When you love to read, you are always looking for new directions to take yourself, to explore new genres. One such genre that you might wish to consider is the war novel, or special forces military fiction novels. Sometimes, when the author has the opportunity to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, he can spin a more truthful yarn than he could if he were writing a non-fiction feature article.

A lot of modern war novels concern wars in Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, the Middle East, Central and South America, Central Asia, and Europe (specifically, the Baltic states). The previous generation of authors wrote about the Vietnam, while the generation before that wrote about World War II. The next wave of war novels will undoubtedly focus on the emerging cold war between Russia and a growing section of the rest of the world.

A hot topic today is the special operations forces, like the Navy SEALs. These units have fewer people, so the cast of characters is easier to maintain. Modern wars no longer take place on huge battlefields so they need a new approach from that of our ancestors. Enter the special ops teams.

A lot of war novel authors were soldiers, sailors or aviators themselves. For them, writing about their war is a catharsis, part of the healing process. This could be why we see so many series' of novels. Take, for instance, "The Blades, " about SAS special operations. These stories take place in places as diverse as Sierra Leone and London, Colombia and Las Vegas.

In a similar genre but going in a completely different direction is the "AFTER" post-apocalyptic series by author, Scott Nicholson. The first volume in this series is called "Shock, " in which a massive solar storm kills billions of people and demolishes the world's technological infrastructure. A handful of survivors struggle to survive while a new, violent, population evolves.

If you are by nature a sci-fi fan, why not try military sci-fi? Here, the plots are taken from actual historical events but brought up to date and told on a much larger scale, where battles take place between planets or galaxies instead of countries. Star Trek TNG, set in the 24th century, applied this principle in an episode featuring the story of the third century B. C. King Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia.

Readers have been captivated by war stories since the days of Virgil and Homer and the Aenid and the Iliad, respectively. Although the stories and the characters themselves may not be true to life, it is possible to cram a lot of realistic detail in the descriptions of the scenery, characters and how they lived.

What does the future hold for lovers of war stories? Well, the U. S. Navy is actively considering admitting women into the SEALs and the Special Warfare Combatant Crews. Now that is going to make for some very interesting stories, as we get a look at female war heroes. It is going to add a whole new dimension to the human side of battle, too.