As a genre, military fiction can seem vague. Since not all stories with military elements can be considered military fiction, and a story without any military setting can still be classified under the genre. In fact, if you ask different people, there is a good chance they will each give a different definition on the genre.
The general consensus though is that there has to be a specific focus on military life. A commander overseeing the actions and lives of his troops from the safety of camp; a squad of a rag-tag soldier trapped behind enemy lines; or youngsters being trained for combat in a special academy. But those definitions are far from covering what the genre is truly about. And when it comes to 'military fantasy' though, the line becomes even more blurred.
Fantasy itself depicts a world where fantastical things may happen. In such a universe, what can be considered a militaristic experience? If a fantasy war is fought with a single individual overpowering army, is it still considered 'military'? What about adventurers pulled behind enemy lines? Or the life of students in an academy specifically tailored to train students in magic in hopes of using them for war?
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In English fiction, military fantasy is still largely considered a niche genre and continues to be defined to this day. Fans amongst the genre argue between themselves on what books constitute these. While stories such as Glen Cook's The Black Company sits nicely on the throne, other more popular line-toeing series such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, and J.R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire are hotly debated.
Instead, we turn to the East, where military fantasy has been a cultural norm for centuries. Out of The Four Great Chinese Novels, two of them, Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms can be considered under the genre. The first one focused on a group of outlaw army, and the second on feudal lords trying to replace or restore power to the Han dynasty. Both stories show two sides of the main aspects of the military fiction coin where one looks to the military life of characters, and the other gravitates towards the command and tactics of warfare. It is on these basic building blocks that generate the majority of military fiction genre and said to be the basic rules for all military fiction to follow.
