Tropes and other scary things.

Status
Not open for further replies.

neonephilim

Registered
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
Chicago
Website
nephilimindustrial.blogspot.com
I would much like to write a military scifi, but I'm a bit... self-conscious? about that direction. With the movement of videogames into popculture over the past couple of decades I feel like it is one of the most overused story genres. Now, I'd be lying if I said that the youngster I am's exposure to games like Halo and Warhammer didn't influence my desire to want to write something in a similar style, but its those same universes that I worry will either completely eclipse what I would produce or otherwise cause an individual (either the audience or a prospective publisher) to perhaps say, "Oh, another one of these" and turn his or her nose up at it.

Now, I know that it's up to me as an author to differenciate myself and I intend to do my best to, but I'm just curious on what others think about military scifi, and, to be more direct, what you think of military scifi about super soldiers clad in special armor.
 

eggs

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 24, 2011
Messages
129
Reaction score
17
Location
Sydney, Australia
I don't know about the 'super soldiers clad in special armor' bit, but my son reads YA military scifi from the Halo franchise novels through to classics like Ender's Game and he likes them all - as long as the story is good. The real challenge, of course, isn't in selecting the right genre to write in it's learning to tell a good story and write it well :)

From casual perusal of the shelves (I'm in Sydney, Australia) the scifi shelves are quiet heterogenous, there really doesn't seem to be an oversupply of military scifi at all. People who actually read the genre would obviously be able to give you a more informed opinion, but, if you have a story to tell, I say go for it!
 

Dreambrewer

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 20, 2011
Messages
188
Reaction score
16
There's plenty of ways to write military scifi. You can do it from a grunt perspective or from a general's or someone in between, or special forces or navy(space or sea) or air or whatever. Even if you decide to do super soldiers clad in power armor, there's plenty of things that can differentiate it. Are the power armors technological, organic or something that's not well understood by the guys wearing them(sentient armors from a past age). Can the armors fly, go under water, burrow in the ground, does each have enough power to take on a division or just a few normal troopers? Are the supersoldiers themselves genetically engineered musclemen, people with psionic powers, chemically/drug enhanced psychos, cyborgs? Is the story grim and dark, or more light-hearted and adventurous? Does it have a large story or is it episodic?

There's plenty of things you can do to make it "different" if you so desire.
 

Once!

Still confused by shoelaces
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
2,965
Reaction score
433
Location
Godalming, England
Website
www.will-once.com
My eleven year old son absolutely loves anything with supersoldiers in techno-armour.

That's both good news and bad news. The good news is that there is a huge market. The bad news is that it's already pretty full. You've got the likes of Halo and Warhammer. Not to mention GI Joe. Starship troopers. Judge Dredd. Transformers, perhaps.

So how can you stand out? What can you bring to the party that is different, interesting, new?

George Lucas gave his supersoldiers a rough woollen cloak and a glowing sword thing. Oh, and the Force. And those little breathing chooobs that they use to go underwater. But that was about it. Then he sent them up against droids and clones. Interesting.

Or you could riff around invisibility and stealth. That might be cool.

Or armour based on advanced communications - being able to see the battlefield from any POV, talk to any of your colleagues, that sort of thing.

Or, if you want to take a more realistic approach, it seems that the next gen of soldiers will rely heavily on robots and unmanned remotely controlled vehicles. UAVs. That could be an interesting direction to go in.

Let your imagination run wild and you have more chance of writing something that isn't another warhammer clone.
 

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
5,359
Reaction score
1,661
Location
Berkshire, UK
Website
soundcloud.com
In response to your thread title, I'm going to quote from tvtropes.org:

tvtropes.org said:
Tropes are just tools. Writers understand tropes and use them to control audience expectations either by using them straight or by subverting them, to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them.

Human beings are natural pattern seekers and story tellers. We use stories to convey truths, examine ideas, speculate on the future and discuss consequences. To do this, we must have a basis for our discussion, a new language to show us what we are looking at today. So our storytellers use tropes to let us know what things about reality we should put aside and what parts of fiction we should take up.

