# Military SF books where the socialists/revolutionaries are the good guys? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 21, 2006, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002 "2006-12-21T00:57:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/21 "2006-12-22T18:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Jeez! The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, man. Cell based organization? [/QUOTE] The cover of the current paperback edition says something like “The classic novel of libertarian revolution.” ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/22 "2006-12-22T21:39:23Z")
Ken MacLeod writes socialist space opera. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/23 "2006-12-22T21:53:31Z")
[QUOTE=athelas] _Forever Peace_, in which the good guys end up spreading peace and love throughout the world using telepathy. Yeah. Uh-huh. [/QUOTE] Depends on how telepathy works in that universe. In Damon Knight’s classic “Rule Golden,” aliens infect humans with a form of telepathy that causes any aggressor to feel the effects of aggressive violence – i.e., hit a guy and you’ll feel the blow yourself; shoot a guy and you’ll die. **That** might achieve peace, if not love. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/24 "2006-12-27T04:16:14Z")
[QUOTE=Reno Nevada] Umm. In _Bill, the Galactic Hero_ the government was a bunch of evil, clueless morons (that’s how you know it is speculative fiction), so anyone resisting the government would be on the side of the angels, but I don’t know that any such were depicted. In _The Stainless Steel Rat_, the good guys were all criminals, not revolutionaries per se. [/QUOTE] They may not have been revolutionaries with an agenda, but they lived in such an orderly, regimented universe that their attempts to live outside the regulated environs that they were de facto revolutionaries whether they had an agenda or not. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/25 "2006-12-27T04:49:52Z")
The last few books of the Sten series, when Sten and friends turn against the Eternal Emperor. Not socialists ( well, some were; they were a diverse lot ), but revolutionaries, and they were the good guys. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/26 "2006-12-27T04:55:17Z")
…seems to me that since the 60s, anyway (and maybe longer), a book like the OP is wondering about would have no hope of gaining any sizable audience. Readers who identified with the socialist/revolutionary angle wouldn’t care for the military angle, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2006, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002/27 "2006-12-27T11:28:44Z")
If I can quibble, I wouldn’t call the Stainless Steel Rat books or the Callahan’s books military SF, much as I like them. I’d say military SF would be more like stuff by David Weber or H. Jay Riker and unfortunately, I’ve never been able to get into it. “Unfortunately” because a good friend of mine writes military SF for a living. Would there be a market for books where socialists/revolutionaries are the good guys? If you think there would be, let me know and I’ll pass it on to my favorite hack, although he’s a hard-core conservative and I don’t know if he’d be willing to write it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-sf-books-where-the-socialists-revolutionaries-are-the-good-guys/385002.md?page=1)