After the Battle: Kelley’s Story is a military sci-fi novel by S. Stieglitz.

Military science fiction is a type of literature that deals with several military aspects such as weapons, structure, armed conflicts, combat scenes, and personnel. According to Wikipedia,

“Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that features the use of science fiction technology, mainly weapons, for military purposes and usually principal characters that are members of a military organization involved in military activity, usually during a war; occurring sometimes in outer space or on a different planet or planets.”

When we think of military sci-fi we think of Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Frank Herbert’s Dune, John Scalzi’s The Ghost Brigades, and Old Man’s War, and Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series. Many of these sci-fi novels are set in space of far-distant future. In recent years, we have seen several interesting military sci-fi novels. One of them is S. Stieglitz’s After the Battle: Kelley’s Story which was published in 2019. ReadersMagnet takes a closer look.

After the Battle: Kelley’s Story by S. Stieglitz

Published in 2019, After the Battle: Kelley’s Story is a military sci-fi novel set in outer space. It follows a fleet career soldier named Kelley. He is living is life and could care less about the future or the past. All he knows is that he likes to keep things simple and worry-free. However, Kelley’s life takes a turn after an explosion and a series of events forced him to leave Fleet’s service. He is left with nowhere to go and anxious, Kelley is confident that he still has all the answers.

Shortly after the events, Kelly met an old contact who set up with a fairly good job. Kelley is determined to work hard, recover what he’s lost, and get back to the life he once had. However, a routine background-check at work sheds light on his past including family secrets. This forces him to question everything about the life he knows and begins to look into what may his real life.

With his new discovery, Kelley goes to his estranged family. There he finds a way to reconcile the past to be able to deal with his present situation. Kelley is faced with a choice to make: to navigate an asteroid belt under fire with one thruster down or embrace his future with his newfound reality.

Aside from her book, After the Battle: Kelley’s Story, S. Stieglitz is also the author of the novel The Ground Upon which I Stand. It is a collection of three light Lovecraftian horror stories

About the Author

S. Stieglitz is the wife of sci-fi novelist Joab Stieglitz.