Here are 4 books that Smokepit Fairytales fans have personally recommended once you finish the Smokepit Fairytales series.
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I’ve been a fan of dinosaurs and other mega-monsters ever since I watched the original Godzilla movie as a kid. It scared me half out of my wits! There’s something about big, scaly, dangerous beasts that makes for a great adventure story. Add fascinating human characters and you’ve got my full attention. I started writing my Dinosaur Wars books precisely to fill the void where there are far too few stories of this type in current literature. Challenges between human heroes and giant beasts have been part of literature from the start, featuring dragons, titans, and ocean leviathans. I see my writings as efforts to continue that tradition.
This book by Robert Heinlein is an action-packed space adventure featuring creepy insect foes in an interstellar battle with Earth. It follows Trooper Johnny Rico in an epic war story set on distant worlds.
The book features a number of combat engagements with gigantic insect-like “Arachnids” and other bug-like creatures. Meanwhile, several love affairs arise and crumble in the face of Rico’s commitment to the warrior life. While the book has been criticized as preachy and moralizing, these are foibles that I tolerated well, knowing that another action sequence would not be long in coming.
'The historians can't seem to settle whether to call this one 'The Third Space War' (or the fourth), or whether 'The First Interstellar War' fits it better. We just call it 'The Bug War'. Everything up to then and still later were 'incidents', 'patrols' or 'police actions'. However, you are just as dead if you buy the farm in an 'incident' as you are if you buy it in a declared war.'
5,000 years in the future, humanity faces total extermination. Our one defence: highly-trained soldiers who scour the metal-strewn blackness of space to hunt down a terrifying enemy: an…
I served for seven years in the Irish Reserve Defence Forces, finishing as a weapons specialist in the infantry. I’m very grateful for the time I served in uniform and the lifelong lessons I learned that have helped me in my personal and professional life. Being a lifelong fan of military science fiction, I wrote Big Red from the point of view of a young Irish soldier thrown into a genocidal war on Mars. I’m a co-founder of the British and Irish Writing Community and our online magazine Bard of the Isles.
Ireland is known as the land of a thousand welcomes, but most people aren’t aware of its sixty unbroken years of Peacekeeping duty with the UN and even less know of its elite special forces unit known as the Army Ranger Wing (ARW).
The ARW is seen by many as one of the most effective special forces in operation. Shadow Warriors gives an in depth look into the history of the ARW, set up against the backdrop of rising instances of international terrorism and its deployment in a variety of roles across dozens of countries. This is an easy and straightforward read for anyone interested in military related books.
In the spring of 1980, the Irish Department of Defence sanctioned the establishment of a new unit within the Irish Defence Forces and the Irish Army Ranger Wing (ARW) came into being. In the decades that followed, its soldiers have been deployed on active service at home and abroad, generally without the knowledge of the wider public. The ARW is made up of seasoned men from across the island, who are selected through tough competition. Only the best of the best make it through and are trained in an extraordinary range of specialist skills. Being one of these elite operators…
I am interested in social justice issues, and the books in my list deal with these issues. My background is in finance, but I’ve tried to use this knowledge to help others. I serve on the board of two not-for-profit organizations, one a dance company that works with at-risk teens in various countries, and the other is an animal sanctuary that takes in farm animals that have been abused. I consider myself very fortunate and privileged, and it's important to remember not everyone has had the opportunities I have had. I feel it’s crucial to connect with others, understand where they’re coming from, and help if you can.
I liked this book because it examines the role loyalty and social customs play in our lives. As soldiers are transported from location to location, the laws of relativity step in to move the characters decades into the future.
In that time, social customs have changed, and things that we thought were important no longer are. It shows how vulnerable we are to custom and tradition. In the end, it is the personal that is important, not the bigger cause.
The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic-- Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi
The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand--despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time…
I spent twenty five years on active duty with nineteen months in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. I served as a tactics instructor at the US Army Infantry Center; two years teaching the operational level of war at the US Army Command and General Staff College; two years teaching at the German Army Tactics Center. I commanded two rifle companies, one being an Airborne rifle company in Alaska and served two years as battalion commander of an air assault infantry battalion during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. I hold a Masters Degree in Military Strategy from the US Army Command and Staff College.
I am recommending this book as it is a true story about the initial engagement of US conventional Army forces in a major battle in the Vietnam War. It set the stage for how all future battles in that environment would be conducted. The actions by both the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) were followed throughout the war for the next eight years.
I particularly like the book because both authors participated in the battle, and their participation made for a very accurate retelling of the events. I found exceptional examples of leadership in this book, which I employed during the course of my twenty-five years of active duty as an Army officer and a helicopter pilot.
I also liked the fact that the book does not label the PAVN as the bad guys but just others fighting for what they believed in.
'If you want to know what is was like to go to Vietnam as a young American... and find yourself caught in ferocious, remorseless combat with an enemy as courageous and idealistic as you were, then you must read this book. Moore and Galloway have captured the terror and exhilaration, the comradeship and self-sacrifice, the brutality and compassion that are the dark heart of war' THE TIMES
THE MUST READ CLASSIC OF THE VIETNAM WAR
In November 1965, 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt.Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small…
