The Great War in SF, Fantasy and Horror

[Martin Bennitt]

Just come across this while browsing and didn't know whether to laugh or cry:

http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/adventure/by-the-blood-of-heroes/

There's a second book in the series and a prequel in what is described as "steampunk zombie alternate history", whatever that is, apart from the usual Yank misuse of the word "alternate." Anyone read them?

It set me to wondering however how the Great War has featured in science fiction and fantasy. Lothar von Richthofen and Herman Goering appear in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld saga http://www.sfsite.com/12a/riv46.htm which I remember enjoying. I also recall a short story whose name and author I forget where condemned prisoners were sent to a WWI type front to defend the country, only it transpired they were fighting each other, or something like that.

Any more out there?

cheers Martin B

[Ken S.]

Harry Turtledove

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_War_(Harry_Turtledove)

[clive_hughes]

Martin,

I think the novel you have in mind is Anthony Burgess, The Wanting Seed (1962). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wanting_Seed

The war scenes are deliberately WW1-oriented, being chosen by the fictional "authorities" as a good method of mass slaughter / population control. It was included by Paul Fussell in The Great War And Modern Memory.

...not to forget the recent film Sucker Punch if you want to extend the field for WW1 zombies!

Clive

[RobL]

I'm really enjoying the 'No Man's World' Trilogy, on the third one now - basically, in late 1916 on the Somme, a section of British trench including several nurses, a Battalion of men of the 'Pennine Fusiliers', a Mk I Male Tank and a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, and a cameraman, dissapear - for those back on earth it looks like a mine crater, but somehow the section of front line has ended up on an alien planet where the plants, animals and even weather can kill. Very enjoyable and the uniforms, equipment etc is very accurate. Very well done, a nice escape;

http://nomansworldblog.blogspot.co.uk/

[Martin Bennitt]

I'm really enjoying the 'No Man's World' Trilogy, on the third one now - basically, in late 1916 on the Somme, a section of British trench including several nurses, a Battalion of men of the 'Pennine Fusiliers', a Mk I Male Tank and a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, and a cameraman, dissapear - for those back on earth it looks like a mine crater, but somehow the section of front line has ended up on an alien planet where the plants, animals and even weather can kill. Very enjoyable and the uniforms, equipment etc is very accurate. Very well done, a nice escape;

http://nomansworldblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Nikola Tesla, who may or may not have been a genius (guys like him make my head spin), apparently features in both this one and "The Great Undead War" zombie books.

cheers Martin B

[moggs]

Hal Duncan's 'Vellum' contained a number of passages involving the Great War. The intensity of the writing gave an horrific perspective of the trenches.

Jonathan

[Simon_Fielding]

The epic Doctor Who story The War Games from 1969 - filmed on the same Brighton rubbish tip as Oh What a Lovely War....

[centurion]

Going from memory but Herman Goering appears in several of Keith Laumer's novels on parallel universes. There is a short story about a US test pilot who finds his 21st century advanced fighter flying over France in 1918. In Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.'s The Long Earth there is a soldier on the Western Front who steps into a series of parallel earths. Indeed there are a number of novels about WW1 soldiers blasted into alternative universes. In another of Keith Laumer's novels (A Plague of Demons) there are doughboys whose harvested brains operate robotic fighting machines in distant wars. I'll see if I can think of some more tomorrow.

[John(txic)]

I have a distant memory of a short serial in a comic in the late '60s about a tank (A9??) and its crew from WWII (I know, wrong war...) transported in time back to Ancient Greece. Anyone else remember this, or was it only a dream?

[centurion]

^{In Stephen Baxter's "The Time Ships" (the authorised sequel to H G Wells' The Time Machine) The time traveller having returned home to Victorian London after a second time trip is awoken by what appears to be a Mk VIII tank clanking up his street. It is equipped with a time machine and has been sent back to collect him (I won't go into the details of the plot here) but WW1 does not end in 1918 but drags on into the 1940s.}

^{An 18th century German author published a novel about a war in 1914 in which a unified Germany invades England (why stop at Belgium?) which is led by George V (about the only detail he gets right).}

[auchonvillerssomme]

SF goes right over my head. Including this.

http://io9.com/5842195/scott-westerfeld-explains-why-world-war-i-should-be-the-new-world-war-ii

[Guest exuser1]

I have a distant memory of a short serial in a comic in the late '60s about a tank (A9??) and its crew from WWII (I know, wrong war...) transported in time back to Ancient Greece. Anyone else remember this, or was it only a dream?

it was in Warlord comic 1980s ,and it was a landing craft with a tank and a few Tommys helping out ancient Greeks ,art work was quite good , on the novel front Red Baron Lives ! our hero becomes a agent for MI6 and sent to rescue some Russian ,quite a bit of sex ,well it was the 1970s !

