(Part 2) Top products from r/AskScienceFiction

I don't know how canon it is, but the Millennium Falcon Workshop Manual shows that the whole of the yt-xx00 class ships are fairly configurable with a center cockpit option as well.

In this case, having the cockpit off to the side opens up more internal space for cargo (cargo which is likely to be heavy (heavier than a human and a wookiee at least), mass balancing being an important aspect of accurate spaceflight), so if you expect your ship to be in vacuum 95% of the time, it makes a lot of sense to free up that extra space in the center of the ship.

http://www.amazon.com/Motel-Mysteries-David-Macaulay/dp/0395284252

Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but this book was written already, it's pretty good.

> Do we know what version they were playing and what level they were?

We can guess that they were playing AD&D based on the DMG that Will put in the donations box.

EDIT: SOLVED - 1e Red Box, third level characters.

In Master of the Five Magics the limiting factor for summoning a demon was what type of material you were burning as part of the ritual, combined with the size of the fire. So summoning something like a tiny imp might be done with something as small and mundane as a candle. Anyhow, near the climax of the novel some uncontrolled demons basically create a positive feedback loop, where they build a large fire and keep throwing more and more exotic fuels onto it, bringing over larger and more exotic demons, who join in and start ripping up entire trees to throw on the fire, etc.

We can always dream that politics and short-term interests won't overshadow an existential crisis.

I recommend the book First Contract by Greg Costikyan. Earth quickly becomes a third-world manufacturer, and has to reinvent itself.

I just found out that Costikyan is also the co-creator of the RPG Toon.

John Birmingham covers a scenario like this in these books: http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Choice-Axis-Time-Trilogy/dp/0345457137

The Book of Weird notes that Wizards are almost childishly fond of disguises - especially the part where they get to dramatically cast them off.

The dragons of the multiverse are stirring to witness the return of the Dragon Lords to the Midkemian realm in the events chronicled as the Chaos War.

It is the first book I would grab if the house were burning down

The word ^house is always blue and off-kilter in the book

Ffs.

https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Sith-Paul-S-Kemp/dp/034551145X

Read it, man.

Neil Stephenson wrote Seveneves with this premise, and it's supposedly somewhat scientifically accurate. Basically the debris would keep smashing itself into pieces that would spin off into the earth, and the constant bombardment would heat the atmosphere up and kill all life (except maybe some things in the deeper parts of the ocean).

This makes me think of Leo Frankowski's The Cross-Time Engineer. It's kind of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court idea, where a modern-day Polish grad student gets whisked away to 13th century Poland, where one of the first things he realizes is that the Mongols are going to show up in 1240 AD and kill everybody.

You might want to read this book. It's sort of a soft science fiction about hard science fiction, and an absolute riot, although it seems they've ruined the cover, which originally looked like this.

Brennan-Monster lived to see himself get blamed for any unexplained abductions or course changes in the Belt, as well as random abductions on Earth.

If you haven't already, you should check out the SF classic novel 'The Forever War' ( https://www.amazon.com/Forever-War-Joe-Haldeman/dp/0312536631 )

It deals with exactly this, with soldiers fighting on the other side of the galaxy struggling to remember what they are fighting for, because Earth changes so much in their decades-long tours.

spend the $0.01 for a used copy of this book - it explains exactly your question https://www.amazon.com/Future-Warfare-Bevin-Alexander/dp/0393332403

the cliff notes: status quo occupiers (use 18th century british occupation of north america as an example) basically cannot hold territory when there is a resistance unless they randomly kill everyone and once they stop killing everyone they will lose (see Vietnam)

The book author uses North America and Vietnam as examples, not me. I assume MITHC author understands the FoW theory and includes this in his book

Our local community college had an ex-intelligence guy that specialized in the Soviets and after the end of the cold war found himself unemployed and teaching at the local community college - he had good lectures and this book was the textbook.

There was actually a book that tells the story of the guy who had the job of pulling the lever to fire the superweapon.

I believe after Alderaan, he began to regret his job and question it, and at the Battle of Yavin IV, he hesitated a second, which gave Luke just enough time to fire his torpedoes and destroy the first Death Star.

Edit: I think this is the book in question.