“Dixie,” by Air Force retiree David Guenther, is one in a series of new military science fiction books written by former servicemen. Courtesy of David Guenther ()

Science fiction writer and military veteran Chris Kennedy served 20 years in the Navy before he began writing novels. (Amazon.com)

(Illustration by Noga Ami-rav / Stars and Stripes)

Lasers explode, spaceships explode, and alien lizards clash with cyborgs in a battle for the future that shows no signs of ending, thanks to an army of former troops building a second career in military science fiction.

It’s a custom-designed domain for men and women exposed to cutting-edge military technology – ground robots, battlefield computers, lasers, and drones – and the experience of combat in places like Iraq. and Afghanistan.

They walk in distinguished footsteps.

Robert Heinlein, author of many science fiction classics, including “Starship Troopers,” graduated from the Naval Academy and served on the first modern American aircraft carrier, the USS Lexington, in the 1930s. He began to write to make ends meet after being medically released.

Kurt Vonnegut, an army intelligence scout from the 106th Infantry Division, was captured by the Germans during World War II and survived the firebombing of Dresden – which killed tens of thousands of civilians – in taking refuge in an underground meat locker. The experiment led to his science fiction masterpiece “Slaughterhouse-Five”.

While the work of Heinlein and Vonnegut draws heavily on the military experience of the authors, the fathers of the “military science fiction” genre are Jerry Pournelle, a Korean War veteran, and David Drake, who served in the military. Vietnam, according to Toni Weisskopf, an editor at science fiction publisher Baen Books.

“It’s something that they (the ex-military) understand, and they do it very well,” said Weisskopf, who has been editing science fiction for three decades.

Many of the authors she publishes these days are veterans of 21st century conflicts.

“It is modern military experience that informs the science fiction people write today,” she said.

For example, the work of Tom Kratman, who retired from the US military in 2006, reflects the news. His novel “Caliphate” portrays a future where Europe has been taken over by a brutal Islamic regime.

Science fiction, Weisskopf said, allows ex-servicemen to write about their experiences in ways they couldn’t do in other forms of fiction.

“Writers can make things come out the way they want, not the way they actually are,” she added. “It also brings military culture to a wider audience beyond those who served and their dependents. It bridges the gap between military and civilian cultures.

David Guenther, who retired in Surprise, Ariz. Near Luke Air Force Base, began writing science fiction after retiring in 2003 after 21 years in the Air Force managing life support equipment on almost all aircraft in the fleet, from C-5 transports to F-16 fighters and B-52 bombers.

“When I was in the service, I loved telling stories,” Guenther said. “I would continue to make them more and more amazing. It just seemed like a transition for me in the civilian world to put it on paper. “

He is the author of a series of “Gray Panthers” books about a war between aliens and elderly ex-soldiers whose youth has been restored using alien technology.

An avid reader since childhood, Guenther said he was influenced by Kratman and John Ringo, a former 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper who wrote several New York Times bestsellers.

A veteran of postings in Britain and Korea and of several deployments in the Middle East, Guenther said his missions and the foreign cultures he has experienced inspire his work.

“Instead of planes, I just make them spaceships,” he said.

Guenther compared being stationed in Korea with being on another planet or dimension.

At Kunsan Air Base, for example, the flight track was separated from the shore by barbed wire and a minefield.

“If rocks were torn from the rock face at the seaside, the base would go on alert,” he said.

Fellow science fiction writer and military veteran Chris Kennedy, of Virginia Beach, Va., Served 20 years in the Navy, first as a bomber on A-6 Intruder planes and later on EP- reconnaissance planes. 3.

Kennedy was stationed in Rota, Spain, and carried out deployments to Kosovo and Iraq before retiring in 2007.

Three years ago, he was driving home from work – he’s still a Navy contractor – when he got the idea for a story about a Chinese invasion of the West Coast.

When he got home he started writing and ended up self-publishing “Red Tide” in e-book form. He was popular enough to inspire a sequel. By the time he got to the third book in what is becoming a nine-part series, his characters had encountered aliens and were fighting in space, he said, adding that the series was had sold 50,000 copies so far.

“The military prepared me to be a science fiction writer,” Kennedy said. “Most of my work is heavily military. My military career helped me get into the heads of the different characters. I know what it’s like to be in these things and have friends I can talk to who have done everything that I haven’t. I try to make it as real as possible so that you feel what people feel in combat. “

Some of his characters – which he called “red shirts” after the crew of “Star Trek’s” Starship Enterprise destined to die shortly after their transfer to a planet – are based on real people with whom he served.

“When people want to be in my books, I create characters with their names and kill them,” he said. “They’re definitely going to die because they’re red shirts, but they can do something heroic. In the last book, I killed 25 red shirts.

Kennedy is also a Ringo fan: “He writes about the real harshness of war. “

The couple have met several times at science fiction conventions. They often share the limelight with video game developers and filmmakers, which suits Kennedy, whose son is studying video game design in college.

“I would love to see my books turned into movies or video games,” he said.

Mike Williamson, whose science fiction books are published by Baen, served five years in the Air Force, including pro-Iraqi freedom tours, and also spent time in the military and the National Guard of the Air Force.

Before becoming a writer, Williamson was an avid reader of science fiction books that he discovered for sale on the Base Exchange.

He wrote “Freehold”, a military-political science fiction novel, in 2002 and developed a full-time writing career with 15 books – 12 science fiction and three military fiction – which grossed a half -million sales and several top-sellers.

“I wrote half a book – ‘Contact with Chaos’ – about aliens while I was deployed in Kuwait for four and a half months. We had 12 to 4 hour shifts so passing the time was not a problem, but it helped keep me sane, ”he said.

Williamson’s bestseller is “The Weapon” of 2006 on Future Special Ops. Last year, he published “A Long Time Until Now” about a military convoy that is stepped back in time to the Paleolithic Age.

“The soldiers must survive among ancient peoples and other time-rejected people,” he said.

The experience gives veterans an edge over other military science fiction writers, he said.

“When non-military people try to write military stuff, it’s too clean. Everything works as it should, whereas in the army we learn that things are broken for no reason, there are rules of engagement and budgetary constraints. It’s a complicated process, ”said Williamson.

He bases some of his characters on people from other cultures that he met during his military career, but does not use much military experience since he was involved in repairing air conditioners, which he did does not consider it exciting enough for its stories.

Instead, he stays on top of current events and keeps in touch with friends in the special ops community for inspiration, he said.

Another Baen author, Joelle Presby, 35, of Norfolk, Va., Served in the Navy in Yokosuka, Japan, before starting to write.

“I always wanted to be a writer,” she said, adding that she was following in Heinlein’s footsteps when she joined the Navy.

His book, “The Road to Hell”, is part of a series that deals with portals connecting different dimensions and a war involving a group of magic users fighting people equipped with steampunk technology.

“There are people who fly on dragons, cast spells and fight people with guns and trains,” she explained. “People with guns have never seen a spell cast, and people with magic have never seen a bullet shot.”

Presby’s world is also filled with telepathic animals such as whales and monkeys that are as intelligent as humans and get involved in battles, she said.

The book she is currently working on, on a space elevator in Africa, draws a lot from her time in the Navy.

“None of us have been in the Space Navy or been involved in a spaceship explosion, but we can write about some of the interesting things we are learning about people working together and leadership,” she declared.

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