10 new science fiction and fantasy books to check out this | Culture - The Verge

In case you need a last-minute gift for the holidays.

Photo: Andrew Liptak / The Verge

My background is in military history, and one of the things that I’ve been trying to do more of in recent months is to get a bit more up to speed on the current state of the field of modern military writing. There has been some interesting reads out this year that I’ve added to my to-read list: Ronan Farrow’s War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, as well as Paul Scharre’s Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War that are both quite good.

But the real breakout read this year seems to be New York Times writer C.J. Chivers’ latest, The Fighters. It’s an intimate and detailed work of war reporting that looks at the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan through the eyes of six people who fought, year by year. It’s a book that breaks the story away from the strategic and geopolitical view and shows off the cost of the war from the people who have been waging it. It’s an astonishing and heartbreaking read.

Here are 10 books hitting shelves this December that you can pick up as a last-minute present for the holidays. 

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Source: The Verge