Don't be pathologically afraid of unoriginality. I'm a songwriter and endured the worst period of writer's block I've ever had as a result of trying to avoid things I perceived as clichéd - particular chord sequences etc. As soon as I realised that these were simply the building blocks of the genre I was working in the block disappeared and I wrote some of the best stuff I'd ever done. Embrace the things that define the genre and make it fun.
 

Lhipenwhe

Moving with my soul, step by step
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
745
Reaction score
94
Location
Saint Paul
As others have said in better terms, presentation is ultimately what's most important. Look at, say, Starship Troopers (the book), Halo, and the Forever War. All of them have the equivalent of supersoldiers in powered armor, but they're drastically different stories. I'm not really a fan of military sci-fi, but I could see why people liked them, if I didn't like them myself. (Couldn't stand Starship Troopers.)

So don't worry about going about going down a familiar path. Just make the journey interesting.
 

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
18,889
Reaction score
5,029
Location
We couldn't possibly do that. Who'd clear up the m
Website
francisknightbooks.co.uk
I'm not a huge fan of military myself (though I like a bit). My husband and son however....

They'd be all over soldiers in super-armour. All I'd hear is 'Wow, laser! Cool!' and 'haha, he blew up the thingy with the RPG on his shoulder!'

However, even though they both get a bit (!) fanboy about cool gadgets, what they both really want/love a damn fine story, and characters to care about. Added lasers and RPGs are a bonus :D
 

leahzero

The colors! THE COLORS!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 1, 2009
Messages
2,190
Reaction score
377
Location
Chicago
Website
words.leahraeder.com
When people say "the market is full" for military SF, they're talking mostly about video games. Military SF novels don't have quite the same saturation.

I grew up on games, too, and I love channeling that into my fiction. What we think of as commonplace and even cliché in games (supersoldiers in power-armor, fantasy/tech worlds with gunblades and magic, etc.) can actually be a breath of fresh air in fiction.

Generations who grew up on video games haven't really had a chance to dominate the shelves yet. I don't think game tropes are as played out in novels as you fear. Look at the insane cult popularity of stuff like Scott Pilgrim and Ready Player One to see that people under 40 or so have a huge appetite for fiction that evokes familiar game tropes. (Granted, they're meta-ironic comedies.)
 

lbender

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Messages
1,009
Reaction score
119
Location
Maryland
Write it anyway.

This.

There is good military sci fi out there. David Weber's Honor Harrington books (not as good lately, but series do that), Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books, etc. There is powered armor in both series, but it's used judiciously.

But, just because it exists doesn't mean you can't add some additional good quality pieces to the genre. Go for it.
 

neonephilim

Registered
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
Chicago
Website
nephilimindustrial.blogspot.com
Well, first thank you all for your responses.

I am committed to writing this story, despite how "familiar" parts of it might turn out. I do understand that it is close to impossible to produce a good, coherent work that doesn't stray into "trope" territory, and I'm truly not that worried about it, but I wanted to see what crowd reaction saying I wanted to write a mil sci-fi about supersoldiers would produce. I'm quite happy that it seems mostly positive (or, at least, not immediately negative.)

To those who aren't a fan, what don't you like about mil scifi? Or more to the point, what aspect turns you off to this type of story? Or alternately, to those who enjoy it, what aspect draws you in to this... or, well, any type of scifi?
 

Saronai

The Weed
Registered
Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
28
Reaction score
7
Location
Imagination
Website
musesings.wordpress.com
Since so many did a fine job with your first question, I'll go with the more recent one. I happen to be ambivalent about military scifi. I don't seek it out, but I don't dislike it.

The reason I don't really seek it out (or anything that could be called military roleplay in a game or military fantasy) is because I'm just not really that interested in the military (on a personal level, I am thankful for the troops that help protect us). If I had to ponder the why, I'm leaning toward the story lines usually being too severe and strict for my liking. The characters all tend to be highly disciplined and strict/severe about things, emotional characters are portrayed as weak or lesser because they depend on the MC for survival even while they may have just as much to offer society even though they cannot really protect it.

