Episode 164 - Military Fiction

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

This episode we’re talking about Military Fiction! We discuss jingoism, how war is hell, war stories vs military fiction, clichés, historical fiction, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• A Summer for War by Darrell Duthie
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, translated by Arthur Wesley Wheen
• Battlefields, vol. 1: Night Witches by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun
  • Night Witches (Wikipedia)
• Battlefields, vol. 6: Motherland by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun
• Battlefields, vol. 8: The Fall & Rise of Anna Kharkova by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun
• The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
• Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh
• Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchac
  • Code talker (Wikipedia)
• Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler
  • The Fallen of World War II (infographic)

Other Media We Mentioned

• Call of Duty (Wikipedia)
  • No novels, but there are some graphic novels
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
• Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
• The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
• MASH: A Roman About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker
• M*A*S*H (TV series) (Wikipedia)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (Wikipedia)
  • Figuring out what to link to for Modern Warfare is too much effort
• Spec Ops: The Line (Wikipedia)
• Band of Brothers (miniseries) (Wikipedia)
• Saving Private Ryan (Wikipedia)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
• If anyone has a good link about the connections between Marvel movies and militaries, please let us know!
• John Wick (Wikipedia)
• Coming Home (1978 film) (Wikipedia)
• Forever War by Joe Haldeman
• Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
• Sgt. Rock (Wikipedia
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
• The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle
• Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki
• Inglourious Basterds (Wikipedia)
• Preacher (comics) (Wikipedia)
• The Boys (comics) (Wikipedia)
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye (TFWiki)
• Suicide Squad (Wikipedia)
• His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Links, Articles, and Things

• Finish It! Podcast
• Remembrance Day (Wikipedia)
• Episode 013 - Spies and Espionage
• Episode 055 - Military Non-Fiction
• W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction
• War comics (Wikipedia)
• Protests against the Iraq War (Wikipedia)
• United States and the International Criminal Court (Wikipedia)
• Episode 106 - Alternative/Alternate History

15 Military Fiction books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Sisters in Arms by Kaia Alderson
• Where I'm Bound by Allen B. Ballard
• March Toward the Thunder by Joseph Bruchac
• At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis
• Flying High by Gwynne Forster
• This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II by Andrew Fukuda
• Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
• War Trash by Ha Jin
• Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson
• The American Granddaughter by Inaam Kachachi, translated by Nariman Youssef
• The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
• Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride
• Two Trails Narrow by Stephen McGregor
• Captain Blackman by John A. Williams
• Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Faladé

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, December 20th we’ll be talking about our favourite books we read in 2022!

Then on Tuesday, January 3rd we’ll ring in the new year by discussing the genre of Sports non-fiction!