08-01-2021, 08:28 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
I want to make a pulpy science fiction story based on WW2 fighter/carrier combat, naval engagements, and interwar espionage and imperialism. The setting is an exotic and long-winded justification for planets that consist of a single city and which are days away from the nearest neighbor. Suffice it to say that the tropes are present and justified.
What I'm looking for are excellent and exciting old-school fiction and non-fiction of both pulp and WWII aviation and naval..iation. I'd like something that will help me make situations that are authentic to the feel of military communications and practices, the hierarchy, and the etiquette of naval and air forces. Same goes for civilian and espionage at sea and in the air. I realize this is kind of a niche genre (sarcasm), but what's the best, most authentic stuff? |
08-01-2021, 08:42 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
The classic work in this range is probably E.E. Smith's Lensman series. It's been reported more than once that the U.S. navy came up with a system of command and control at sea inspired by Smith's account of space fleet command and control; I'm not sure that that's historically authentic, but it at least suggests that there are clear analogies. "Space is an ocean" is an old trope.
You might also like to track down Bullard of the Space Patrol, by Malcolm Jameson. Its stories of interplanetary adventure and combat are very clearly modeled directly on naval customs and traditions of the 1930s and 1940s.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
08-01-2021, 09:15 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
https://www.amazon.com/Space-Carrier...s%2C214&sr=8-2
This is one of the most fighter-centric pieces of military SF in recent years and it appears to be free is you have Amazon Prime. In older stuff, Heinlein actually went to Annapolis in the 1920s. His most military book was probably Space Cadet. https://www.amazon.com/Space-Cadet-R...s%2C210&sr=8-1 Not free and not actually very fighter-centric.
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Fred Brackin |
08-01-2021, 10:10 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
Ah, "most military book in the Space Navy vein". Starship Troopers is about the PBI.
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Fred Brackin |
08-01-2021, 12:15 PM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
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Tom Clancy's Carrier and Fighter Wing are probably the most accessible all-in-one introductions to air operations around the turn of the millennium. Most changes from WWII have been refinements rather than paradigm shifts, although guided missiles make for very different actions than dumb bombs, rockets, or cannons. Arguably, though, guidance systems won't go away in the future. The US Naval Safety Center publishes a magazine called Approach. It's all about mishaps (actual and avoided) and lessons learned. We used to get a copy at my Army aviation unit. Lots of "there I was" stories by working aviators; good for getting a feel for the jargon. I was always impressed by the things they took for granted before something went wrong, e.g.: formation flight, over water, at night, radio silence and navaids blacked out... crazy stuff. There's an anime movie called The Sky Crawlers that has a pretty authentic feel. It wasn't very successful, so you can probably find it cheap. Quote:
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08-01-2021, 02:09 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
I get the impression PTTG is looking for contemporaneous mimetic or near-mimetic fiction, i.e. about heroic aviation rather than space wars.
Flying Aces (1928-1945) would seem to be ideal for your purposes; there are some at http://luminist.org/archives/PU/ . (Usual considerations of period racism/etc. apply.) Non-fiction, consider the shenanigans around the Washington Naval Treaty, 1922 – Yardley's Black Chamber was reading the Japanese (and others') delegates' communications with their governments, so the US knew exactly how far they would be allowed to make concessions.
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08-02-2021, 10:34 AM | #7 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
Shattered Sword is an excellent modern book about what really happened in WWII carrier combat.
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08-03-2021, 12:58 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
For interwar espionage -- Tales of the Golden Monkey (1980s series guest starting Roddy McDowell) -- has its highs and lows but captures some of the flavour.
Also try Louis L'Amour's pulp series about Merchant Captain Jim Mayo -- more South Seas adventure |
08-04-2021, 10:53 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
How about the Biggles books? The author was a fighter pilot in the Great War although his career may have been less eventful than he remembered.
There is a famous Silver Age (50 through 75) story about carrier warfare on Venus, maybe by David Drake. I don't know the title. There was a Disney cartoon series about air pirates in a pseudo-Caribbean.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
08-05-2021, 10:07 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
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Re: Sources for a Pulp-Sci-Fi Game
Quote:
West from Singapore collects the Jim Mayo stories. Off the Mangrove Coast gives some other L'Amour stories that would fit the genre. There was a smokin' hot Louis L'Amour pulp website, but I can't seem to find it now. ETA: http://www.louislamourgreatadventure.com/ Seas of Venus, about surface and subsurface action, instead of carrier action. But it fits the genre. Based on Clash by Night and Fury by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. Available from Baen Books. Last edited by thorr-kan; 08-05-2021 at 10:10 AM. |
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aircraft carriers, pulp campaign |
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