"Most personally influential Science Fiction settings (book)?" Topic

Settings that were based on books then (possibly became games later) – What were your top three influences that determine(d) your Science Fiction games?

1) Starship Troopers

2) Andre Norton's Star Guard/Star Rangers

3) Beast Master

4) Bolo

5) West of Honor/The Mercenary

Honorable mentions:

Peace Company, The Forever War, Hammer's Slammers

Foundation Trilogy – colours my imagination to this day.

The Enderverse, Forever War and The Right to Arm Bears.

20thMaine, that was great SF writing, fer sure, even though I can't say it actually influenced my war games. But then the psychohistorians would want it that way…

- Hammer's Slammers
- Chris Bunch's Star Risk series has had a big influence on my Traveller project, I basically fit it into Traveller's sandbox for small sci-fi skirmishes. The books are more Traveller-esque than the official Traveller novels.
- Gawd help me, but the Starfire stuff too, at least in the principle of the setting, if not the practice.

Forever War, Foundation and some series I read as a kid, about a library ship that travels to different worlds.

Hammer's Slammers
Anything Larry Niven has done…

Starship Troopers
Flash Gordon

West of Honor, Hammers Slammers, Starship Troopers, Space Viking, Starcruiser Shenandoah, Star Wars, Star Trek.

Oh, plus Aliens and Resident Evil. Just for fun.

Rob

Starship Troopers
Armor
Hammer's Slammers
Who Goes There?
Neuromancer

Too many to name. : )

The Mote in God's Eye
Bolo
Starship Troopers

Starship troopers – but it is a distant third to TV/Movie offerings of Star Wars and Star Trek.

Forever War, Bolo, Hammers Slammers and Starship Troopers.

I would like to include the Black Company series but that rates as fantasy.

Starship Troopers
Various comic books including Alien Legion and Legion of Super heroes.

In no particular order, Hammer's Slammers, Space Viking, Bolo series, Star Trek, Traveller Adventure books, and Epic Armageddon/40K 'verse.

Berserker, Bolo, and Starship Troopers.

Hammer's Slammers for ground conflict
Honor Harrington series for huge space battles
Legion of the Damn for both types

Starship Troopers.
Armor.
The Forever War.

If I had read Hammer's Slammers first I never would've read any more SF. Wretched stuff.

I Am Legend
Alas Babylon
Bolo Series
Everything by H. Beam Piper

The Culture(but never 'gamed' it and probably never would)

Lensmen series
Starship Troopers/Forever War
Neuromancer

I'm not sure if there are all that many science fiction books that have informed my gaming in a direct way. I don't as a rule read what could be said to be military science fiction.

Some examples that might apply would be H.G.Wells' The War of the Worlds, Niels E. Nielsen's Vogteren, Gerald Klein's Les seigneurs de la guerre and Perry Rhodan.

Most of the other influences have been gathered from bits and pieces in books that don't really deal with scifi warfare as such, including but not limited to Iain M. Banks, Dan Simmons and Alistair Reynolds.

Hmmm… Armor, Neuromancer, The Eisenhorn Trilogy.

Starship Troopers, The Forever War and the Honor Harrington series have influenced a lot of my gaming over the years, starting with my first wargame (AH's Starship Troopers) back in 1978 :)

There are way too many but I will list the earlier ones:
The Lensman series, Space Viking(actually, anything by Mr. Piper), Police Your Planet, The Mote in God's Eye and the Slammers series.
And Starship Troopers along with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

OK, may I add another earlier title?

We All Died at Breakaway Station.

Probably the Lensman series, but I can't be sure, because I read it a long time ago, and I have no fixed points of influence, just things I've read and taken stuff from.

Hammer's Slammers is my favorite … and I have a 6mm Slammer's TF. Plus we gamed AH's Starship Troopers decades ago. Liked both the book and the game.

The Culture series – backs up my Infinity N3 imagination…

Robert Frezza's 1/35th Imperial Rifles trilogy.

Walter Jon Williams' Dread Empire's Fall trilogy.

Armor

LT

Armor by Steakley
Starship Troopers
The 3 Marine Trilogy's by Ian Douglas
The Corpsman series by Ian Douglas
Eisenhorn
Their Master's War by Mick Farren
Amber Series by Zelazny

1) Starship Troopers- still a bit of a holy grail for me.
2) Honor Harrington Series – stopped reading it eventually, but read up to volume 7 or 8. Kind of replaced by the Lost fleet series recently.
3) Hammer's Slammers- huge influence on me recently.

-Will

Patrick,

We All Died at Breakaway Station.

Thanks for jogging my memory, what a monster book!

Falkenbergs Legion.

A Small Colonial War.

These two are what I model my near future FTL wargaming on. I think they got it right. Small units of infantry at the end of a very long supply line trying their best in impossible situations.

Hammers Slammers for just fun.

Really trying to figure out how to do a Hellsgate London type of gaming. Dimensional portals that let in hell.

This is a hard question, but aside from the obvious ones (Drake, Banks, Gibson) I'd have to say The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod.

Starship Troopers
Lensman series
Buck Rogers Armageddon 2419

1) Hammers Slammers
2) Starship Troopers
3) Dune…More strategic than miniatures based.

Another vote for Beam Piper's Future History. Little Fuzzy and The Cosmic Computer have stuck with me in ways that nobody else's work has.

….And Newtons Wake for 'Combat Archeology'!

That was a nice concept although it wasn't really too much expanded on. Would work for the backbone of an entire game methinks.

Combat Archeology – that was done by driving a Search Engine (giant tank) into some post-singularity ruins as a smash & grab raid, right?