Last soldier in history

[Dave92f1]

Trying to find a book. One character is the last soldier. After a long period (thousands of years?) of peace and civilization, a planet has one guy - the last soldier - who lives alone in a scenic rural place (maybe by a lake or ocean) and is solely responsible for defense of the planet. He has immense skills and may be very old.

Events turn out that he must fight - he controls a vast fleet of space warships, futuristic weapons, etc. He fights with these, and I think wins.

It *might* be an Ian M. Banks Culture novel. If not, I think it dates from roughly the same era (maybe 1990-2010).

 

[Danny McG]

This rings a bell in my memory, was there a scene where he's talking to a woman (on a bridge by a lake) and there's some kind of missile attack at her?
In a split second he teleports a front line battle tank between her and the missile?

 

[Dave]

This also rings a bell with me, and I was going to suggest Iain M Banks before you mentioned him, but I couldn't tell you which book. I thought that maybe it was one of the short stories in The State of the Art collection, but looking at that, it doesn't appear to be there.

 

[Dave92f1]

This rings a bell in my memory, was there a scene where he's talking to a woman (on a bridge by a lake) and there's some kind of missile attack at her?
In a split second he teleports a front line battle tank between her and the missile?

Yes...that sounds like it may be it.

 

[Danny McG]

Yes...that sounds like it may be it.

I was asking a while ago on Stack Exchange if anyone knew the title, but no luck.
Sooner or later somebody will get it!

Sci fi book with a one-man worldwide army

I read this book between 5 and 10 years ago. I really can't remember any of the story (I've had it on my mind for two days now), all I remember is this scene. A female protagonist is beside a bridg...

scifi.stackexchange.com

 

[Danny McG]

It's by John C Wright, book two of his Golden Age trilogy Phoenix Exultant, the soldier is called Atkins

Extract:-

“I’m sure that is all very interesting, ma’am,” he said in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn’t. “But what may I do for you? Why are you here?”

“Well, aren’t you the Army? The Marines? The Horse Guard and the Queen’s Own and the Order of the Knights Templar and the Light Brigade and the musketeers and the cavalry and all the battleships of His Majesty’s Royal Navy all wrapped up in one?”

Now he did smile, and it was like seeing a glacier crack. “I’m what’s left of them, I suppose, ma’am.