I tend to go through my “to be read pile” looking for themes as an approach to wend my way through and choose what  I want to attack next. These two are about the realities of war and the casualties of those who manage to survive.  The first, Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke is a novel about the Vietnam war fiasco; the other is non-fiction, The Forever War (also the title of  Joe Haldeman’s classic satire of hard SF and the Vietnam war, whether by coincidence or intention I don’t know), a memoir by Dexter Filkins of his experiences as a reporter in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Harrowing, unsettling stuff and highly recommended as a dose of “reality” (even when, as in the case of Johnson’s novel, it is presented through a fictional lens) from fantasy swashbuckling.