My pet peeve: Military Campaigns

[Nesacat]

I'll admit to being quite fond of battles and military campaigns, probably due to a bloodthirsty streak a mile wide. However, it has to be reasonably plausible ad well-researched. There is a limit to how far one's belief can be suspended. I really like reading about well-planned battles no matter how many pages they run along for. However I tend to stop reading and just skim if there's huge holes and things simply sound absolutely impossible.

 

[Karsa Orlong]

If I recall correctly Erikson touches upon almost all the points Lirineth mentions.

 

[Somebloke]

Sure does. I still remember the line from halfway through the Deadhouse gates:

"We bring you food. We bring you water."

Not to forget that the commander had known about the rebellion for months...lots of time to stock up.

That is what I like about Erikson's books; he takes a world similar in scope to the legends of ancient greece (lots of Herculean characters, mythical beasts etc) and yet manages to make so many of the characters grounded; we have priests discussing the pantheon like minor politicians talking about the Senate of Rome; commanders who have to contemplate not only demon assaults by supply lines and morale; imperial soldiers who sound like they belong on the beaches of Normandy than a tourney field.

 

[Werthead]

GRRM also addresses those points. When the army of the North is assembling at Winterfell in AGoT, they actually have to depart before the full strength has been gathered because they are stripping the countryside bare and will starve if they wait any longer. Dany's army actually does start starving whilst it is besieging Meereen in ASoS, spurring the need to seize the city (and its food stocks) as soon as possible. Keeping the city and its occupying army supplied and fed in the face of a native insurgency and outside enemies threatening the city will be an important plot strand in the next book.

By the end of AFFC, two years of warfare, pillaging and foraging has left the Riverlands in a state of famine, not helped by the arrival of winter and the realisation (by Jaime) that thousands will die in the coming months.

Paul Kearney's very large armies in Monarchies of God (although this is fair enough, as this series takes place in a post-Renaissance, pre-Napoleonic world with superior technology) also have immense supply problems, as detailed in the books.