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pezski's review
3.0
Military fiction of any sort is not really my go-to, whatever the genre it is part of. I find that very little of it is of the standard of The Forever War or Life During Wartime or the Regeneration trilogy. It’s far too often war porn, all about the deadly toys and full of characters from a bad John Wayne movie. However, I’m glad I joined in with the group Space, Spells Screams monthly read of SNAFU.
Blackwater by [a:Neal F. Litherland|3113801|Neal F. Litherland|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] is a great opener, wonderful cinematic action and I'm a sucker for decently written Lovecraftian horror. I thought the ending a little hysterical after the tension and emotion of the escape.
I loved Little Johnny Jump-Up by [a:Christine Morgan|635107|Christine Morgan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. I thought it gave a lovely insight into both the American Civil War and the soldiers' mindset of superstition and an acceptance that any success or survival today may have to be paid in full tomorrow. Quite affecting.
Saying I hated [a:Brian W. Taylor|7399941|Brian W. Taylor|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]’s Covert Genesis would be putting it too strongly, but I thought it was pretty terrible. Awful cliched dialogue and generally badly written. Everything that makes me so often avoid military fiction.
Back on form with Bug Hunt from the editor, [a:Jonathan Maberry|72451|Jonathan Maberry|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1512594942p2/72451.jpg]; a great little action story, tightly written with really strong characters. I'll definitely be looking up the rest of the Joe Ledger series. One slight annoyance is that Maberry misuses some weapon terminology - a soldier would not call an AK47 a machine gun (it's an assault rifle, or just a rifle), and he uses "small arms fire" to refer to pistols as though it's the opposite of "long arms"; almost anything that isn't a heavy weapon is a small arm. A minor quibble, but an author should get the professional terms correct, and it's easy to research. As someone else pointed out, spiders are also referred to as ‘insects’, but I can let that go as it was said by a character.
I liked Wayand Smith’s Special Operations Interview PTO-14, but I'm not sure it counts as a fully realised story, more a vignette. I'm a table-top roleplayer and this is the kind of thing you might have in a character's background to flesh them out.
Speaking of my hobby, Cold War Gothic by [a:Weston Ochse|992207|Weston Ochse|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1548632855p2/992207.jpg] is right in my wheelhouse. A super-secret military unit battling both the Soviet threat and the incursion of monsters from other dimensions? Sounds like my kind of party. I've got a Weston Ochse collection and some stories in anthologies on my Kindle (mostly from Humble Bundle, I think), so must look them up.
I really enjoyed [a:Curtis C. Chen|7303097|Curtis C. Chen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1452299899p2/7303097.jpg]’s Making Waves, both the Mythos yumminess of realising the Things they are about to wake aren't what they'd thought, and the hint of the wider world of military magic. Also, the protagonist hiding her gender, although I'm not sure she'd be able to get away with that on a sub, even with the glamour.
[a:Greig Beck|3364561|Greig Beck|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1313716919p2/3364561.jpg]’s The Fossil was a fun one, pitting a recovery team from the far future against an anti-intrusion Special Forces team in Berlin when they are sent to recover an energy weapon. A fun, action-packed cross time tale.
A Tide of Flesh from [a:Jeff Hewitt|8389702|Jeff Hewitt|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] was excellent, possibly the only story in the book other than Little Johnny Jump-Up (so far) that is about more than 'just' the story, dealing as it is with the atrocities of colonialism as a British garrison in the Indian Raj defend a fort from horror.
What is not to love about a Delta Force commando team in Iraq unexpectedly coming up against some vampires? Death at 900 Metres by [a:Tyson Mauermann|7031230|Tyson Mauermann|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1375205430p2/7031230.jpg] checks that box.
After a run of generally high quality, the collection takes a dip for a while.
Holding the Line by [a:Eric S. Brown|101327|Eric S. Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399237850p2/101327.jpg] - a thoroughly forgettable war story.
Thela Hun Gingeet by [a:David Benton|1321809|David Benton|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] & [a:W.D. Gagliani|3098661|W.D. Gagliani|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1570918836p2/3098661.jpg] - a potentially interesting tale of a US military action SE Asia that isn't well-written enough to go anywhere
The Shrine by [a:David W. Amendola|8327174|David W. Amendola|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] started off by thoroughly annoying me as the author is doing that teenaged-boy thing of showing off his knowledge or research by giving every piece of equipment its correct nomenclature. We don't need the specs of every vehicle in the convoy, or be told the model of radio being used. Slogging through that, however, this actually became a decent little horror story
Ptearing All Before Us by Steve Ruthenback is a solid tale of some US soldiers in the Indian Wars encountering something weird, the nature of which is unfortunately given away by the title.
[a:Kirsten Cross|8327175|Kirsten Cross|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s A Time of Blood features some squaddies on a wargame, capturing perfectly soldierly banter in an excellent horror story, as they encounter something ancient near Stonehenge.
The anthology finishes with one of its strongest stories. Blank White Page by [a:James A. Moore|27148|James A. Moore|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1302564509p2/27148.jpg] is another post US Civil War tale of soldiers and Indians, following the strange companions of Lucas Slate and Jonathan Crowley caught between a US Army detachment and the Apache that they’ve been sent to remove, one way or another. A really strong tale, full of violence and magic, the wider mythology hinted at but never explained left me wanting to read more - and, as Crowley is, apparently, something of a recurring character in Moore’s work, give me a place to start.