Have enjoyed the Harry Turtledove books ,can also recommend the War that came early series .

There was also a comic book for the Young Indiana Jones series .

[RobL]

^{In Stephen Baxter's "The Time Ships" (the authorised sequel to H G Wells' The Time Machine) The time traveller having returned home to Victorian London after a second time trip is awoken by what appears to be a Mk VIII tank clanking up his street. It is equipped with a time machine and has been sent back to collect him (I won't go into the details of the plot here) but WW1 does not end in 1918 but drags on into the 1940s.}

^{An 18th century German author published a novel about a war in 1914 in which a unified Germany invades England (why stop at Belgium?) which is led by George V (about the only detail he gets right).}

'The Time Ships' sounds pretty good, will pick up a copy! Thanks

[Maricourt]

The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman - part of the Anno Dracula series - I picked this up in my local library - had a brief look and put it down again! I don't know if it counts as science fiction but it seems to have references to all sorts in it!

H G Wells - The War in the Air?

Maricourt

[Martin Bennitt]

^{In Stephen Baxter's "The Time Ships" (the authorised sequel to H G Wells' The Time Machine) The time traveller having returned home to Victorian London after a second time trip is awoken by what appears to be a Mk VIII tank clanking up his street. It is equipped with a time machine and has been sent back to collect him (I won't go into the details of the plot here) but WW1 does not end in 1918 but drags on into the 1940s.}

Reminds me of the Benny Hill Time Bicycle sketch where he lands in World War I then goes forward to 1940, where he finds 'it's still going on'.

cheers Martin B

[Guest exuser1]

Stephen Baxter produced a excellent series called Time Weaver ,goes from Rome ,through to 1066 and then Columbus till ending it all with WW2 must admit they were superb !

[seaJane]

Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Dead (fantasy for older children, not entirely focussed on WW1 but having it as a plot thread)

Rudyard Kipling, Army of a Dream (short story).

[Marilyne]

I found a book in the library one day, called "Le Mort Homme" by Denis Bretin. It's about a boy dragged by his drunken father to the remnants of the trenches to dig for copper shell fragments. and while the boy, on a leash, digs into the earth and goes deep into it, he finds himself haunted by the ghosts of the men he "encouters" in the trenches and is somehow dragged back to the battle od Verdun in 1916, sharing some memories ... or something like that...

did not finish it ... not my thing !!

MM.

[centurion]

Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Dead (fantasy for older children, not entirely focussed on WW1 but having it as a plot thread)

Rudyard Kipling, Army of a Dream (short story).

Army of a Dream (1904) is nothing to do with WW1.

Kipling did write some SF noteably 'With the Night Mail' and 'As Easy as ABC' and introduces a world that would gladden the heart of many a steam punk with gigantic airships powered by what appears to be some form of cold fusion, robotic farm machinery, force fields, sonic weaponry and a sort of loose world government with peace enforcement capability

[Guest exuser1]

Of course very bad fantasy that War Horse thingy

[Marilyne]

Of course very bad fantasy that War Horse thingy

what do you mean???

[seaJane]

Army of a Dream (1904) is nothing to do with WW1.

Ah - my misinterpretation of it then, or my memory has gone fuzz. It seemed possibly applicable. With the Night Mails (& companion) is as interesting for what RK doesn't change as what he does - I enjoyed it rather. What is the one that is set in Purgatory (very like Victoria or Waterloo stations) during the war? I can't remember its title.

[NigelS]

The epic Doctor Who story The War Games from 1969 - filmed on the same Brighton rubbish tip as Oh What a Lovely War....

There was another Dr Who two parter story in 2007, Human Nature & The Family of Blood which included pre-knowledge of an artillery strike on the trenches which saved the life of one of the character's & a Remembrance Day service in the closing scenes.

NigelS

[Guest exuser1]

Sapphire and Steel ? one story was at a disused railway station haunted by a Great War Tommy , the story was that the dead would return from the mouth of the tunnel at the station ,our heroes were to persuade them to return ,it also featured a submarine crew with references to the HMS Thetis disaster.

[Maricourt]

Almost impossible to describe is William Hope Hodgson's "The House on the Borderland" - a mix of Sci-Fi and horror and surely some recollections of his time in the trenches as an artillery subaltern. Hodgson was severely wounded in 1916 after being thrown from a horse and suffering head injuries - enough to be discharged. However, he re-enlisted and was killed at Ypres around the 17th April, 1918.

Try it!

Maricourt