet from this foreboding vista he prises shining nuggets of laugh-out-loud humour, albeit of the gallows variety. Robinson’s spot-on characterisations and skilfully written battle narratives will place you in the rattling cockpit of a biplane in the hostile hunting grounds over France. This 50th-anniversary reissue is a well-deserved accolade.
Set during the height of World War I in January 1918, Goshawk Squadron follows the misfortunes of a British flight squadron on the Western Front. For Stanley Woolley, commanding officer of Goshawk Squadron, the romance of chivalry in the clouds is just a myth. The code he drums into his men is simple and savage: shoot the enemy in the back before he knows you're there. Even so, he believes the whole squadron will be dead within three months. A monumental work at the time of its original release, Booker-shortlisted Goshawk Squadron is now viewed as a classic in the…
Growing up in postwar Germany, I have always been fascinated by how people survive wars emotionally and retain their humanity. In my extensive research for Captives, I came across an account of a German soldier in North Africa, whose tank had been hit and was engulfed in flames. A human torch, he jumped from the tank, expecting to be killed by British soldiers who were nearby. Instead, they rolled his body in the sand to extinguish the flames and called a medic, saving his life. This act of humanity moved me and inspired me to make the preservation of one’s humanity in war the central theme in my novel.
Parade’s End has been described by Mary Gordon as “the best fictional treatment of war in the history of the novel.”
What made me truly connect with the story is its protagonist, Christopher Tietjens, who serves in the British Army during the “Great War.”
A member of a prominent, landowning family, Tietjens is driven by a strong sense of duty and commitment to marriage and country—whatever the cost to himself. Although he is in love with Valentine, he remains married to his promiscuous wife, Sylvia, and accepts as his son a child who may not be his.
But Tietjens’ experiences in the trenches on the Western Front eventually teach him that truth and happiness are more important than societal duties.
Ford Madox Ford's great masterpiece exploring love and identity during the First World War, in a Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Julian Barnes.
A masterly novel of destruction and regeneration, Parade's End follows the story of aristocrat Christopher Tietjens as his world is shattered by the First World War. Tracing the psychological damage inflicted by battle, the collapse of England's secure Edwardian values - embodied in Christopher's wife, the beautiful, cruel socialite Sylvia - and the beginning of a new age, epitomized by the suffragette Valentine Wannop, Parade's End is an elegy for both the war dead and…
On the expertise I claim only a deep interest in history, leadership, and social history. After some thirty-six years in the fire and emergency services I can, I think, claim to have seen the best and the worst of human behaviour and condition. History, particularly naval history, has always been one of my interests and the Battle of Jutland is a truly fascinating study in the importance of communication between the leader and every level between him/her and the people performing whatever task is required. In my own career, on a very much smaller scale, this is a lesson every officer learns very quickly.
Captain Heron finds himself embroiled in a conflict that threatens to bring down the world order he is sworn to defend when a secretive Consortium seeks to undermine the World Treaty Organisation and the democracies it represents as he oversees the building and commissioning of a new starship.
When the Consortium employs an assassin from the Pantheon, it becomes personal.
Captain James Heron First Into the Fray: Prequel to Harry Heron Into the Unknown of the Harry Heron Series
The year is 2202, and the recently widowed Captain James Heron is appointed to stand by his next command, the starship NECS Vanguard, while she is being built. He and his team soon discover that they are battling the Consortium, a shadowy corporate group that seeks to steal the specs for the ship’s new super weapon. The Consortium hires the Pantheon, a mysterious espionage agency, to do their dirty work as they lay plans to take down the Fleet and gain supreme power on an intergalactic scale. When Pantheon Agent Bast and her team kidnap Felicity Rowanberg, a Fleet agent…
I am a historical fiction writer, specializing in ancient history through a female perspective. My first series, The Queens of the Conquest, follows the wives of the men fighting to be King of England in 1066 for a vitally neglected take on a key year. My second, Shakespeare’s Queens, revisits three of the bard’s greatest female characters via the real historical figures who inspired them. I love the way fiction can lift facts, settings, and cultures into something hopefully more vibrant than a straightforward history lesson and aim to offer the best possible time travel for readers. I believe the books on this list do that beautifully.
