Archaic Weapon For An Advanced Age / Literature

• In Animorphs, Ax notes at one point that human firearms are no match for the energy weapons of the Yeerk and Andalites, but still do a good job of blowing large, messy holes in you. Visser One observed the same thing when justifying her decision to take Earth by infiltration, rather than by force as Visser Three had been pushing to do.
• Dune:
  • Personal shields block projectile weapons and lasers trigger nuclear explosions when they hit them, but a slow-moving blade can slip through. However, since shields attract Sandworms, they're not used on Arrakis (at least not outside of places the worms can't go). The Fremen have spring-loaded poison dart guns and the Baron Harkonnen revived artillery for his coup in Dune.
  • The Legends of Dune prequels have this, even before the invention of the shields. For some reason, in the middle of the Robot War, thousands of troops still rush into battle wielding clubs and swords. And so do the machine troops, for some reason.
• In The Forever War the first stasis fields slow down anything faster than 16.3 m/s, forcing people fighting within them to use melee weapons or bows and arrows.
• Gets Justified in A Grimm Quest multiple times as black/gun powder explodes in magic heavy areas, so fairies won’t use guns. Cody gets around this by investing in an electromagnetic gun.
• Both justified and subverted in the Vorkosigan Saga. The Barrayarans began the Cetagandan war with primitive weapons. However, they switched to modern weapons as soon as they could get them and learn how to use them.
  • Miles' seal dagger is also treated this way, being a pre-industrial relic that has to be wiped down after each use but is very sharp. It comes in handy during an exercise when Miles needs to cut a rubber hose and can't use his plasma arc because the cabin is filled with an inflammable gas.
• Justified in Lamb Among the Stars, by Chris Walley. Krallen armor is a ceramic that absorbs and dissipates energy weapons and shaped so that projectiles deflect off except when hitting at the perfect angle. The Assembly uses its superior materials science to molecularly optimize a blade for cutting through it, which proves to be a key advantage in the series.
• The Lensman series explains the ongoing use of the "space axe" by stating that modern armour is better at coping with energy beams than with physical force. Especially when the axe is wielded by a Valerian who can swing it like a baton.
• Lampshaded in In The Courts of the Crimson Kings. It opens with a group of science fiction writers watching the first images sent from Mars, which shows the natives are carrying swords along with rifles. One man speculates there's some kind of honor code involved, only for it to be pointed out that this gives the cheaters too much of an advantage. Turn out Martian projectile weapons are Organic Technology which take a while to reload, so edged weapons are still needed to defend yourself in the interval.
• In Sergey Lukyanenko's A Lord from Planet Earth trilogy, advanced weapons are all over the place (outside of Earth, that is), from simple blasters to planet-destroying quark bombs. And yet, there also exist "neutralizing fields" that can be used to shield an area from any destructive energy and explosions of any kind (e.g. chemical, nuclear, Anti Matter). Thus, within these fields, which are used all over the place, only bladed weapons can be used. Now, they're not your typical swords, though. These are monoatomic (or planar) swords produced exclusively on planet Tar. These Absurdly Sharp Blades can cut through any known material with ease, even each other (i.e. no Blade Lock possible). Given this fact, swordfights look very different from what one expects, as each opponent tries to hit the other's sword at just the right angle to make sure that it's the other sword that gets cut. Being a Combat Pragmatist from Earth, the main character immediately devises other weapons and techniques that completely disgust and baffle the Honor Before Reason soldiers (at least, until they start using those same weapons and techniques themselves).
• In Andrey Livadny's The History of the Galaxy series, everybody uses Gauss weapons firing tiny metallic spheres as everyday weapons. However, these small arms are woefully ineffective against armored targets. Not so with "ancient" automatic rifles firing chemically-propelled bullets (which somehow work despite centuries of not being used). Then again, this trope is much less prevalent, and advanced technology usually wins the day.
• Lampshaded in Cryptonomicon about Japanese in a WWII battle (paraphrased):
  "Shoot the one with the sword first."
  "Because he's the officer?"
  "No, because he's a madman running at you with a sword!"
