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The Mammoth Book Of SF Wars (2012)

by Ian Watson(Favorite Author)

3.53 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0762445920 (ISBN13: 9780762445929)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Running Press

review 1: A very good anthology of sci-fi war stories, with all the stories being either pretty good to excellent. It doesn't take just recent stories either, but ranges across the 20th and 21st century. There is a a proto-version of Joe Haldeman's "Forever War" in the form of "Time Piece", a fascinating story told from the perspective of two sentient war machines (The Traitor), and a interstellar conflict told as a legend in "From out of the Sun, Endlessly Singing" to name a few. I would highly recommend this anthology to anyone who enjoys military sci-fi. The stories I thought were particularly good (for those who prefer to skim anthologies):-From Out of the Sun, Endlessly Singing-The Peacekeeping Mission (nice satire here)-Storming Hell (a dash of steam punk in this one)-Soli... moretary-The Traitor-Time PieceBut the rest of the stories are certainly worth the time invested to read them
review 2: I'm not the target audience for this book, so giving it a star rating doesn't seem quite fair. I bought this book strictly for the new Skolia Universe story by Catherine Asaro and ended up reading the whole thing because it was the book on my phone. The Asaro story centers around Sozceny Valdoria, one of the best heroines in all of SF given her mix of strength, integrity and feminity. It is always welcome to see another bit of Soz's"story, and this glimpse did not dissapoint. This story alone was worth the price of the e-book.However, just as for me the Asaro story was the high point and "War Memorial" was the low point, I imagine there was another reader out there who thought the touch of romance was a distraction from a war story and actually enjoyed reading nothing but the excruciating details of how a battle on a moon plays out with very little context for who the characters are outside their battle suits. While there were other gems in this book (I would love to read the rest of the story of the steampunk heroine in "Storming Hell", and I loved the telepathic cats in another story), painful stories of soldiers in unremittingly grim situations, suffering tortured deaths, with no larger story of hope or redemption is just not my thing. Most of this book I wouldn't have made it through if it weren't for it being less boring to read it than to stand in various lines in the various places one stands in lines not reading it. less

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