[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by emellaich

Actually, I don't really know what to consider it, and I'm not so sure there is an 'official' definition.

An official definition? That would involve and official definition for SF and fantasy. People have been arguing what those definitions should be for as long as the genres have existed. It's fun, as long as you don't take it too seriously or expect to reach any firm conclusions.

However, this is why I chose the term I used. I assume that when people think of military science fiction they are thinking of space wars and/or mecha's and/or battles on other planets. I do see how these might be squeezed in under some definitions of sci fi, but I was making a note to the original poster that they were not traditional military sci-fi.

That depends on what you consider traditional military scifi, which gets you back to what you consider scifi.

I have referred to these as alternate history in the past and perhaps I should have used that here. My original decision not to do so was because many times alternate history is along the lines of: what if person X had not died, or had been put in charge of a certain battle or a given battle was won instead of lost. These stories usually involve an alternate ending or event that could conceivably have occurred and then a supposition of what the outcome may have been. Generally, aside from the one changed outcome the novels are consistent with the period in which they were produced.

I'd call them that, and while alternate history grew from SF and has a firm relationship with it, noit everything that is alternate history is necessarily SF. As an example, consider Robert Harris's _Fatherland_, published as a mystery. Which it is, save that it takes place in a world in which the Axis won WWII and the Nazis occupied Europe.

In these cases, there was an assumption of a fantastical event. For Belisaurius it was the time travel of two entities an advanced computer and a 'crystalline intelligence'. For 1632 it was the time travel and transposition of an entire city. From the basis of these events, it was very much like alternate history. Flint didn't introduce any other advanced science/fantasy.

Oh, certainly, But the cause of the historical divergence was firmly SF. One side question is how much additional advanced science is required to meet the definition. Consider Jules Verne, presumed to be early SF now. (Verne thought he was writing adventure stories for boys. The term "Science Fiction" had not been invented and applied to what he did when he was writing.) Verne carefully had one scientific element in each book, and it was always, so far as he knew, possible within the knowledge of his period, like the giant cannon that shoots his astronauts around the moon in _From the Earth to the Moon_. The closest Verne came to something we might consider SF is the power source for the submarine Nautilus in _20,000 Leagues under the Sea", nebulously defined as electrical but never really described.

So, I could have called it alternate history, but to me that label applies to more mundane events. If, say, George Washington was never born, it will not result in Gatling guns being used in the US Revolutionary War. In this case however, even though there was just one changed starting condition the subsequent technology impacts echo throughout the story.

Then we come back full loop to why I didn't call them sci fi -- well the technology introduced may have been ahead of its time, but it was still behind modern standards.

Sure, but it was well in advance of what we know to be true of the time.

It could not have equaled or exceeded modern standards, because the society of the period would not have been capable of making it. (And indeed, making the best use of what 6th Roman century society could produce was one of the plot elements of the Belisarius series.)

As another example, consider H. Beam Piper's _Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, from his Paratime Police series. A Pennsylvania state trooper named Calvin Morrison, on stakeout of a dangerous criminal, is accidentally picked up by a First Level paratemporal conveyor, and deposited in an alternate time line where the East Coast of North America is a maze of squabbling feudal princedoms, at about a 15th century level of technology.

Calvin finds himself in the Princedom of Hostigos, facing the short end of a war of extinction with the neighboring Princedom of Nostor. Hostigos has offended Styphon's House, the priesthood of the god Styphon. Making gunpowder is a secret known only to Styphon's House. Without gunpowder, which Styphon's House will not sell them, Hostigos cannot survive.

Calvin knows how to make gunpowder, and has a good knowledge of military history and tactics from his own history. Whether that will be enough to save Hostigos is another matter.

The level of technology in the book is largely 15th centure, but the book is firmly considered SF.

The bottom line however, is that both series were rousing good reads.

I fully agree.
______
Dennis