Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reclamation | 2015 | Richard Swan | Buy |
| 2 | The Ascendancy War | 2016 | Richard Swan | Buy |
| 3 | Empire of the Fallen | 2016 | Richard Swan | Buy |
| 4 | Hadan’s Reach | 2018 | Richard Swan | Buy |
The Art of War Trilogy is Richard Swan’s first published series, four books of military science fiction built around the war between Earth’s United Nations and the alien Provar Ascendancy. Swan published the series independently between 2015 and 2018, years before the Empire of the Wolf trilogy brought him to a mainstream audience.
The series occupies the space between hard military science fiction and space opera, focusing on the human experience of large-scale interstellar conflict. Comparisons to The Expanse reflect a grounded approach to space warfare, while the Warhammer 40,000 comparison suggests something of the series’ scale and grimness.
For readers who discovered Swan through the Empire of the Wolf books, the Art of War Trilogy offers a picture of his earlier work in a different genre. The VIPER One novellas, published alongside the series, provide additional material in the same universe at the special operations level.