Recommend me some similar military SF novels

Do you know that Black Man didn't sell as well as earlier books? Do you have figures? Altered Carbon has been print longer, so it's likely to have sold more copies. But given the ACC Award, good reviews and general consensus that Black Man was the best thing Morgan had done, I'd have guessed it was more successful.
 
If you don't mind your novels graphical , you could do a lot worse than Rogue Trooper
 
Richard Morgan is a SF author, winning awards like ACC is more important than selling alot. Its not like he sells like the bestsellers of crime,some other genres.

I too have read great reviews for Black Man and it won him an important award.

The reviews actually was saying he was back to natural style like the Kovacs books.
 
iansales said:
Do you know that Black Man didn't sell as well as earlier books? Do you have figures? Altered Carbon has been print longer, so it's likely to have sold more copies. But given the ACC Award, good reviews and general consensus that Black Man was the best thing Morgan had done, I'd have guessed it was more successful.
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I don't believe I said that Black Man didn't sell as well as Altered carbon, I believe I said it wasn't as popular at the Kovacs novels...not the same thing.

Although for a lot of authors; if the best book they ever wrote was as successful as Black Man they'd be insanely happy and likely be able to retire on the proceeds and the royalties.

Now that Rogue Trooper book...I'll have to pop over to Amazon and check it out.

I'm not in any way a fan of Stars Wars books, but I've ordered Death Troopers simply on the strength of the Amazon reviews and the storyline.
It promises to be good for a laugh if nothing else.
 
But what makes you say the Kovacs novels are "more popular"? You prefer them? A group of your friends prefer them? You know some people who prefer them?

Black Man was clearly a very successful book - although not enough for Morgan to "retire on the proceeds". Incredibly few sf authors earn enough to do that - in fact, I can't think of any (still alive, that is). Fantasy authors, OTOH...

I still like to know what prompts you to make that claim about the Kovacs novels.
 
iansales said:
But what makes you say the Kovacs novels are "more popular"? You prefer them? A group of your friends prefer them? You know some people who prefer them?

Black Man was clearly a very successful book - although not enough for Morgan to "retire on the proceeds". Incredibly few sf authors earn enough to do that - in fact, I can't think of any (still alive, that is). Fantasy authors, OTOH...

I still like to know what prompts you to make that claim about the Kovacs novels.
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What prompts me to make these claims about the Kovacs novels is the numerous comments that fans of the Altered Carbon novels have made themselves.
There's hundreds if not thousands of them to read on the internet, knock yourself out.
You could make a start with the reviews for Black Man at amazon.co.uk, as that's an easy search.
Then start checking out SF ezine/book/magazine reviews and SF blog sites and then individual fans of his Altered Carbon novels.
Sure many, many readers enjoyed Black Man and his other books, but a common thread that runs through a lot of the reviews plainly says that they (the person writing the review) preferred Altered Carbon and the other Kovacs books to anything else Richard Morgan has written. Including Black Man.
As I have read a couple of hundred reviews of Richard Morgan's books in the last couple of years I feel that the evidence speaks for itself.
Others might choose to view the evidence in a different way or not believe it at all.
That's up to the individual.
The Internet is a big place and Google is your friend, the truth is out there.
 
So what if Kovacs is more popular anyway?

Perhaps he feels he's gone as far as he can go with that character/story? Perhaps he feels he would be just doing it for the money if he carried on and it wouldn't be as good quality? Would you feel happy if he kept churning out Kovacs books but they weren't as good as the first ones he did?

Sometimes less is more. There are many books I wish the author had left it with one book, or an original triliogy. There are numerous examples of authors who just keep churning out more books to please the fans and have only ended up tarnishing the memory of the originals. If Richard Morgan feels that he can't do any better with that series, he is best leaving it on a high note rather than carrying on, trading off the popularity of the series thus far.

Who knows, perhaps I'll feel the same way as you when I get around to reading these books ("Altered Carbon" is on my ro-read shelf) but I know that however much I might want more, I would rather he stopped now than writing more if they are not of the same high standard.

I absolutely adored the first "Chronicles of Amber" quintet by Roger Zelazny but I won't read the next qunitet because everyone says that it is not as good and I don't want anything to ruin the memories of the original series.
 
Warlocker, clearly we've read different reviews of Morgan's books. Because in the magazines, and on the sites, I've read, Black Man is generally said to be the better novel, and there have been no complaints that it wasn't another Kovacs novel.

I'm aware the Kovacs novel are popular. But I think your complaint that Morgan won't pander to fans of them sounded like a dismissal of Black Man - and it's plainly the best thing he has written to date. (We won't mention The Steel Remains - it's good, but it wasn't up to the hype.)

