War novels tell the story of the war itself: the campaign, the front, the ship or the occupied town, and what all of it does to the people inside it. This page covers war fiction as the archive catalogs it, from ancient battles and the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War and Vietnam, with the best war novels in the catalog chosen by documented criteria, a separate selection of military fiction books, every author and series filed here and three reading paths.

What Are War Novels?

A war novel is a work of fiction in which war is the subject rather than the setting. The narrative follows soldiers, sailors, nurses, resistance fighters or civilians through a conflict over months or years, and the plot is shaped by the real course of that conflict: campaigns, sieges, retreats, occupations and the long wait between battles. Characters change because the war changes them, and the ending is often determined by history before the first page is written. The genre ranges from the battlefield epic to the intimate story of a family under occupation, and it includes series that follow one soldier across an entire war.

The comparison with the military thriller draws the line. In a military thriller the war, when there is one, is the background to a single mission with a deadline: a target, a rescue, a crisis that must be resolved in days. In a war novel there is no single mission that resolves the story. The war is the antagonist, the timeline is historical and the question is not whether the operation succeeds but what remains of the people who live through it. That is why war novels tend to be longer, slower and more interested in ordinary experience than in tactical brilliance.

What War Novels Have in Common

The first recurring trait is the long view of a single war. Herman Wouk's The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance follow a naval officer and his family across the Second World War, from the years before Pearl Harbor onward, moving between theaters and capitals. Jeff Shaara uses a similar structure across several wars, with novels such as The Rising Tide for the Second World War and To the Last Man for the First.

The second trait is the unit at the front. Karl Marlantes's Matterhorn follows a company of Marines in Vietnam through weeks of patrols, weather and command decisions, and Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels tells the Battle of Gettysburg through the officers who fought it. Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny narrows the frame to a single ship and its crew in the Pacific.

The third trait is the civilian war. Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale follows two sisters in occupied France, Kristin Harmel's The Book of Lost Names centers on a young woman forging documents during the occupation, Kate Quinn's The Alice Network moves between the First World War and its aftermath through a network of women agents, and Mark Sullivan's Beneath a Scarlet Sky is set in Italy during the German occupation. The fourth trait is the soldier across a whole era: Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe rises through the ranks of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars, starting chronologically with Sharpe's Tiger, and Simon Scarrow's Macro and Cato serve in the Roman army from Under the Eagle onward.

How to Recognize a Well-Researched War Novel

A documented war novel keeps the history straight. Dates, units, commanders, weapons and the order of events are consistent with the record, and invented characters move through real campaigns without changing their outcome. When an author takes liberties, the best books say so: Bernard Cornwell, for example, closes his novels with a historical note that separates fact from invention.

The soldier's experience goes beyond combat. Logistics, food, illness, weather, boredom, fear and the bureaucracy of an army at war take up as much space as battle, and the strongest war novels show how small decisions far from the front determine what happens at it. Civilians, refugees and prisoners are part of the picture, not decoration.

Many authors in the genre served in uniform. Karl Marlantes was a Marine officer in Vietnam, Herman Wouk served in the Navy during the Second World War, Alistair MacLean served in the Royal Navy in the same war, Steven Pressfield served in the Marine Corps and W.E.B. Griffin served in the Army. Others, such as Jeff Shaara and Kate Quinn, build their books on letters, diaries and official histories, and their research shows in the specificity of each scene.

The novels of Marc Dufort, the author who curates this archive

The Best War Novels: Fiction Chosen by Documented Criteria

Lists of the best war novels are usually built on taste. This one is built on the record: it includes only titles in this genre's catalog that have received a major literary prize, a reader-voted award or a screen adaptation, and it states the criterion for each.

• The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk: winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and adapted into a 1954 feature film.
• The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara: winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the basis of the 1993 film Gettysburg.
• The Winds of War by Herman Wouk: adapted as a television miniseries in 1983.
• War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk: adapted as a television miniseries in 1988.
• The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean: adapted into a 1961 feature film.
• Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean: written alongside the 1968 film of the same name.
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah: winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction.

The Best Military Fiction Books: Soldiers' Novels with a Record

The search for military fiction books leads to the same territory as war novels: fiction about armed forces at war, not the contemporary military thriller. The selection below focuses on novels about soldiers and their profession, again chosen by documented criteria, namely the author's own service, inclusion in an official military reading program or a screen adaptation.

• Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield: a novel of Thermopylae included in the U.S. Marine Corps professional reading program, written by a former Marine.
• Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes: a New York Times bestseller written by a Marine officer decorated with the Navy Cross in Vietnam.
• HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean: the author's first novel, drawing on his Royal Navy service during the Second World War.
• The Lieutenants by W.E.B. Griffin: the first Brotherhood of War novel, a series about U.S. Army officers written by an Army veteran.
• Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell: the chronological start of the Sharpe series, adapted as a long-running ITV television series.
• The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell: the first Saxon Stories novel, adapted as the television series The Last Kingdom.
• Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara: adapted into a 2003 feature film.

War Novel Authors in the Archive

These are the authors filed under war novels. Each author page lists the complete books, the series and the reading order.

• Alistair MacLean: Second World War adventure novels, from HMS Ulysses to Where Eagles Dare.
• Bernard Cornwell: the Sharpe, Saxon Stories, Grail Quest, Starbuck and Warlord series.
• Herman Wouk: The Caine Mutiny and the two-volume Winds of War saga.
• Jeff Shaara: novels of the American Revolution, the Civil War and both world wars.
• Karl Marlantes: Matterhorn, a novel of the Vietnam War.
• Kate Quinn: historical novels of women at war, from the First World War to the early Cold War.
• Kristin Hannah: novels of the Second World War and Vietnam, including The Nightingale and The Women.
• Kristin Harmel: Second World War novels, many of them set in occupied France.
• Mark Sullivan: historical war novels, including Beneath a Scarlet Sky.
• Michael Shaara: The Killer Angels, a novel of Gettysburg.
• Simon Scarrow: the Eagles of the Empire, Wellington and Napoleon and Berlin series.
• Steven Pressfield: novels of ancient and modern warfare, from Gates of Fire to Killing Rommel.
• W.E.B. Griffin: six series about American soldiers, Marines and agents from the Second World War onward.

War Fiction Series and Reading Orders

Several of the most important war novels belong to series that follow one character or one service through an entire conflict. The list below gives every series filed under this genre, with the number of books currently cataloged; each series page carries the full order, and the general index of series in reading order covers the whole archive.

Two series in the list need a note on order. The Sharpe novels were not written in chronological sequence, so the series page gives both the publication order and the order of the story. W.E.B. Griffin's six series overlap in time, and readers can enter any of them at its first book.

Second World War, First World War and Vietnam War Novels: Three Reading Paths

Discover the novels of Marc Dufort, curator of this archive

War Novels: Frequently Asked Questions