The following books are ones we think you'll enjoy and will enhance your appreciation of Land Ironclads and similar games.
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| THE GREAT WAR IN ENGLAND IN 1897 by William Le Queux The master of period invasion fiction, William le Queux is the Tom Clancy of his day! The Great War in England in 1897 is based around the invasion of Britain by French and Russian forces, with the day only being saved by the timely arrival of reinforcements from the Empire. If you want Bengal Lancers charging French artillery and Russian troops storming Birmingham, this is the book for you! If you fancy a german invasion check out Le Queux's The Invasion of 1910 |
| THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G.Wells "The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilisation is under threat, as powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, destroy all in their path with black gas and burning rays, and feast on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. The forces of the Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they at first appear." Need we say anything? If you haven't read it, buy it now - a classic. |
| EDISON'S CONQUEST OF MARS by Garrett Putnam Serviss "In 1897, H G Wells created one of the greatest science fiction masterpieces ever written - "The War Of The Worlds". The story was serialised in newspapers across America and proved to be so popular that the Hearst newspaper group commissioned a sequel, to be written by their own science editor - Garrett Putnam Serviss. This sequel appeared in February of 1898 and quickly entered into the annals of science fiction history. It is one of the rarest and possibly one of the most important stories ever to appear in the genre. Serviss procured the co-operation of the famous inventor Thomas Edison and wove a totally distinct and astonishing tale of humans invading Mars. Whereas Wells had composed a story of human suffering, Serviss invented the space techno-thriller. This book contains the first space battle to ever appear in print. It is the first alien abduction story. It is the birthplace of the hand-held phaser-gun. It has asteroid mining and the first truly functional spacesuits. It is a cornucopia of technical ingenuity. The hero of the story is Edison himself. This is the first time this story has appeared, complete and unabridged with the original illustrations since the winter of 1898. First appearance ever outside the USA. It comes with a 13-page essay by editor Robert Godwin and original cover art by Tom Miller. It includes first appearances in fiction: science - functional space suits, manned manoeuvring EVA guns, using the moon to train for Mars, using the Martian moons as staging posts, asteroid mining for platinum group metals, exploration and accurate description of an asteroid, accurate description of light and shadow in space, scientist-astronauts, and accurate understanding of the moon's history; folklore - space combat, alien abductions, disintegrator guns, aliens building the pyramids, oxygen pills, and cigar-shaped alien spacecraft." |
| THE NOMAD OF THE TIME STREAMS by Michael Moorcock "The astonishing adventures of Captain Oswald Bastaple (ex-53rd Lancers and Special Air Police).. How with grit and integrity one brave English airshipman struggled for snaity in a world turned upside down - threatened by an infamous international anarchist conspiracy to destroy the Pax Britannica maintained by our mighty aerial cruisers! It is 1973, and the stately airships of the Great Powers hold benign sway over a peaceful world. The balance of power is maintained by the British Empire - amost equitable and just Empire, ruled by the beloved King Edward VIII. A new world order, with peace and prosperity for all under the law. Yet, moved by the politics of envy and perverse utopianism, not all our Empire's citizens support the marvellous equilibrium. Flung from the North East Frontier of 1902 into this world of the future Captain Bastable is forced to question his most cherished ideals, discovering to his horror that he has become a nomad of the time streams, eternally doomed to travel the wayward currents and nameless brances of a chaotic multiverse. Guided only by the red republican chrononaut, Una Persson, he must confront a multitude of alternate futures before at last gaining an understanding of his fate" The classic 'Oswald Bastable' trilogy comprising of The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar. Compulsory reading for Aeronef and Land Ironclad gamers. |
| ANTI-ICE by Stephen Baxter "A new element has been discovered in a hidden vein near the South Pole. Anti-ice is harmless until warmed, when it releases vast energies that promise new wonders and threaten new horrors beyond humankind's wildest dreams." Enjoyable 'Steampunk' novel, much in the spirit of Moorcock. The original edition had a fantastic cover of a nuclear mushroom cloud over Sebastapol in 1854... |
| THE PESHAWAR LANCERS by S.M.Stirling "In 1878, a deadly asteroid shower decimates the population of the Northern Hemisphere and forces the relocation of the British Empire to its southern colonies in India, Australia, and South Africa. Two centuries later, when the British Raj faces deadly threats from rival empires, the crown prince places his trust and the fate of the empire in the hands of a young officer in the Peshawar Lancers and his twin sister, a brilliant and innovative scientist. The British raj, extending from Delhi through India, Afghanistan and the Kashmir, still exists in the 21st century, though the technology consists of 19th-century vintage railways, hydrogen airships and a turbine-powered building-sized "Engine," the equivalent of a computer." |
| RALLY CRY by William Fortschen "When Union Colonel Andrew Keane led his blue-coated soldiers aboard the transport ship, he could not have foreseen that their next port of call would be neither in the North nor the South, but on an alternate world where no human was free. Storm-swept through a space-time warp, KeaneÕs regiment was shipwrecked in an alien land, a land where all that stood between them and destruction was the power of rifles over swords, spears, and crossbows. Into this serfdom ruled by nobles and the Church, Keane and his men brought the radical ideas of freedom, equality, and democracyÑand a technology centuries ahead of the world they must now call home. Yet all their knowledge and training might not save them from the true rulers thereÑcreatures to whom all humans were mere cattle, bred for sacrifice!" The first in the Lost Regiment series of novels, all recommended reading. As the regiment begins to mechanise the world it finds itself in we end up with battles between aerostat, naval ironclads and on eventually steam powered land ironclads. A classic series well worth reading in full. |
| THE TALE OF THE NEXT GREAT WAR 1871 - 1914 edited by I.F.Clarke "This book is an excellent sampling of the new genre of science fiction that evolved during the run-up to the Great War. I.F. Clarke's fascinating introduction and notes are alone worth the price of the book. He gives a sprightly and informative review of how the "Future War" tale evolved in the wake of the shocking rapid victory of newly unified Germany over France in 1870. This first of the "lightning campaigns" electrified British Col. of Engineers George Chesney into writing an anonymous series of stories for Blackwood's Magazine in 1871, purporting to be a "history", told in 1925, by an English veteran of the disastrous invasion of England by the superbly trained and armed Germans in 1875. This bombshell of a cautionary tale caused a frantic debate in Parliament over the preparedness issue. It also was the prototype of the whole genre sampled in this collection. Chesney's "The Battle of Dorking" is the first and longest of these Victorian and Georgian era semi-fictional battle forecasts. Examples from several nations involved in the arms buildup of the late 19th and early 20th centuries present a rounded view. Land and sea warfare innovations are depicted as they might be used in the near future. It is fascinating to read how the future antagonists saw the enemy and the shape of the next war. It gives you a contemporary view of the war jitters that led to the horrible holocaust of 1914-1918 -- the horror of which is never anticipated in these tales of bravado and derring-do." Indispensable book for the dedicted Victorian SFer. Includes a reasonable translation of Robida's War in the 20th Century with its aeronef, aquanef and blockhaus roulant amongst a host of excellent tales. |
| GREAT WAR WITH GERMANY, 1890-1914 edited by I F Clarke A second anthology edited by Clarke, with introductions, in a series-within-a-series of future-war stories. This is a selection of 37 prophetic tales, written by British and German authors in the quarter-century before World War I, about the conflict to come. |
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