As for authors not leaving well enough alone - these days, their surviving relatives are often worse...
 
It's worth remembering that Richard has never ruled out the possibility of returning to Kovacs some day. He's simply said all he wants to about the character for now and, although he doesn't envisage writing any more at this moment in time, that's not to say he won't feel differently at some point in the future.
 
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Ian Whates said:
It's worth remembering that Richard has never ruled out the possibility of returning to Kovacs some day. He's simply said all he wants to about the character for now and, although he doesn't envisage writing any more at this moment in time, that's not say he won't feel differently at some point in the future.
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I read that in an interview somewhere online. Thats why i dont feel like the third book ended like a real ending. It felt like he left room for Kovacs to return if he wanted in the future.

As long as he writes quality,original sf like Altered Carbon,Woken Furies i'm glad to read his works series book or not.
 
Warlocker said:
Although for a lot of authors; if the best book they ever wrote was as successful as Black Man they'd be insanely happy and likely be able to retire on the proceeds and the royalties.
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A lot of authors might well be happy to have written a book as good as Black Man, but I think you are overestimating how much money it will have made. As far as I'm aware none of Morgan's book have appeared high on the general bestseller lists and Morgan himself said that only selling the Altered Carbon movie rights to Joel Silver allowed him to quit his lecturing job and become a full-time writer (admittedly that was early in his career so he'll be earning more from his books now, but he's not going to get fantastically rich on book sales alone).
 
Whether something has been popular or not has no bearing on what the writer wants, surely? Mr. Morgan probably wants to try as many different genres as possible and not be tied to Takashi Kovacs, regardless of how well they are received or how much money they make him. (The same can be said of Alastair Reynalds. I personally cannot wait for him to get back to Revelation Space.)

Anyway, we digress. Back to Military SF.
 
For real "Rah rah space corps" you could always read Heinlein's Starship Troopers - although personally I think it's witless and dull it has quite a reputation. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is a clever and exciting book, containing both intelligent comment and quite a lot of weaponry. Harry Harrison has done some good military stuff, some in parody, some not.

SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers is military, although the tech level is very low, and Iain M Banks' The Algebraist might be of interest (perhaps more galactic than military, although there is a war on). Otherwise, in terms of military sorts setting the galaxy to rights via force of arms, er...
 
Harry Harrison with Military SF ? Which ones do you mean ?
 
I was thinking of those, as well as some of his short stories in War With the Robots and the excellent collection Prime Number.

The problem with some of these older stories, though, is that they're issue-driven and hence the military aspect is really in there only to help the story seem convincing, rather than the Sven Hassel-in-space style of, say, David Gunn. Depends what you want, really.
 
iansales said:
Incredibly few sf authors earn enough to do that - in fact, I can't think of any (still alive, that is). Fantasy authors, OTOH...
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Ray Bradbury perhaps? Clarke probably could have up until his death. But yea if you want to make money write fantasy, but if you want to remain obscure with a cult following then write SF
 
There seems to be alot of japanese SF writers at the moment. I randomly read one not long ago and it was brilliant. Its called "All you need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Its a very fast paced action book in the first person. On the book i got, one of the comments from another author says; "Science fiction for the adrenaline junkie. Reads fast, kick ass, and keeps on coming. Buckle up and enjoy." That pretty much sums it up.
 
Red 13 said:
There seems to be alot of japanese SF writers at the moment. I randomly read one not long ago and it was brilliant. Its called "All you need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Its a very fast paced action book in the first person. On the book i got, one of the comments from another author says; "Science fiction for the adrenaline junkie. Reads fast, kick ass, and keeps on coming. Buckle up and enjoy." That pretty much sums it up.
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I've been reading some reviews for the book.
Looking good.
If I can find a cheap copy I'll buy it.

One has to despair of some so called SF reviewers...one guy wrote this on a SF review site:
The story is told in third person POV and changes from Keiji to Rita aka the Full Metal Bitch

In actual fact the story (as the OP here pointed out)...is written in first person present POV. I know because I've read a few paragraphs from the book now.
I cannot paste them here because the F word is used frequently by the narrator.

But All You Need Is Kill has certainly taken my interest. Never read a Japanese authored SF novel before. I'm looking forward to it.
I was in Japan a few months ago, saw a lot of Manga novels in supermarkets and newsagaents and at the airport. Some of them looked great. Pity I don't read Japanese.

Thanks to Red 13 for bringing this novel to my attention.
 
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