I have summarized Andersonian battle scenes on land, at sea or in space before. We have just read through and past Anderson's description of the battle between the Dalesmen and the Lann. Military sf is a distinct sub-genre. Some readers appreciate this aspect of works by Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling. Such readers might even include military experts or veterans, which I am not. My expertise is philosophy, which explains why I focus on textual references to "gods" rather than on accounts of combat. However, Anderson addresses every aspect of human experience so this blog welcomes comments from readers who focus on other aspects - and also from those who read something other than sf! which is what I should spend the rest of this evening doing.
Only one more full day before I am in London Thursday to Sunday.
Anderson generally got battles fairly right. One thing he (and many authors) don't emphasize enough is the role chance plays. Even Omdurman nearly turned out differently, though Kitchener would still have won; but he made mistakes that potentially made it much more -expensive- to win. Alexander the Great took almost insane chances with his own life all the time, and if he'd been killed his army would probably have broken up.
ReplyDeleteThis is why a lot of generals try to 'play it safe' if they can. That means less chance of a swift, low-loss victory... but less chance of defeat, too.
Stirling: "is the role chance plays"
ReplyDeleteEg: in your recent fiction, the battle where gunpowder bombs are first used, if there hadn't been a Roman officer smart enough to shout "Look, Jove's thunderbolts fight for us", the *Roman* army might have fled.
Yup, they might -both- have run away.
ReplyDelete