Call for Papers Orcs and Operations: Genre Fiction and Military Science

Lammi Publishing is pleased to announce a call for papers for the essay collection, Orcs and Operations: Genre Fiction and Military Science, (title subject to change) to be published Q2 of 2018.

Themes

Have you ever chatted with your friends about how Game of Thrones mirrors the UK’s War of the Roses? Have you ever thought about how both the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters in the Harry Potter series are essentially conducting insurgencies? Have you ever wanted to explore how the Star Wars film franchise serves as an examination of the social, military, and political issues surrounding weapons of mass destruction? Have you ever thought about how the powers of superheroes in graphic novels mirror the use of specialized military weapon systems? The worlds created within fantasy, speculative fiction, and graphic novels don’t exist in a vacuum. They reflect aspects of real-life human history and society.

Here is your opportunity to merge your interest in military history with the fun of the popular science fiction and fantasy books, shows, and film or the graphic novels you love. In this collection, we wish to provide the opportunity for the discussion of real-world military history and strategy as it pertains to science fiction, fantasy, and graphic media.

Though we invite a wide range of perspectives, the discussions must centre on the themes of military history and strategy within a fantasy, science fiction, or graphic media work. Whether it’s the politics of surrender and reintegration in Firefly, civic-military relations in the Star Trek franchise, a strategic analysis of the Battle of Hogwarts, or a comparison between Godzilla and nuclear weapons, we want to hear your ideas. Television shows, films, and graphic novels are welcome. We seek discussions of strategy and tactics, political analysis, connections to real-life history, or the human cost of war.

We are looking for a broad array of voices. We welcome lay people as well as students and professional academics. We require all essays to meet professional scholarly standards (proper Chicago citation, appropriate sourcing, academic essay structure), though we do have an editor available to assist with the mechanics if your ideas are sound and you just need a bit of help in the execution.

Format

Essays are to be between 7000 and 10,000 words, use standard manuscript format, and be structured and cited according the Chicago Manual of Style. End notes are to be used for citations and files must be sent in Microsoft Word format.

Rights and Payment

The work will be published as an ebook and as a paperback printed by print on-demand technology. Therefore, we require worldwide English language rights in all e-book formats and as a paperback print on-demand rights. Payment to be based upon net royalties (after expenses) proportioned as a percentage of the total work that the essay contains to be paid twice annually.

Important Deadlines

Proposals must be received no later than 1 December, 2017, at 11:59 PM, mountain time. Proposals to be sent via email to info@lammipublishing.ca, subject line: Proposal, Orcs and Operations. Email should contain a one-paragraph description of the proposed work, a paragraph describing the sources to be utilized, and a short biography including previous citations and social media involvement—Twitter, Facebook, blogs, et cetera. Acceptance will be announced around 15 December, 2017. First drafts of the essays are due 15 February 2018 for publication in spring of 2018. We do require a minimum of four accepted proposals.

Any questions, please email info@lammipublishing.ca.