Hey everyone!
I'm an aspiring author with one unpublished book (given to friends and family) completed, and as I continue forward in my career, I'm trying to become more accustomed to the book marketplace and trends overall before I actually query one of my books some years from now. I've had good success finding books that fit the "Realistic Military" part of my question–Tom Clancy and I plan to read Generation Kill soon–and while I realize Tom Clancy is technically Sci-Fi at a certain point, my combination of Sci-Fi and Fantasy is a bit different. It'll be easier to explain if I tell a bit of what I've written/plan to write.
While the universe I have covers multiple genres, the human world I'm working on now is very much based off Earth, going as far as having most of the same cultures but with all their names changed. This universe has its own magic and said magic is used to create what would effectively be considered Sci-Fi–one culture embraces it more and becomes a mix of cyber and diesel punk (inspired by the Wolfenstein games) that worships a god. There is still what you'd consider the traditional magic, but it's more in the background of this world for lore reasons, leaving the "Sci-Fi" portion of it as the more prominent fictional component. The books will follow a squad of five elite soldiers (inspired by Delta Squad from Star wars) as they traverse the world and attempt to stop the villain in power of said culture from taking over all the remaining magic in the world, so there is an adventure aspect here, but I just included that under "military."
I'll end by saying that I am interested in history, especially from around WW1 to the Vietnam War era, and that I've read and enjoyed the Indiana Jones books, so you can see where my story comes from. Also to briefly mention the scope of my entire work so you get a complete idea of my insanity, one world is inspired by the video game Warhammer 40,000: Darktide and another from Metroid Prime. Finally, I'll mention that I plan to keep my word count around 80-120k for my books, but feel free to suggest stuff outside of that range.
I would love to talk more about my question with anyone, so feel free to ask me to elaborate if I need to. I do apologize for the lengthy post, and I thank you for reading it.
by CarltonWillis