• Played with in Honor Harrington. Honor's chemical-propelled "hand cannon" pistol sneaks through a weapons scan designed to detect the much more powerful grav-powered pulsers, and 10-mm chemical pistols are still the standard weapons for a duel. On the other hand, pistols are preferred to pulsers for dueling because they're actually less powerful: A pulser hit is much more likely to be lethal, and most duels are fought to first blood.
• A variation in Dances on the Snow, the Phages on planet Avalon are Jedi-like genetically-engineered special operatives (although they hate the term "Jedi" as trivializing) whose main weapons are semi-sentient plasma whips that can incapacitate a person or change shape. A Phage admits that a plasma whip is Awesome, but Impractical as a weapon compared to a more trusty blaster but it has an enormous psychological effect on bad guys and is a signature weapon of the Phages.
• Played with in Deathstalker: despite having really impressively effective disruptors, most fights are settled at sword point, as unless you have a starship's power supply to hook them up to, a disruptor takes 2 minutes to recharge. Chemically-propelled kinetic weapons (ie- bullet shooting guns) do exist in the setting, and are far more efficient, but are mostly forgotten about thanks to a concerted effort in the setting's past to ban them.
• In The Memory Wars, although most characters are proficient with firearms, fights often come down to swords, knives, and plain old fists. Justified in that Nathan and his Conclave try to avoid mundane interference (since they break the law on a regular basis, and to prevent attracting innocent bystanders who might get hurt), and guns make a LOT of noise. Also, most of their opponents are creatures who are so old they're more used to ancient weapons, or demons that come from realms where firearms don't exist.
• Discussed in Starship Troopers. When Johnny Rico is in boot camp another recruit complains about having to learn the antiquated skill of knife-throwing in an era where a man in Powered Armor is what a main battle tank was centuries earlier and where starships can glass planets from orbit. Sergeant Zim points out that, unlike a gun, knives, or for that matter Good Old Fisticuffs, don't run out of ammunition or make noise, and that some missions require precision kills instead of carpet-bombing.
  Zim: There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men.
• Star Wars Shatterpoint: Bullet-shooting guns are the primary weapon of choice on Haruun Kal, a planet where metal- and silicon-eating fungi are so ubiquitous that blasters and the circuitry that makes them work become nonfunctional within a day or two.
• In Destroyermen: Into the Storm, Commander Reddy has his ceremonial Academy sword sharpened in Walker's machine shop so he can use it as a weapon against the Grik.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon", where lethal duels with rayguns are commonplace, the hero makes a replica of an obsolete weapon, the '.45'. When his friend informs him that chemical reactions are too slow, the hero replies that it's human reflexes that make the difference.
• Justified in Alexis Carew, where crude boarding cutlasses and chemical firearms are still the weapons of choice for combat. Cutlasses can readily depressurize spacesuits and thereby take crew members out of action, and both types of weapons will remain functional in darkspace whereas any electrically operated weapon will be inoperable due to exposure to dark energy without expensive gallenium to shield it.
• Justified in Lucifer's Star where personal shields are a common tool by people but mostly effective against attacks that occur in a second. Melee weapons, by being a single attack that lasts longer than a second, can be modified to disrupt shields. There's also a strong dueling culture in the Feudal Future Archduchy of Crius.
• in Gordon R. Dickson's Childe Cycle of books, armies uses very simple weapons because lasers and so on are easy to nullify with the right equipment.
• In Doc Sidhe, Noriko carries a katana as her primary weapon while her teammates are armed with modern firearms and explosives. Somewhat justified as it has a pure steel blade with is very effective against anyone with fae blood, but she still receives a lot of ribbing for it from the rest of team; especially her boyfriend Jean-Pierre.
• Computer War by Mack Reynolds has a force of saboteurs attacking a government building using bows and arrows, which as well as being silent can't be picked up by sensors designed to detect or back-track energy weapons. The June 1967 Analog cover has a man with a bow and arrow forcing the surrender of a massive tank, but this doesn't actually happen; it's Rule of Symbolism for how the protagonists are using asymmetrical warfare to defeat an invasion.
• Devolution: No one in the Greenloop community owns a gun. When they come under attack by the Sasquatches, they resort to making spears, axes, and shortswords out of kitchen knives and bamboo stalks, and use punji stakes and broken glass to create a defensive perimeter.