This is a collection of short stories about soldiers in space. Its not the strongest such collection I have read — Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow, Body Armor 2002 and Dogs of War are all better.
- The Gardens of Saturn (Paul J McAuley): veterans with jacked up nervous systems encounter genetically engineered people in deep space.
- Soldiers Home (William Barton): veterans and other castoffs from conflict struggle to find meaning in continued existence.
- Legacies (Tom Purdom): a not particularly interesting story about the psychological impact of losing a parent to war. Oh, except we don’t really talk about the impact. We talk about the bureaucracy around getting permission to treat. Dull.
- Moon Duel (Fritz Leiber): an interesting concept (interstellar criminals abandoned on the moon). A bit dated, but ok apart from that.
- Saviour (Robert Reed): another good concept, but I don’t think this story is particularly well written.
- Galactic North (Alastair Reynolds): a relativistic chase across deep space with a confusing terraforming gone wrong subplot.
- Masque of the Red Shift (Fred Saberhagen): this is the second Berserker story I’ve read (the other is “What Do You Want Me To Do To Prove Im Human Stop” from Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. It was ok, although I suspect I was meant to know more about the universe than I actually do.
- Time Piece (Joe Haldeman): read before in Dogs of War, and I didn’t like it back then.
- On The Orion Line (Stephen Baxter): I think this is the best story of the bunch. Its about expansionist humanity and their battle with aliens who can tweak the laws of physics.
Science fiction
Ace
2001
Featuring stories by Stephen Baxter, Joe Haldeman, William BArton and others.