Arthur_Phuxache
The Long Good Double Points Friday
- Location
- Greater Doncastrian Empire
-Immortal. Mutants. With. Catlike. Eyes.
Were there any of these in the first TBO book?
-Immortal. Mutants. With. Catlike. Eyes.
Were there any of these in the first TBO book?
He's right, though. The thing that's important and memorable about the series isn't the books themselves, it's the crazy little echo chamber of forum drama that spawned them.
I hadn't followed that forum for a while but after I went looking a few years afterwards allTBOhis The Salvation War series discussion had been banned, because there was some sort of scandal involving him.
All I can say is, that guy has had the most primadonna drama of any military sci-fi/alt-hist indie author (who's worked as part of the military-industrial complex) besides Tom Kratman.
Well, there was Stuart's own personal echo chamber forum, but he was also a big deal on the now-declined StarDestroyer.net forums as well. The most memorable recollection to me is that he got into a big debate with Norseman (a former SHWI member, and was also on AH.com) in circa 2007 that basically revealed his complete and utter ignorance about both Islam, the sects within Islam, and Islamic fundamentalism itself. But he was the toast of that forum so no one paid any mind, and it was the War on Terror so the Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris internet atheist movement was in full swing. I hadn't followed that forum for a while but after I went looking a few years afterwards allTBOhis The Salvation War series discussion had been banned, because there was some sort of scandal involving him.
All I can say is, that guy has had the most primadonna drama of any military sci-fi/alt-hist indie author (who's worked as part of the military-industrial complex) besides Tom Kratman.
but it's particularly funny that Slade held his own worldbuilding in such high regard, while forgetting Clausewitz's dictum that "war is a continuation of politics by other means." So many in the genre get the politics laughably wrong.
Kratman's drama is always self-contained. He's just so full of himself it surrounds him like a cloud wherever he goes. Facebook, quora, AH.com, wherever, Kratman is just as dramatic when he's talking to people who agree with him as when he's arguing with people who don't. Hearing about Slade drama, as a total outsider, always comes across as "pull up a chair, have I got a story for you". There's a Wagnerian story arc and cast of characters before the protagonist is brought down by his own tragic hubris.
The best once in the series i find is, Lion Resurgent where the British kick Argentina ass.So, anyone else here experience Stuart Slade's infamous (at least it was back in the day) series?
It was actually one of the first printed (yes, self-published but still) alternate history series I read.
That specific SD.net thread is just so memorable to me because it's pages upon pages of people quibbling over the finer specifics of weaponry when the central conceit of the wars that Slade wrought involved "Chipan" because "whenever China gets conquered the conquerors get assimilated into Chinese culture, that's just what China does" and the Caliphate because "I wanted to show the world where al-Qaeda gets what it wanted." I get that most of military fiction is to explore the weapons and maneuvers of war, the action, but it's particularly funny that Slade held his own worldbuilding in such high regard, while forgetting Clausewitz's dictum that "war is a continuation of politics by other means." So many in the genre get the politics laughably wrong.
The TBO stories come in two tiers (yes, I've read enough of them to categorize this)
The first tier is the dull tier. They're really just C-list military tales with (sometimes) better nominal rivet-counting "plausibility" and (consistently) flatter, duller prose. Almost all of the World War II-era ones fall into this, as do the postwar battles that don't involve the US. It's better, but it's also less memorable.
The second tier is the "goofball" tier. The immortal mutants with catlike eyes. The contrived setups to give the US a chance to show its "stuff" without really challenging it. The worldbuilding details that enable these American cakewalks. The simultaneous in-jokes and self-seriousness. I had the "fortune" of reading the goofball-tier books first.
Stuart can't wrote an engaging battle that involve the USA if his live depend on it, they are usually boring cumberstombing and he boast that the fact the US force had their paint scratched as the fact that has ben an even battle