Anyone running a doctor's office or any other kind of establishment with a waiting room should consider providing reading material their clients will enjoy. So many of these waiting rooms are either empty or filled with women's reading material. Military fiction books and magazines are especially popular among men and boys. Perhaps the fellows are stealing war books from lobbies nationwide. If not, office managers would do well to order some war stories.
There are a few generic conventions which are conformed to, bent, or broken as the author dares and the editor permits. Narration is more likely than not to be told in first person, since the fictional memoir form is especially popular. There will be a potentially huge cast of supporting characters. The great majority of these will be soldiers at war. The genre's fans are known to favor detailed knowledge of all the tools of soldiering, as well as all a soldier's tactics.
The genre has no firm borders, though, and can be said to embrace much fantasy and science fiction within itself. Space opera is the most popular subgenre of science fiction, and what distinguishes it is almost completely soldierly. It is the subgenre of science fiction that is full of characters whose first names are Captain and Lieutenant and who shoot beam weapons at each other, spaceships shooting at other spaceships, and ordinary tactics exaggerated by futuristic technology.
Militarized space opera is so dominant that many in the broad public seem to assume all science fiction is space opera. Understandably, this is to the frustration of many science fiction enthusiasts. It does, however, attest to the universality of the war story. So do all the martial elements in fantasy, whether in the form of the classics of the field or yesterday's new video game.
The whole genre of secret agent stories might also be understood as a sub-category of military stories. In this account, spy stories have the same relationship to war stories that espionage holds to the regular armed forces. The spy story can be thought of as a kind of military story dedicated to a particular theater of combat, fought by a particular kind of soldier. It would be analogous to fiction that focuses on naval battles, or special forces combat.
Some parents will hesitate before feeding the kids war literature, worried that the inevitable graphic violence might imprint itself on their character, or that it might even inspire the kids to enlist one day. Studies might reassure them that violence conveyed through print lacks the shock effect of seeing it on-screen. However, this also must be weighed against the need to provide reading material that genuinely inspires a life-long love of reading.
It is common among children to focus obsessively upon a particular genre. Sometimes it is girls and fantasy, with its dragons and wizards. Add technological elements and it becomes science fiction. Boys who need more realism sometimes seem to tune in to war stories and little else when it comes to reading material.
Stories of combat have energized young men for thousands of years. Many may object, and their objections should receive a fair hearing. But the distribution of war literature could also lead to more boys learning to read and more men going in for their check-ups.
There are a few generic conventions which are conformed to, bent, or broken as the author dares and the editor permits. Narration is more likely than not to be told in first person, since the fictional memoir form is especially popular. There will be a potentially huge cast of supporting characters. The great majority of these will be soldiers at war. The genre's fans are known to favor detailed knowledge of all the tools of soldiering, as well as all a soldier's tactics.
The genre has no firm borders, though, and can be said to embrace much fantasy and science fiction within itself. Space opera is the most popular subgenre of science fiction, and what distinguishes it is almost completely soldierly. It is the subgenre of science fiction that is full of characters whose first names are Captain and Lieutenant and who shoot beam weapons at each other, spaceships shooting at other spaceships, and ordinary tactics exaggerated by futuristic technology.
Militarized space opera is so dominant that many in the broad public seem to assume all science fiction is space opera. Understandably, this is to the frustration of many science fiction enthusiasts. It does, however, attest to the universality of the war story. So do all the martial elements in fantasy, whether in the form of the classics of the field or yesterday's new video game.
The whole genre of secret agent stories might also be understood as a sub-category of military stories. In this account, spy stories have the same relationship to war stories that espionage holds to the regular armed forces. The spy story can be thought of as a kind of military story dedicated to a particular theater of combat, fought by a particular kind of soldier. It would be analogous to fiction that focuses on naval battles, or special forces combat.
Some parents will hesitate before feeding the kids war literature, worried that the inevitable graphic violence might imprint itself on their character, or that it might even inspire the kids to enlist one day. Studies might reassure them that violence conveyed through print lacks the shock effect of seeing it on-screen. However, this also must be weighed against the need to provide reading material that genuinely inspires a life-long love of reading.
It is common among children to focus obsessively upon a particular genre. Sometimes it is girls and fantasy, with its dragons and wizards. Add technological elements and it becomes science fiction. Boys who need more realism sometimes seem to tune in to war stories and little else when it comes to reading material.
Stories of combat have energized young men for thousands of years. Many may object, and their objections should receive a fair hearing. But the distribution of war literature could also lead to more boys learning to read and more men going in for their check-ups.
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