I really like art and the whole image I get most of the time from military fiction is all about function, with which basic art forms jar (Or get exploded because there's madness all about and you're painting? WHY?)

I like functionality with appealing aesthetics. Also, in the visual world, where I encounter much of the military fiction stories I'm familiar with, the colour schemes usually lack vibrance and tend to be dull and dark. I get tired of looking at them.

I think it's far more than that though. I suppose maybe I'm just, on default, more interested in the art of life rather than the art of war. I say that last because I actually don't mind stories containing war. I read many stories that do, but it's part of the story, with maybe some characters in the military, but it's more about their lives, rather than centered on the war itself.

An immediate example that leaps to mind is Game of Thrones. There are a lot of military-involved (for the time period/technology of the world) scenes and characters, but it's more about their lives in those times than about the military or the war or their gadgets.

Plus, I'm just more interested in fantasy fiction and have several books waiting to be read that I already own (more that I want to own) so I only detour when something specific catches my eye from another genre.

Edit to add: Of course, some might define Babylon 5 as military scifi, I probably would, but ended up happily sinking into the story when my husband bought the box sets and started watching them. I can tell you exactly why it grabbed my interest: The rangers (fantasy like), Ivanova (strong female leader), and the psionics angle. I love supernatural/psychic/telepathic/telekinetic/etc. stories as much as fantasy ones. I mention Ivanova in particular, but I liked so many different characters in the series. Also, while some were strict/severe, including Ivanova, they were all more of a loose cannon too. I mean no offense, but my biggest reason for not joining the military when they were begging at my door was that I have a really bad habit of asking why, even when the order comes from a superior. If I cannot answer the why myself then I don't want to be responsible for the action I perform under the order. The crew in Babylon 5 pretty much did that as a whole. Lack of trust is listed as one of my weaknesses and (in many cases) the higher up the ladder you are, the less inclined I am to trust (had too many bombs dropped on me from above as a child).

I added that because, as an exception, I thought it might be helpful for you to know why I liked it when I generally don't give military fic the time of day.
 
Last edited:

neonephilim

Registered
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
Chicago
Website
nephilimindustrial.blogspot.com
[longpost]

It is actually quite refreshing to hear that said, because honestly what you brought up that bugs you about military scifi is what I wanted to try to bring to the table.

I really enjoy the sections of Starship Troopers and The Fall of Reach (a Halo prequel written by Eric Nylund, in case you were wondering) that deal with the internal conflict of each's respective characters (for example, the main character of Starship Troopers suffering anxiety because he feels he's not sure he's ready for the leadership role that had been given to him) and I wanted that sort of thing to be central to the story I write.

To be more specific, and to parallel what you said in a way that's almost eerie, I want to create a supersoldier that, frankly, sucks at being a soldier (personality wise, at least.) I conceptualized someone who would rather be a scientist or an artist (perhaps even a writer?) creating things rather than destroying them, but can't pursue those goals due to being a genetically modified killing machine.
 

BigWords

Geekzilla
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 22, 2009
Messages
10,670
Reaction score
2,360
Location
inside the machine
Reading through this thread, I got to thinking about the Halo Jones story (with the power suits, and the gravity/time distortions) - it is about the military, yeah, but it is about the characters first and foremost. Their relationships, their fears, their utter unsuitability to be doing what they are doing. It isn't that military SF is overplayed (there have been lots of military SF over the years), but there is a decided lack of military SF which has realistic portrayals of individuals - all of the heroic fantasy stuff which creeps in, with Rambo-esque figures taking on masses of the enemy single-handed is just about the most boring thing I can think of reading. I like characters to seem as if they have a life outside of the plot.
 

Maxx

Got the hang of it, here
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
3,227
Reaction score
202
Location
Durham NC
Well, first thank you all for your responses.

I am committed to writing this story, despite how "familiar" parts of it might turn out. I do understand that it is close to impossible to produce a good, coherent work that doesn't stray into "trope" territory, and I'm truly not that worried about it, but I wanted to see what crowd reaction saying I wanted to write a mil sci-fi about supersoldiers would produce. I'm quite happy that it seems mostly positive (or, at least, not immediately negative.)

