Future Wars

Book Overview

These are the men and women, the aliens and the machines, that fight the wars of tomorrow. These are the stories of honor, betrayal-and the price people will pay to survive...and triumph. These are Future Wars.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0756401291
• ISBN13: 9780756401290
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Daw Books
• Length: 317 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.3" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Ten speculative visions of war

"Future Wars," edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff, contains ten science fiction stories that explore the theme of war. The tales range in length from 14 to 60 pages, and each one is accompanied by biographical information on its author. Some of the selections that most impressed me were as follows. "Faith on Ice," by James H. Cobb, brings high-tech combat action to an Antarctic setting. "Los Ninos," by William H. Keith, Jr., is a darkly satiric story about a war between humans and an alien species; Keith creates a vivid picture of ground combat involving space Marines. "Ranger," by Bill Fawcett, follows a military team on an infiltration mission inside an enemy nation known as "the Jihadic State"; this story presents a particularly intriguing look at ingenious high-tech weaponry. Ron Collins' "The Vacation" is an interesting change of pace from the anthology's combat-driven stories; it follows two elderly women on a vacation to an alien world in the aftermath of war. Robert J. Sawyer's "On the Surface" is a sequel to H.G. Wells' classic "The Time Machine"; Sawyer shows what happens when Wells' Morlocks, in possession of time-travel technology, go to war against an enemy in the far future. "Air Infantry," by R.J. Pineiro, is set in Alaska during a time when Earth has been invaded by a hostile alien species that seeks human hosts for its reproductive needs; one of the collection's longer pieces, "Air Infantry" is exciting and well-paced, and strikes a solid balance between action and character development. Overall the stories have an interesting variety of settings--some on Earth, some on alien worlds. There is also an interesting variety of male and female characters. Although there were two stories in the collection that struck me as somewhat tedious, the overall quality of the selections is very good. Along the way the authors deal with many notable themes, among them artificial intelligence, interspecies communication, terrorism, sexual assault by enemy combatants, war's effect on family members, guerrilla warfare, propaganda in wartime, and the interface between human beings and high-tech gear. "Future Wars" is a well conceived and tightly focused anthology; it's a satisfying addition to the specialized canon of military science fiction.