Just got an itch I feel like I wanna scratch. Most books I’ve read with battle scenes have left me wanting more from them, so looking for suggestions for authors/books/series with battle scenes that really blow you away. Bonus if they focus on or include brilliant military tactics
by Bakrom3
5 Comments
Bernard Cornwell for land battles, Patrick O’Brian and C.S. Forester for battles at sea.
Anything Brandon Sanderson has been really impressive to me!
Not sure this is what you’re looking for, but the Prism Pentad by Troy Denning, a series of five D&D novels set in a harsh desert world, include many scenes of hand to hand combat, described by someone who sounds like they have experience with martial arts–I seem to remember a lot of people, when they are taken down, rolling with the fall and slapping the ground to spread out the force of the impact.
Similarly, *Dune* has some fairly detailed descriptions of larger battles (a favorite bit of mine is when >!the Fremen, native desert people, describe fighting the Sardaukar, the emperor’s elite shock troops, saying, “Some of them are good fighters. We can only kill ten or twenty of them before one of ours falls.”!<)
I enjoy the action scenes in pretty much all of Micheal J Sullivan’s books (some have more action than others)
Also
The Chronicles of Amicae by Mariah Bolender have excellent action scenes
1632/ The Ring of Fire Series generally. Premise of the series involves a time displaced West Virginia town getting sent back to the 1630s so even though the books are set in the 1600s the military tech used includes pump action shotguns, ironclads and other weird awesome stuff. There are a few books that are light on the battles (the Gribbleflotz books and Viennese Waltz spring to mind) but then you also have masterpieces like Commander >!Cantrell!< in the West Indies and The Baltic War both of which have some of the best land and naval battle scenes I’ve ever read. I would also recommend the Honorverse books, a series I’d describe as the child of Horatio Hornblower and Star Trek. It’s great