To those who aren't a fan, what don't you like about mil scifi? Or more to the point, what aspect turns you off to this type of story? Or alternately, to those who enjoy it, what aspect draws you in to this... or, well, any type of scifi?

The things I don't like about military SCi fi are:

1) that it takes a systematically (self) limiting subgenre (Sci FI) and limits it even more (ie to "military" ie clones of what the military is like these days)
2) Assumes that conflicts have constant features so that there are always equivalents for every (however limited) aspect of the current military ( so there will always be career non-coms and upperclass college-boy junior officers and tough guy fetishes etc.)
3) Assumes cultures, societies and technologies can be linearly extrapolated, so there are always liberal governments that sacrifice their infantry for idealistic reasons and there will always be tough guys who have better ideas about everything than anyone else

The cure is to read Iain Banks, particularly Excession, The Player of Games and Consider Phlebius.
 
Last edited:

Maxx

Got the hang of it, here
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
3,227
Reaction score
202
Location
Durham NC
To be more specific, and to parallel what you said in a way that's almost eerie, I want to create a supersoldier that, frankly, sucks at being a soldier (personality wise, at least.) I conceptualized someone who would rather be a scientist or an artist (perhaps even a writer?) creating things rather than destroying them, but can't pursue those goals due to being a genetically modified killing machine.

Do you know any good soldiers? I've met a few and they are generally slightly crazy. In one case they were so crazy before they became a good soldier that being a soldier actually calmed them down a bit. Did you know J. D. Salinger was a very good soldier in a very good regiment? Read "For Esme with Love and Squalor."
As was Robert Graves:

RobertGraves.jpg
 

Saronai

The Weed
Registered
Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
28
Reaction score
7
Location
Imagination
Website
musesings.wordpress.com
To be more specific, and to parallel what you said in a way that's almost eerie, I want to create a supersoldier that, frankly, sucks at being a soldier (personality wise, at least.) I conceptualized someone who would rather be a scientist or an artist (perhaps even a writer?) creating things rather than destroying them, but can't pursue those goals due to being a genetically modified killing machine.

Something like that might catch my attention, or at least the attention of my husband and then me. I don't really have anything against scifi, I actually like a lot of scifi stories, but I don't even really seek it out either. If I did notice it and read the back though and it said something like that, I may go sit at a table with it to read the first chapter, or a sample on kindle, etc.

In short, a story line like that would interest me. Not sure about others but you'd have me hook line and sinker if it contained a psionic faction/enemy and the soldier had a familiar nasty habit for asking why lol. Then again, for all I know of the genre, that might make it more typical. At the end of the day I don't avoid the genre because it's bad, but because I generally prefer magic to technology.

I know you're talking about books and I'm bringing up gameplay and movie examples. This is because I love gaming, so I'm familiar with several games and my husband is a movie/tv addict. I could have it off and never turn it on. There are shows I would miss, but not enough to personally remember when to turn the tv on to watch them. Consequently, pretty much all of my military scifi exposure comes from there. Avatar might even qualify at that rate. Tropey and predictable or not, I immensely enjoyed that movie, but I also felt it was more military fantasy than military scifi, at the very least it was an equal mix of both. We also got to explore a new, intriguing, and awesome land and its peoples. If there's anything I love more than artsy stuff, it's exploration and learning about new people whose ways are different from my own.
 

neonephilim

Registered
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
Chicago
Website
nephilimindustrial.blogspot.com

Thats interesting. I will definitely keep what you said in mind, it is, more or less, the type of information I made this thread to find. And to answer your question, I know plenty of service men and women, though I cannot comment on the quality of their sevice having not served wtih them directly. And I certainly cannot comment on their quallity as a combat fighter (what could be argued is the "traditional" role of a soldier), having never been in combat with them. Though I assume those that are communications or avionics techs wouldn't fare as well as those in infantry, but you never know.

saronai said:

Thank you again, that does me a good bit of encouragement to have my concept recieve a postitive response.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.