As a writer fascinated by the period around 1066, I’ve long been intrigued by Emma of Normandy – a woman whose marriage to King Aethelred ‘the Unready’ and, after him, to King Cnut could be said to have started England on the path to the Norman conquest. It was a joy, therefore, to find this gutsy, involving, and utterly convincing novel about her life. Queen Emma is a woman who truly demonstrates that there has always – even in the seemingly most misogynistic of times – been space in history for determined women with the self-belief to step up and claim the power they deserve and Patricia Bracewell’s novel vividly brings to life both the woman and the times.
Set in England when Vikings are on the brink of invasion, this is an epic tale of seduction, war, and unrequited love from an outstanding new voice in historical fiction
In 1002 AD Emma, a young Norman girl, must take her place as bride to England's King AEthelred, a ruler who is looking for nothing more than a political pawn to protect his shores and bear his next child. But Emma soon realises that her new role comes with danger: the seductive Elgiva, mistress to the King, will stop at nothing in her battle for the circlet of gold.
Will Jordon spins a story about ex-army ranger Cameron Becker, who, like many in this genre, is more prone to following his instincts than orders. This book came out as the COVID pandemic ended, so I found the concept of a manmade pathogen that could lead to humanity’s extinction quite ironic.
I enjoyed how Will Jordan wove the 1959 incident of Dyatlov Pass into the story, so it became a lynchpin in the drama.
I've been writing since I was 7 years old. Star Wars had a big influence on me, but as I got older I gravitated toward Halo: Combat Evolved and Starship Troopers. Modern stories by the likes of Jason Anspach and Nick Cole, JN Chaney, and Rick Partlow...these are the stories that keep me up at night, my mind reeling with the insanity of what I've just read, pondering how close we are as a society to achieving the outlandish adventures contained in these books. I was in the Air Force for 14 years as an F-16 mechanic. I found my voice by combining my experiences and my passion for Science Fiction.
This book is the first entry in the Galaxy's Edge series and is quintessential military science fiction.
Anspach and Cole are a dynamic duo that delivers the craziest series I've read in decades. For me, Galaxy's Edge redefined what storytellers are capable of, and I consider it the pinnacle of the genre. From the gritty realism of the daily life of a space grunt all the way to a mystical element that is an homage to Star Wars—but better—the twists and turns keep coming.
Packed with action, mystery, intrigue, and constantly breaking the "rules of writing" in unique and compelling ways, this series is an absolute must for fans of SF, Mil SF, and great stories in general. Just wait till you get to the character of Tom. It's wild!
A hot, stinking, dumpster fire. And most days I don’t know if the legionnaires are putting out the flames, or fanning them into an inferno.
A hostile force ambushes Victory Company during a reconnaissance-in-force deep inside enemy territory. Stranded behind enemy lines, a sergeant must lead a band of survivors against merciless insurgents on a deadly alien world somewhere along the galaxy’s edge. With no room for error, the Republic’s elite fighting force must struggle to survive under siege while waiting on a rescue that might never come.
I’ve been a Star Trek fan and storyteller all my life. The first stories I wrote at school, the first Star Trek episodes I watched as The Next Generation debuted on German TV. Many years have gone by since then. I watched hundreds of Star Trek episodes and professionally penned dozens of fantasy and science fiction novels for children and adults, like Drachengasse 13 (“Dragon’s Alley 13”, not translated) or Der Drachenjaeger (“Black Leviathan,” Tor Books). The culmination of both being a fan and a writer came in 2016 when, with Star Trek: Prometheus, I was allowed to add my own small part to the ever-growing Star Trek literary universe.
Honestly, I couldn’t put this book down. I read Rogue Elements during a summer vacation on a lovely North Sea island and I had to force myself to have a break and go out for some bicycling and beach fun.
John Jackson Miller just had me hooked with his tale of dashing (but also sad and often drunken) ex-Starfleet officer Cristóbal Rios – introduced in Star Trek: Picard – living through a hilarious adventure while at the same time trying to find a new purpose in life after being cashiered out of his career because of some fishy diplomatic affair.
Grumpy gangsters, a dangerous woman, strange new crew members, and the hunt for a secret treasure keep Rios on the run throughout the whole novel.
A thrilling untold adventure based on the acclaimed Star Trek: Picard TV series!
Starfleet was everything for Cristobal Rios-until one horrible, inexplicable day when it all went wrong. Aimless and adrift, he grasps at a chance for a future as an independent freighter captain in an area betrayed by the Federation, the border region with the former Romulan Empire. His greatest desire: to be left alone.
