OT - Book (Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[dragoon500ly]

Some oldies but goodies...

Black May, the Epic Story of the Allied Defeat of the German U-Boats in May, 1943. By Michael Gannon. A decent, in-depth look at the Battle of the Atlantic during the key convoy battles, excellent research into the development of ASW and the code breaking efforts. Five Stars!

Gallipoli, 1915, by Tim Travers. Excellent overview of the campaign.

First Blood, the Battle of the Kasserine Pass 1943, by Charles Whiting. Good overview of the fight, although more of a coffee table read.

A Time for Trumpets, the Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge, by Charles MacDonald. Perhaps the most in-depth study of this campaign as well as one long read! Worth the time to read, but set aside several weekends.

The Battle of the Huertgen Forest, by Charles MacDonald. One of the better studies of this "forgotten campaign". A tad dated but excellent coverage.

[ArmySGT.]

Try Last of the Dog Team by William Johnstone.

All sex and violence set in the 60 and 70s Viet Nam and Africa. A fictional SOF operators and mercenaries tale.

[Adm.Lee]

Can't believe I hadn't brought this one up, I read it a long time ago. Like, when I was still running T2k and the USSR was a real thing. I read at least one of the stories in Pournelle's mil-sci-fi "There will be war" anthologies, and then this volume came out in 1989.

It's a collection of short stories in the Irish village of Barley Cross. Some catastrophe has happened-- left largely undefined-- and all the men in the world are no longer fertile. Except one, it seems, and he's a British Army sergeant who's deserted with his Chieftain. He rumbles into the village and the village council sets him up as Military Advisor, moves him into an old castle, and then they find out his, er, "superpower".

How far will they go to try to re-start the human species?

For T2k: Hardly a battle scene to be had, it's a lot more about what decisions people make under TEOTAWKI situations. There's no outside government or other institutions, marauders dispute the roads. It could easily be a solitaire game of T2k, just far from the nukes.

I think this and John Ringo's Kildar series are about half of why I'd like to run a "settling down" game in T2k someday.

[recon35]

What, no love for Richard Austin's The Guardians series? True, they're no literary greats, but they are basically a novelized T2K campaign. They can be mined for campaign ideas as the premise is a four person team works to rebuild the US after a nuke exchange.

[recon35]

double post.