Interesting - sorry I'm a compulsive reader, culling on a quick flick through the lists, Pratchett, O'Brien, Azimov, Shute etc. A quick count through the pile by my bed on fiction reveals 2 x Pratchet, 1 x Shute 2 x O'Brien, 1 x Larry Niven and 1 x C.S.Forester.

Could I recomend C.S.Forester, his book "The General" (published originally in the 1930's) is, I would warrant, the finest novel writen in the 1930's. Find it, read it, and understand it. You may understand where the songs like "Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire", or "Leap Frog" originated.

Gareth