But solitude isn't in the cards for the captain of La Sirena, who falls into debt to a roving gang of hoodlums from a planet whose society is based on Prohibition-era Earth. Teamed against…
I’ve been reading and enjoying science fiction since, as a kid, I rode my bicycle to the local library to read everything they had. That’s given me a broad exposure to the field from the Golden Age classics to new stuff hot off the presses. I’ve had four science fiction novels published, and in all of them I’ve used personal experiences to create as realistic a world as possible. I’ve also focused on ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances – that combination makes for better stories. I’ll leave the superheroes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – they’ve got the budget to Blow Stuff Up Real Good!
I’m also a personal friend of Jim C. Hines, but we became friends because I was a fan of his work.
This book is the first of a trilogy (which is different than a never-ending series) and takes a new, different, and funny spin on the zombie apocalypse.
Earth was hit by a plague that zombie-fied those humans it didn’t kill. Then the aliens came and cured some humans, who had to join their space fleet. Mostly as janitors and other menial laborers. Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos goes from head janitor to captain of the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish. She can barely fly the ship, but now must fight it.
Definitely a case where an ordinary person gets put in an extraordinary situation.
The Krakau came to invite Earth into an alliance of sentient species, only to find that plague had turned humanity into shambling, near-unstoppable animals. A century later a bioweapon wipes out the Krakau command crew and reverts the rest of the humans to their feral state - only Marion 'Mops' Adamopoulos and her Shipboard Hygiene and Sanitation team on board the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish are left with their minds intact. They stumble onto a conspiracy born from the truth of what happened on Earth all those years ago.
Davy Crockett – King of the Wild Frontier on television in the early 1950s directed my attention to the Alamo story. This interest stayed with me over the years and became a life-long quest of research and discovery. I have written five Alamo-related books, many magazine and journal articles, have appeared on a number of panels, and given talks on the subject. I’m a charter member of The Alamo Society and for a number of years served as the editor of the society’s The Alamo Journal. My studies taught me to question many traditional aspects of the Alamo battle – a sometimes dangerous endeavor involving such a legendary event.
There have been many novels written about the Alamo. Friend and fellow member of the Western Writers of America, Tom Clagett, tells his unique story by only presenting the last two days of the siege. On the Texan side we experience the battle through the three Taylor brothers and Susannah Dickinson, and the Mexican side via Colonel Juan Morales, all historical participants. Clagett blends fact, fiction, and myth, holding a reader’s interest throughout. One can’t help but care for the characters and hope for the best, even though there is only one way an Alamo story can end. That is great writing!
The final 13 hours at the Alamo began around 5 o’clock on the afternoon of March 5, 1836. Colonel William Barrett Travis drew a line in the dirt with his sword and asked all those who would stay and fight to cross it. Everyone there knew that General Santa Anna’s final attack on the fort was coming. Hopes, fears and destinies played out that night for four people. Susannah Dickinson, a woman of surprising courage, waited inside the chapel cradling her baby daughter, while her husband, Captain Almeron Dickinson, commanded the cannon battery atop the chapel. Young James Taylor had…
An unusual thing about me when it comes to historical fiction is that I write it but rarely read it. So, why should anyone care about my recommendations for historical fiction books? Perhaps because of what I do read, which is mainly non-fiction. On my bedside table right now, insistently beckoning me away from my laptop, is With The Old Breed, a harrowing memoir about the veteran Marines the author, E.B. Sledge, got to know while fighting the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa during World War II. My bookcase is filled with histories, memoirs, war diaries, and biographies. Only a few novels are present, and what sets them apart is their historical accuracy and realism.
It’s hard to believe that this realistic portrayal of life in the U.S. Navy during World War II was written by the same author who wrote the vainglorious Winds of War!Still, I have to include The Caine Mutiny on this list because it realistically depicts the everyday tedium endured by crews aboard fourth-class navy ships during the long, drawn-out Pacific war. Wouk served on such a ship, and that inspired this story about mediocrity, cowardice, and mendacity. Like the other books on this list, The Caine Mutiny is ultimately a character study. It focuses on the officers of an obsolete mine-sweeper, plying the backwaters of the war under the directions of an incompetent captain.
A series of incidents puts severe pressure on the ship’s crew and their response creates a dramatic but believable climax to the story. This novel has stuck with me because I served in the…
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a perennial favorite of readers young and old, Herman Wouk's masterful World War II drama set aboard a U.S. Navy warship in the Pacific is "a novel of brilliant virtuosity" (Times Literary Supplement).
Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life--and mutiny--on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II.
In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has sold millions…