Definitely some authors I'll be looking up again, which is what I want from an anthology.
3.5 stars
Blackwater by [a:Neal F. Litherland|3113801|Neal F. Litherland|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] is a great opener, wonderful cinematic action and I'm a sucker for decently written Lovecraftian horror. I thought the ending a little hysterical after the tension and emotion of the escape.
I loved Little Johnny Jump-Up by [a:Christine Morgan|635107|Christine Morgan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. I thought it gave a lovely insight into both the American Civil War and the soldiers' mindset of superstition and an acceptance that any success or survival today may have to be paid in full tomorrow. Quite affecting.
Saying I hated [a:Brian W. Taylor|7399941|Brian W. Taylor|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]’s Covert Genesis would be putting it too strongly, but I thought it was pretty terrible. Awful cliched dialogue and generally badly written. Everything that makes me so often avoid military fiction.
Back on form with Bug Hunt from the editor, [a:Jonathan Maberry|72451|Jonathan Maberry|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1512594942p2/72451.jpg]; a great little action story, tightly written with really strong characters. I'll definitely be looking up the rest of the Joe Ledger series. One slight annoyance is that Maberry misuses some weapon terminology - a soldier would not call an AK47 a machine gun (it's an assault rifle, or just a rifle), and he uses "small arms fire" to refer to pistols as though it's the opposite of "long arms"; almost anything that isn't a heavy weapon is a small arm. A minor quibble, but an author should get the professional terms correct, and it's easy to research. As someone else pointed out, spiders are also referred to as ‘insects’, but I can let that go as it was said by a character.
I liked Wayand Smith’s Special Operations Interview PTO-14, but I'm not sure it counts as a fully realised story, more a vignette. I'm a table-top roleplayer and this is the kind of thing you might have in a character's background to flesh them out.
Speaking of my hobby, Cold War Gothic by [a:Weston Ochse|992207|Weston Ochse|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1548632855p2/992207.jpg] is right in my wheelhouse. A super-secret military unit battling both the Soviet threat and the incursion of monsters from other dimensions? Sounds like my kind of party. I've got a Weston Ochse collection and some stories in anthologies on my Kindle (mostly from Humble Bundle, I think), so must look them up.
I really enjoyed [a:Curtis C. Chen|7303097|Curtis C. Chen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1452299899p2/7303097.jpg]’s Making Waves, both the Mythos yumminess of realising the Things they are about to wake aren't what they'd thought, and the hint of the wider world of military magic. Also, the protagonist hiding her gender, although I'm not sure she'd be able to get away with that on a sub, even with the glamour.
[a:Greig Beck|3364561|Greig Beck|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1313716919p2/3364561.jpg]’s The Fossil was a fun one, pitting a recovery team from the far future against an anti-intrusion Special Forces team in Berlin when they are sent to recover an energy weapon. A fun, action-packed cross time tale.
A Tide of Flesh from [a:Jeff Hewitt|8389702|Jeff Hewitt|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] was excellent, possibly the only story in the book other than Little Johnny Jump-Up (so far) that is about more than 'just' the story, dealing as it is with the atrocities of colonialism as a British garrison in the Indian Raj defend a fort from horror.
What is not to love about a Delta Force commando team in Iraq unexpectedly coming up against some vampires? Death at 900 Metres by [a:Tyson Mauermann|7031230|Tyson Mauermann|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1375205430p2/7031230.jpg] checks that box.
After a run of generally high quality, the collection takes a dip for a while.
Holding the Line by [a:Eric S. Brown|101327|Eric S. Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399237850p2/101327.jpg] - a thoroughly forgettable war story.
Thela Hun Gingeet by [a:David Benton|1321809|David Benton|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] & [a:W.D. Gagliani|3098661|W.D. Gagliani|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1570918836p2/3098661.jpg] - a potentially interesting tale of a US military action SE Asia that isn't well-written enough to go anywhere
The Shrine by [a:David W. Amendola|8327174|David W. Amendola|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] started off by thoroughly annoying me as the author is doing that teenaged-boy thing of showing off his knowledge or research by giving every piece of equipment its correct nomenclature. We don't need the specs of every vehicle in the convoy, or be told the model of radio being used. Slogging through that, however, this actually became a decent little horror story
Ptearing All Before Us by Steve Ruthenback is a solid tale of some US soldiers in the Indian Wars encountering something weird, the nature of which is unfortunately given away by the title.
[a:Kirsten Cross|8327175|Kirsten Cross|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s A Time of Blood features some squaddies on a wargame, capturing perfectly soldierly banter in an excellent horror story, as they encounter something ancient near Stonehenge.
The anthology finishes with one of its strongest stories. Blank White Page by [a:James A. Moore|27148|James A. Moore|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1302564509p2/27148.jpg] is another post US Civil War tale of soldiers and Indians, following the strange companions of Lucas Slate and Jonathan Crowley caught between a US Army detachment and the Apache that they’ve been sent to remove, one way or another. A really strong tale, full of violence and magic, the wider mythology hinted at but never explained left me wanting to read more - and, as Crowley is, apparently, something of a recurring character in Moore’s work, give me a place to start.
Definitely some authors I'll be looking up again, which is what I want from an anthology.
3.5 stars
ntrlycrly's review
4.0
Most of the stories were not gory but focused psychological horror, with a little bit on conspiracy theory mixed in.
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