Join Books.org — it's free

Short Story Anthologies, Space Exploration - Fiction, Other Science Fiction Categories
Warmasters by Bill Fawcett β€” book cover

Warmasters

by Bill Fawcett (Editor), David Drake, David Weber, Eric Flint
Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Log in to track your reading progress.

Overview

Before she saved the galaxy, she was "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" -- New York Times bestselling author David Weber reveals how Honor Harrington's long and brilliant career began with an encounter with "pirates" who turned out to be much more than they seemed... Another day, another planet at war. But in David Drake's "Choosing Sides," Lieutenant Huber stepped off the starship right into an ambush. The attackers didn't survive, but neither did far too many of Huber's troops -- and Slammers aren't supposed to get caught in ambushes. Now, to redeem himself, Huber is being sent on a special mission that may be his last. But even so, the enemy will learn the cost of killing even a single one of Colonel Hammer's Slammers... If the enemy thought General Belisarius was tough, wait until they meet the wife of one of his soldiers in Eric Flint's "Island." She was wed just before her husband left with Belisarius to fight an evil from beyond time. Now her husband is wounded, and she is going to travel a thousand miles to reach his side -- and few who get in her way will live to regret it...

Synopsis

Before she saved the galaxy, she was "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" -- New York Times bestselling author David Weber reveals how Honor Harrington's long and brilliant career began with an encounter with "pirates" who turned out to be much more than they seemed... Another day, another planet at war. But in David Drake's "Choosing Sides," Lieutenant Huber stepped off the starship right into an ambush. The attackers didn't survive, but neither did far too many of Huber's troops -- and Slammers aren't supposed to get caught in ambushes. Now, to redeem himself, Huber is being sent on a special mission that may be his last. But even so, the enemy will learn the cost of killing even a single one of Colonel Hammer's Slammers... If the enemy thought General Belisarius was tough, wait until they meet the wife of one of his soldiers in Eric Flint's "Island." She was wed just before her husband left with Belisarius to fight an evil from beyond time. Now her husband is wounded, and she is going to travel a thousand miles to reach his side -- and few who get in her way will live to regret it...

Publishers Weekly

This anthology contains three novellas of future or alternate war by three of the acknowledged experts in the field, so the title satisfies any reasonable truth-in-packaging requirements. The book should also satisfy most fans of the authors. David Weber's "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" confronts his best-known creation with the perils and opportunities of her "middy" cruise, which she survives with ah, honor and even distinction, in spite of the best efforts of enemies both foreign and domestic. Eric Flint's "Islands" reintroduces Calopodius, a Byzantine soldier blinded at 18 while commanding a desperate holding action in the Drake/Flint Belisarius alternate-history series. It also introduces his aristocratic wife, Anna, and by the time the two meet again, she's not the woman he married but a much improved and strengthened version. Finally, David Drake offers another story of the mercenary tankers, Hammer's Slammers, "Choosing Sides." Lt. Arne Huber has to choose whether he will work with the Slammers' chief executioner, Maj. Joachim Steuben, to avenge treachery and murder against his men and friends. Except Flint on occasion, none of the writers is doing anything that's not by now standard for good military SF. Nor are any of them really going to surprise any readers who might, for example, want to see Hammer's Slammers not being stabbed in the back by their civilian employers. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly

This anthology contains three novellas of future or alternate war by three of the acknowledged experts in the field, so the title satisfies any reasonable truth-in-packaging requirements. The book should also satisfy most fans of the authors. David Weber's "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" confronts his best-known creation with the perils and opportunities of her "middy" cruise, which she survives with ah, honor and even distinction, in spite of the best efforts of enemies both foreign and domestic. Eric Flint's "Islands" reintroduces Calopodius, a Byzantine soldier blinded at 18 while commanding a desperate holding action in the Drake/Flint Belisarius alternate-history series. It also introduces his aristocratic wife, Anna, and by the time the two meet again, she's not the woman he married but a much improved and strengthened version. Finally, David Drake offers another story of the mercenary tankers, Hammer's Slammers, "Choosing Sides." Lt. Arne Huber has to choose whether he will work with the Slammers' chief executioner, Maj. Joachim Steuben, to avenge treachery and murder against his men and friends. Except Flint on occasion, none of the writers is doing anything that's not by now standard for good military SF. Nor are any of them really going to surprise any readers who might, for example, want to see Hammer's Slammers not being stabbed in the back by their civilian employers. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Military science fiction in three novellas from Drake, Weber, and Flint with characters or plotlines from the authors' well-known multivolume series. It's too soon to tell whether the war against terrorism will elevate military SF to the level of its WWII glory years. The standout in these three original tales provides an idea of what some of the Baen boys have been doing over the last two decades. Flint's "Islands," the best of the lot, is also the most difficult to follow. An outtake from the Belisarius series (written in collaboration with Drake, The Tide of Victory, etc.), it needs an introduction to explain that it's set in an alternate past where personalities from the future are introducing advanced technology to the fifth century Roman Empire. The story, though, is a touching, battle-brings-out-our-best tale as Calopodius, a young and naive Greek nobleman who escaped his loveless marriage to join Belisarius's army, not only learns to live with wounds that have rendered him permanently blind, but enlists his estranged wife on a mission of mercy that repairs their marriage. Weber (Ashes of Victory, etc.) goes the rights-of-passage route as his tough, resourceful female King's Navy officer Honor Harrington learns how to survive shipboard hazing and marauding space pirates in "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington." In "Choosing Sides," Drake offers another guts 'n' glory adventure for his future mercenaries, Hammer's Slammers (The Sharp End, etc.), with Lieutenant Arne Huber uncovering, and then helping to slaughter, a band of saboteurs threatening the Slammers' latest job. Despite Drake's gratuitous references to exploding body parts ("the blast. . . pureed their heads and torsos"), thesestories of stock characters in visceral action scenes actually tend to fare better outside their ponderously plotted series than in.

Book Details

Published
February 1, 2004
Publisher
Baen Books
Pages
352
Format
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN
9780743471855

More by Bill Fawcett

Similar books