War is the worst thing humans do. In wartime, humanity harnesses everything we have, everything we are, strength, intellect, ingenuity, all of it, toward the end of bringing death to otherwise. Everyone seems to agree that we shouldn't do this. The strange and terrible tragedy of war is the fact that it keeps happening despite the fact that everyone seems to think it's bad.

As a basic aspect of the human condition, war has been the subject of art for as long as art has existed, and the first war novels are not significantly younger than the first novels. We've gathered together some of the best examples of that long tradition, including both realistic and speculative war stories.

Over the course of researching for this article, we learned that a lot of the most famous and beloved war novels are highly autobiographical, being inspired by the author's actual experiences in combat. Leo Tolstoy, is the first of many examples of this phenomenon.

War and Peace follows the intrigues of several Russian aristocrats, as seen through the eyes of a man who had once been a soldier and would later become a staunch pacifist. It's hard not to find Tolstoy's perspectives at least a bit compelling, especially given the talent he has for beautifully stating them.

Though it's not the oldest book on this list, All Quiet is the book that feels most prototypical of what many of the war novels in successive decades, including the entries on this list, would be like.

Short by modern standards, this novel strings together a series of moving scenes that beautifully capture the horrors of World War One through the eyes of a group of ordinary German soldiers. Though there's not as much connecting these scenes as some would like, they're still more than affective enough to make this story a masterpiece.

Inspired by Hemingway's own experiences covering the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of men just as doomed by history as the passengers of the Titanic, for it is a fact of history that that war ended with a fascist victory. Within this overwhelming darkness and tragic inevitability, For Whom the Bell Tolls somehow manages to weave flashes of light that seem almost blinding as it explores what it means to make the ultimate sacrifice.

In many ways, Slaughterhouse-Five represents the perfection of the formula founded by All Quiet on the Western Front. Both novels are a collage of disconnected scenes of war, but, where All Quiet's disjointedness was a weakness, Slaughterhouse-Five uses the same device to very deliberate effect.

It tells 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the story of a World War Two soldier who is "unstuck in time," which 💮is to say that he experiences his life out of order, constantly fading between his mundane present, his time at war, and the strange years he spent abducted by aliens. This novel ♐is harrowing and horrifying when it needs to be, but it also has an unmatched wit whose irreverence makes the emotions land all the harder.

War is not confined to any particular era. Already, this list has spanned about a century of history, so it shouldn't be surprising that something set in a version of the Middle Ages can also be one of the great war stories.

A Song of Ice and Fire, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the masterpiece by George R.R. Martin on which Game of Thrones was based, is about several things, but the folly of war is perhaps its single most prominent theme. In a genre that often valorizes such struggles, A Song of Ice a🥂nd Fire highlights the bleak truth that heroes often die, and deconstructs the idea of righteous struggle in favor of a more peaceful vision.

Those who are not familiar with the Animorphs series are probably surprised to see it share a list with Slaughterhouse-Five, so let's be perfectly clear: The Animorphs books are on par with Slaughterhouse-Five and For Whom the Bell Tolls in both the quality of their storytelling and the raw brutality of their depiction of war.

The Invasion is the beginning of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:an epic saga centered around a group of super-powered teenagers who must repel an alien invasion. The fact that these books are marketed for children means they lack the vivid, graphic violence of some of the other books on this list, but that fact forces the authors to rely on deeper, more psychological sources of horror that are genuinely more impactful than any amount of gore could have been, as the books chronicle how🌃 the horrors of this battle ruin the hearts and minds of these glorified child soldiers.

By far the newest book on this list, The Sympathizer is the story of a communist spy working both during and after the Vietnam War, and an ☂exploration of his deeply conflicting loyalties and the ideologies that underlie them. Though this story spends plenty of its time in the midst of war, it focuses more heavily on the aftermath, and on how popular culture distorts actual horrors for the sake of entertainment.

FAQ

What makes a war novel?

Like with all genres, the exact boundaries of what constitutes a war novel are fuzzy. Many action or adventure oriented stories could technically be considered🦂 war novels, but this list focuses more narrowly on stories that have somethi𝔉ng to say about war, rather than just using it as a backdrop for action. Usually, this involves some level of anti-war sentiment.

Why do people like war novels?

Storytelling is, at its core, about conflict.ඣ War is the purest expression of conflict in existence, when two groups of people put everything they have into destroying one another.